Former OSU Running Back Maurice Clarett: Star Athlete to 7.5 yr sentence, regret, redemption & how learning to read in prison changed his life.

FOLLOW THE PIVOT PODCAST: MERCH | https://pivotpodcast.com YOUTUBE | https://www.youtube.com/thepivotpodcast INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/thepivot TWITTER | https://twitter.com/thepivot TIKTOK | https://tiktok.com/@thepivot FACEBOOK | https://www.facebook.com/thepivotpodcast FOLLOW HAPPY DAD: https://www.instagram.com/happydad FIND HAPPY DAD: https://www.happydad.com/find Don’t miss out on all the action this week at DraftKings! Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up using https://dkng.co/pivot or through my promo code PIVOT Download the Gametime app or go to https://www. Gametime.co and use PIVOT at checkout for $20 off your first purchase A true story of regret, reflection and redemption in athletics and how losing it all and learning the hard way ultimately changed a life for the better. The former Ohio State star, Maurice Clarett captivated the country with his running back skills in early 2000s and was on pace to be one of the best ever to play but his fall from the top was far and the world never got to see what could have been for football’s favored back from Youngstown, Ohio. Ryan, Channing and Fred reminisce about how amazingly talented Clarett was on the field and size, stature and running back skills were something the game has never seen before. Detailing his path fast tracked from highschool to playing at Ohio State to winning a National Championship in 2003, However, no one knew that his game-winning touchdown in the Fiesta Bowl would be the last time Clarett touched the football on a major stage. Growing up with gangs and hustling to make his way, Clarett lived on his own from his teenage years and found football as a means of getting him out of his surroundings and into a different level of living. With all the talent and work ethic needed, Clarett could write his own ticket straight to the NFL in a short time with the accolades and perception surrounding him. Using the fame and fortune of his overnight stardom to a disadvantage, Clarett ran the streets and allowed his upbringing to be at the forefront of poor decisions and criminal activity which ultimately cost him his career and freedom. Clarett reveals what really went on with his football suspension from OSU, his mental health struggles, details of his aggravated robbery, dodging death, missing out on the NFL, embarrassment and finding purpose through pain in prison. Although his football career and life was a tragic tale of an athlete at the top of the world who lost it all and never got it back, it’s also one of triumph as Clarett uses his life experiences to better himself, fuel his passions and everyday try to impact and make a difference in someone's life. The Pivot Podcast releases premiere episodes every Tuesday with audio available at 9aest and streaming on YouTube at 12pest. Fridays are special drops during football season at 3:30pest. Gambling Problem? Call1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (CO/IL/IN/LA/MD/MI/NJ/OH/PA/TN/WV/WY), (800) 327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA), Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), visit OPGR.org (OR) or www.1800gambler.net (WV). 21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MA/MI/MD/NJ/NY/OH/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Void in NH/OR/ONT. Eligibility restrictions apply. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). Valid 1 per new customer. Min. $5 deposit. Min. $5 bet. $200 issued as bonus bets that expire 7 days (168 hours) after being awarded. Bonus bets must be wagered 1x and stake is not included in any winnings. Ends 9/18/23 at 11:59PM ET. Sponsored by DK. See terms at dkng.co/ftball. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:09Speaker 01

  I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it it wasn't.

• 0:17Speaker 00

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• 0:30Channing Crowder?

  You got to see Fred, Fred basketball picture. So he was like, yeah, this is my best. He showed me last week, talking about this is my basketball.

• 0:38Fred Taylor?

  You saw me.

• 0:38Channing Crowder?

  This is my high school team. He gonna talk about, I'm the one in the back on the left. Oh, the only one like a grown ass wrestler.

• 0:46Channing Crowder?

  You think I can't see your big ass on the back row?

• 0:49Fred Taylor?

  Ripped and ready.

• 0:50Channing Crowder?

  This motherfucker sitting there, I'm a sophomore, that beat rock solid. I'm the one on the back left. No question where you at.

• 0:57Fred Taylor?

  The best game I ever had in my life. We ready? Two carries, 140, two touchdowns, done for the game. Two carries, 140, two touchdowns. Coach said, nah.

• 1:08Channing Crowder?

  You're a thousand of that.

• 1:09Fred Taylor?

  You done. We can let everybody else play. You done.

• 1:12Channing Crowder?

  You play one in private schools down there.

• 1:14Fred Taylor?

  Nah, it was actually a pretty good school. Legendary coach Sam Bunnic. Look him up.

• 1:19Channing Crowder?

  Sam Bundy.

• 1:20Fred Taylor?

  What part of Florida you from? Toe their ass up. San Antonio.

• 1:23Channing Crowder?

  San Antonio?

• 1:24Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, Belgrade from the Muck.

• 1:26Ryan Clark?

  All they do is run down there though. Like that's it.

• 1:28Channing Crowder?

  Have you ever been there?

• 1:29Ryan Clark?

  No, I ain't never been there.

• 1:30Channing Crowder?

  Pizza shop, a gas station and Fred Taylor.

• 1:33Fred Taylor?

  Don't, don't, don't forget Dix, don't forget Dixie Fried Chicken. The best wings in the world. Listen, nah, I ain't, I ain't nothing to do there.

• 1:40Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, I go down there, go fishing and haul ass.

• 1:43Fred Taylor?

  To the lake?

• 1:43Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 1:44Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 1:44Ryan Clark?

  Can we start the show? Be nice, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:47Channing Crowder?

  Lost my leg.

• 2:13Channing Crowder?

  I mean, listen, all, all, all I've ever done when Ohio State was in there was win.

• 2:18Ryan Clark?

  You know, every time LSU and Ohio State see each other in the national championship, we seem to come home with a ring.

• 2:23Fred Taylor?

  Don't forget that. The Gators too.

• 2:26Ryan Clark?

  The Gators too?

• 2:27Fred Taylor?

  The Gators too.

• 2:28Ryan Clark?

  Welcome to The Pivot Maurice, man. This is long overdue. We get so many different requests that we should have you on. I think your life and your journey to this point to being a social entrepreneur, to what you do in the communities, the way you tell your story, that's what this show was made for. That's why it's called The Pivot. Channing Crowder, Freddie T., I'm RC. Like, really, man, let's just get into it. You stepped onto Ohio State's campus and Jim Trussell tells the story that you used to talk about being a pastor. And your life took a different turn after a monumental, historically great

• 3:10Ryan Clark?

  freshman year. You set the mark for freshmen at Ohio State. The first freshman to be number one on the depth chart at the start of the season since 1943, I believe, at that position. Talk a little bit about where you saw your life going after graduating early from high school and enrolling into Ohio State.

• 3:32Speaker 05

  Well, just like anybody else, you know, I came onto campus and I felt like, you know, hey, you know, I was the number one player in high school, USA Today player. And even at that point in my life, I was intelligent enough to go back and look at previous guys who had won the award. And I was like, man, I really have a shot to, you know, go to the NFL. You know, if I come down to Columbus handling my business, you know, if you start any, any major Division One school over three years or two years, you know, you have a shot to go. And so at my point, it was just like, hey, let me get down to Columbus, handle my business. I was, you know, very confident in, you know, what I thought that I can do and the system that they had. And I thought, like, hey, man, I'll come down here, I'll

• 4:15Speaker 05

  play for, you know, two or three years and then, you know, obviously the NFL will be an option.

• 4:19Ryan Clark?

  Bruh, your story didn't start at Ohio State. There's so much going on we're gonna talk about, but it didn't start at Ohio State. It's before that. You got there as a damn near grown man. What was the upbringing like? Because when you look into stuff, you don't really, you don't really hear about that who raised you. What made Maurice the right? Hey, Youngstown Maurice. Yes, I want him. Maurice. I actually did research on him. I'm like, damn, this man wasn't born at 18 years old.

• 4:46Speaker 05

  Nah. Nah, you know, Youngstown, um, you know, just, you know, it's, it's inner-city madness. Uh, well, Youngstown, and, you know, I'm real careful how I talk about it because I don't like to, I don't want to say defame our city, but, you know, in the 90s, it's just, it's just wild and out of control. You know, I mean, if you go look back in whatever went on, it was just, you know, crazy violence, be it for murders, felonious assaults, uh, domestic violence, just, uh, the madness, you know, and as a kid, you don't get a chance to, uh, dictate, you know, where you grow up, you know, and obviously, you know, when I was coming up, I never thought that I was, uh, good at sports. I played sports like everybody else, just to, you know, have fun, socialize with your friends, or do whatever. My mentality, what I thought that I wanted to be was just a gangster

• 5:31Speaker 05

  inside the neighborhood, and so whether it was somebody hustling, or whether it was somebody who was, uh, like, an intimidating force, these were the people who had all the respect for me. You know, and a lot of times, like, you know, you look at kids on campus now, it's pretty much the same thing, you know, where you come from, this environment. You know, when I was a kid, you know, got locked up a few times, I thought it was funny, you know, stealing cars, breaking inside houses, um, you know, hustling, you know, 7th, 8th grade, just doing nonsense like that. But it was really like my last time, uh, getting locked up in the, uh, 8th grade, uh, there was a guy by the name of Roland Smith, he's, uh, he's still a strength and conditioning coach now with, uh, Youngstown State, uh, but he was actually a correctional officer, and he was the one who, uh, actually, when I got locked up for breaking inside of these people's

• 6:12Speaker 05

  house, um, I went down to, uh, the juvenile facility, he was actually a correctional facility inside the facility, and he seen me playing, he was like, yo, bro, like, you should, you should take sports serious, and, uh, not basically be involved inside of this nonsense. So, transitioning to my 9th grade year, uh, this is when, like, football kind of got serious for me, so he would pick me up every day that summer, or throughout the summer, to try to get me to, um, uh, weightlifting, conditioning, running stairs, and all that other nonsense. And, uh, I didn't know, uh, like, I was, I was 14 years old, 220 pounds, and I didn't know that I was a, yeah, just, you know, but like, you know, you're just, you're just a big kid, and you don't know that, um, you're bigger or more aggressive than other people. And so I think, like, you know, when

• 6:53Speaker 05

  you grow up in a neighborhood, the environment just makes you aggressive, and you use it inside the neighborhood, but you don't know how this stuff translates to football, or anybody else outside your neighborhood. So, 14 years old, I'm playing football, and the first thing they start me on was special teams, and so I'm going down here, and I'm just, like, um, Having crazy contact, either blowing people up on the wedge or, you know, the A-gap punt rusher. And I could just see that the coaches were liking that. And then, you know, I was third on the depth chart over the summer, but then eventually I got my chance to, play at 14 in the first game. I got like 60 yards in the second game, 140. Third game, 250. And then it was the fourth game, I ended up breaking my ankle. And this was varsity football.

• 7:36Speaker 05

  But inside that moment, I remember I was like, man, like, I'm getting the fuck out the neighborhood. It was never go to a house state. It was never go to the NFL. It was like, man, I'm just getting the fuck out the neighborhood. That's my, the start of my football journey. So then, my sophomore year, there was guys, or in the middle of my freshman year, going into my sophomore year, there were guys going to like major division one schools, a school called Warren Harding. So this is 30 minutes away from Youngstown. I'm thinking to myself like, okay, I have a chance to get more distance between where I was at and what I was doing. And so basically I went over to Warren Harding. And then it was like, it was a blessing that happened to me. Like, we had a coaching staff who was there. And I had like decent success in my sophomore year.

• 8:17Speaker 05

  But it was my junior year actually where I had a, I had like, like, almost like my pivotal moment. Josh McDaniel's father was my high school coach. And he's a legendary high school coach. And I start remembering when Josh was coming back, back years ago. And you know how the game goes just from a running back. He was like, yo, you're good. But he was like, you can be a lot better if you understand the game. And so as knucklehead as I was before, like I've always been like, I've had a decent level of intelligence, but, you know, when you bigger, you're supposed to be aggressive, you kind of suppress it. You know what I'm saying? When you're a kid. And so I understood concepts of football. I understood coverages. I understood like the actual game. And, or, excuse me, let me, I got a little ahead of myself. He start introducing these concepts and they came to me fairly easy. You know what I'm saying?

• 9:02Speaker 05

  Why is somebody in man coverage? Why is somebody in zone coverage? Like in high school, we're running audible, we're running fire routes or, you know, green dog blitzes, like, you know, like people weren't talking about this stuff in high school, but he was introducing like the game. And so my junior year I came back and in five games, because I had ankle surgery, I got 1,000 yards, like 1,100 yards. And I was like, man, this is a. And at this point, I thought it was over, right? But in context too, I also moved out my mother's house at 15. So we talk about the madness being grown. Like, I'm living on my own in high school, um, down the street from the school. You know what I'm saying? And so all this stuff plays its role in to come into Ohio State. So, living on my own, you go have a thousand yards. And at this point, I was getting ready to go to Notre Dame.

• 9:45Speaker 05

  So Urban Meyer was the office coordinator, receivers coach, or something at Notre Dame. I was a guy by the name of Rex Hogan. And Rex was, uh, like, he was like, he was younger coming up. He ended up working with the Bears and the Jets and stuff like that. But we were trying to get me to graduate early from high school. Cause I was like, man, I don't even want to play high school no more because like the thousand yards was like real easy. I knew the game. I knew what it was that I wanted to become. And so the whole graduating early thing even came out of that. That's how, this is why kids graduate early now. So they was like, you can't graduate your junior year. You can graduate midway through your senior year if you take a, uh, an English course. So I took the English course in the summer, going into my senior year, came back from my senior year, won Mr. Football, won, uh, the National Player of the Year.

• 10:29Speaker 05

  And then that's basically how I came to Ohio State. And Ohio State never even offered me a scholarship. So just like, you know, Jim Tress, he says like, I was happy to come down to Ohio State, but Ohio State didn't offer him a scholarship. He came down here, they had three running backs. And, you know, and I respectfully say this, but I see him, I was like, ah, man, I'm better than these guys. And, and like, not, except I feel like, like being like respectful when you say stuff like that, but I was like, you know, I'm better than these dudes. I want to go to Ohio State and eventually that's how I came here. So graduated early, went down to the, um, US, USA All-American Game, came back from here and then, uh, started on campus.

• 11:03Fred Taylor?

  I initially wanted to ask, when did you, when did you take football serious? But, you know, when you mentioned not living on your own since 15 and not living with your mom, there's so many different layers to your, your story and your upbringing that Chan asked you, which. In my mind, I feel like you never really took it serious. It was more so used as a vehicle to save your life and get you out of the streets.

• 11:28Speaker 05

  Oh, 1,000%.

• 11:29Fred Taylor?

  And then you leveraged it going to Ohio State as a freshman. You were just so good, you couldn't help it.

• 11:35Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 11:36Fred Taylor?

  And everything else was just a trickle down effect from, you know, the foundation of you trying to save yourself.

• 11:42Speaker 05

  I think what you're saying is 100% accurate. We all football players, y'all, everybody's met football players. You ever just meet somebody who just love to work hard?

• 11:50Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 11:51Speaker 05

  And so that was me with football, where football was this vehicle. And I'm gonna do what you don't have to tell to get to the weight room. You know, I'm gonna do what you don't have to tell to do conditioning. I'm gonna do what you don't have to tell to sit in front of a film and watch it hours on hours on hours. And where you have maybe been faster, I was always like the guy who can understand football. And I can become real good at that. And so it was 1,000% use as a vehicle. And do you grow to love it just because you do it so much? Yeah. Do you get into the details of how you break tackles? Or what exercises in the weight room lead to performance on the field? Or, you know, me and him, if he's a linebacker and I'm a running back, you know, I hate A-gap blitzes, so I gotta act tough on A-gap blitzes to stop him, to not stop, you know, just the game.

• 12:36Speaker 05

  You know, we start to play the game into something different. Like that came, like that came, and I found a love from doing it so much. And, but I think your answer is, your assessment is correct.

• 12:45Fred Taylor?

  Quickly, you lived by yourself at 15, like you had a key, you paid rent, you paid electricity? Like, I didn't know I'd even wash laundry at 15.

• 12:54Speaker 05

  No, I mean, so, I mean, this is like life, you know what I mean? Like, the people at our high school knew I was going through so much crazy stuff back in Youngstown. And obviously, it wasn't maliciously done purposely for football, but it's like, yo, you got potential. We'll provide an apartment for you. So this was like boosters of the high school program. So Warren Harding football, you know, we had 20, 25,000 people at a high school game. You know what I'm saying? So we're not, we're not talking about 3,000 people, 2,500 people. And the community of Warren, which is about 30 minutes from Youngstown, these people live, breathe, die, and love football, you know what I'm saying? So it was just people, and it was done out of like good nature, like, okay, you back in Youngstown, we see the people who you bring around, we see everything that you're in.

• 13:38Speaker 05

  So it's like, you know, let me put you in better soil. And so. You know, I'm 200 pounds, you know, I look like a man, I'm operating like a man. Like, you didn't have to tell me to come to school, like, I was just handling my business. And so, it was just a different time. That mentality, two, three years on your own before you get to high school, or before you get to college. When I came back to college, I was like, man, I'm taking a step back. You know what I'm saying? You know, you have to put me in a dormitory, you got seven, eight people, like, that was a struggle for me. Uh, being around people, like, you know, I remember I was in a dorm one time. And, uh, uh, I was on the phone with a little girl I was talking to at the time. And a dude, uh, my roommate was like, you know, he wanted to go tell the, the residence hall person, whatever they are, R.A., right?

• 14:18Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 14:19Speaker 05

  And I was like, man, this is crazy, like, you know, you're even 18. Because in my mind, I felt like I was grown and, uh, and it felt like I just moved backwards. But, you know, that's neither here nor there.

• 14:28Ryan Clark?

  Also, too, you talking about you couldn't wash clothes at 15. You still flip your drawers, bruh.

• 14:35Channing Crowder?

  I was gonna go back to that.

• 14:36Ryan Clark?

  Do you, do you know how to wash clothes now? Like, is it something that you've learned?

• 14:42Channing Crowder?

  There's buttons on the front.

• 14:44Ryan Clark?

  Yes.

• 14:45Channing Crowder?

  And I know you could push that little blue thing and that blue stuff goes in that little hole, but I, I ain't washing no clothes. I'm rich.

• 14:52Ryan Clark?

  So, who washes your clothes?

• 14:54Channing Crowder?

  My wife washes clothes, we have people to help us and different people. I'm not washing no clothes. I work, I work hard.

• 15:00Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I hear you. But Rich, you can mention it.

• 15:04Channing Crowder?

  You wash clothes, you wash clothes right now?

• 15:05Speaker 05

  Uh, nah. I wash clothes.

• 15:07Channing Crowder?

  You don't wash no damn clothes.

• 15:09Speaker 05

  I love washing clothes.

• 15:10Ryan Clark?

  Washing clothes is a process, and processes are therapeutic to me. So, I enjoy, like, the whole separating the clothes, washing the clothes, folding them, putting them where they belong. There's a sense of accomplishment in it for me.

• 15:22Channing Crowder?

  You'll wash my clothes?

• 15:23Ryan Clark?

  No.

• 15:26Ryan Clark?

  Cause I'm not gonna wash your two pair of drawers that's one pair, cause they got a hole in it. So, I'm not, I'm not doing it.

• 15:31Channing Crowder?

  Don't grab them drawers at the wrong angle now. Your hand gonna stink.

• 15:37Ryan Clark?

  Maurice, man, the historic freshman year and you start to get the accolades that you deserve and seemingly that you've been getting since 15 years old because we could say what we want about the boosters of Warren Harden.

• 15:52Speaker 05

  Warren Harden, yes.

• 15:53Ryan Clark?

  It doesn't matter, they not doing that if you ain't good at football.

• 15:56Speaker 05

  No.

• 15:57Ryan Clark?

  This wasn't, this wasn't the, this wasn't the kind-hearted, oh, this is a good kid that seems to have a hard life, let's give him an apartment so he can come be a C student and just go to school, right? It was because of the level of athlete you were, it was because of the running back you were and all of those things come at Ohio State quickly and I just remember sitting at home and seeing your highlights from game one, then Washington State, you go for almost 200 and you get the injury and you miss a couple of games, but still over 1,200 yards in 11 games as a freshman, but then some of the trouble starts, right? Maurice Clarett's name starts to be mixed in negativity as opposed to the positivity that went on, on the field.

• 16:39Ryan Clark?

  When some of those things start to happen and that publicity is what you're connected with, how did that affect you as the person dealing with some of those things?

• 16:50Speaker 05

  It was almost like I seen it coming, you know, so like midway through the season, Coach Trussell had called me down to the office and we were having success, right? We were 6-0, 7-0 and he was like, yo, some of the things that you used to do prior to, you know, having a success, like you're starting to have trouble with, you know, you used to be the guy who come in here and lift after practice, you used to be the guy who was just kind of staying to yourself, but it was just a nightlife success that started to happen once you have success on the field, you know what I mean? Growing up in an era, MTV career era, where you see, and we all influenced by it, right? Where you see people have success and then you say, okay, once I become successful, these are the things that I'm supposed to do, right? I'm supposed to have everybody from my neighborhood with me, I'm supposed to go to the bar, the club, you know, host everything.

• 17:36Speaker 05

  And we hadn't won so much here in Columbus that all these things were made available to me. You know what I'm saying? So that lifestyle that coach was criticizing, like I'm definitely living it, but I'm also not living it on campus. So to Channing's point, like I grew up like in factuated by people who gangsters, right? And so that still means something to me at that point in my life, 18, 19 years old, where if I got homeboys from around the way or family members who I admire them as they're coming down to the game and I feel like I could show these guys a nice time and I can host an event and people that I that I deemed were admirable to me at 18, like that still meant something to me. That meant something to me just as much as going to play football.

• 18:20Speaker 05

  And even though these things conflict and one is like destroying another, like it's hard to have that level of discernment at 18, right? So as they were saying it, like I'm like, all right, I don't care as long as I perform on the field, like I'm cool. And where it really took, where things started to really escalate was that after we, we had won a national championship and offseason that came, that's when things kind of like escalated, right? I had like a negative moment with Ohio State for wanting to fly home and the national championship. About the funeral. Yeah, about the funeral. Yeah, so I had, I had this moment with them. You know, you have to figure this for context, LeBron is 30, 40 minutes away from me in high school, right? And so he's getting recruited by Adidas and Nike and this is when Mav and Rich Paul, all these dudes, young Randy, all the guys who stood around him, like we were all young coming up at the same time.

• 19:05Speaker 05

  And so you're getting sweat suits and jogging suits and I remember 50th album came out, you know, saying he brings us out on stage in Cleveland and I remember that. I just remember all this stuff, but all this stuff was going on and so I'm like, man, go to class or do this, like, you know what I'm saying? So, you know what I mean? How do you tell a kid at 18 that Drake want to take you on tour? Or Snoop wants you to come out to, you know, to a date? Like, you know, it's hard for a kid to do like that. So as you're hearing it, you're hearing it, but you still have this thing in the back of your mind, like as long as I go ahead and perform on the field, like I'll be cool. The negativity started to triumph. Then I had the NCAA investigation and then once the investigation happened. I didn't think for one second I would be suspended. You know what I'm saying? I thought like, okay, this is like formality.

• 19:49Speaker 05

  When you look in the context, like there was things that I wasn't supposed to do, but I don't have a story where like, you know, he gave me 10,000 or you gave me 15,000. Like the significant part of like my suspension was this. Uh, the booster who um paid for my cell phone to high school, every month that he paid for my cell phone from my junior year, that was an infraction. So out of like one cell phone, you get like 100 infractions. You know what I'm saying? So when you market it to the public, you say, okay, he had a thousand infractions. Like I had a, a check for going to a birthday party for 250. I had a cell phone bill I was paid for. Then you had infractions for lying. But I don't have like, oh, he got a half million dollars and,

• 20:27Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 20:28Speaker 05

  you know, all this other stuff. So it didn't affect me initially. You know, I wasn't affected until I was actually suspended from school.

• 20:34Ryan Clark?

  What was that moment like? Or what was it like being suspended? Watching your team play, you're coming off of a national championship. Obviously, we know this ends up in a suit against the NFL. You're suspended, you're trying to get an opportunity to go to the league and we'll get to that. But what are those moments like? Like you're the big man on campus.

• 20:54Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:55Ryan Clark?

  And sometimes and as college football players or NFL football players, that can become your identity.

• 21:00Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:01Ryan Clark?

  Right? When you walk into a building, you don't just walk in as Maurice Clarett. You walk in as Maurice Clarett, national champion, Ohio State University, running back, All-American, right? Future first round pro or whatever it is. And all of that changes when, when you're suspended. All of that changes when you can't put on that helmet and get the Buckeyes on the helmet. What are you feeling during that time, watching your team go on without you?

• 21:27Speaker 05

  The, the best way I can describe it is when a guy is cut from the NFL. And like there's no more. I felt whatever that feeling is at 19, right? Where you're admired, you're revered, you're respected. Everybody wants to be around you. To you can't come into the facility, you can't be around teammates, you can't practice, you don't have the same academic advisors and like you solo. You know, we all have like different moments in our life where like um you just reflect on these moments that you know like yo I'm in a different place mentally, right? And back in the day, they used to have those if you stressed out, restless, sleepless commercials. And before I would watch them and they wouldn't resonate with me. But I remember this was the first time like I'm watching this stuff in my bedroom.

• 22:12Speaker 05

  I'm like, man, I feel just like that, right? But this like 2003, you don't have like just even a concept of mental health. You don't have a concept of depression, you know? Uh, all of your problems up to this point, if you can't make a yard, you can go break down film, you can go get in better shape. And so from a performance standpoint, like I knew how to deal with mishaps. But from a personal, like, man, I'm going through some shit. I didn't know how to deal with that, right? And so I'm always, I'm angry too, and I'm like resentful. Like I'm angry at Ohio State, like I'm angry at, you know, these dudes let me go from the team, I'm angry at the NCAA, the agents and people who came around me. Like, once you get suspended, you know, everybody gone.

• 22:54Speaker 05

  You know, you have your stuff on TV, but now I'm in Columbus by myself, you know what I'm saying? And so now, when I'm angry, I go back to the same kid who grew up in the neighborhood and I'm like, man, fuck this shit, you know, I'm back out here. So uh, what actually happened from there, like I jumped right back into the streets. I don't know what it is, and maybe you could have clinical psychologists, you know, break it down, but anger is like empowerment, because you can control that, you know what I'm saying? And you feel good just being like in, in like a tougher space. And I see how people hold on to that stuff now, like being older. I see how you hold it because you feel like you have some control when you're angry. So when I go out here and I start to hustle and I start to uh, go out and party and I'm having random sex and I'm up all night and, and this becomes to like the uh, the field

• 23:39Speaker 05

  of void from not playing, like I'm not realizing, I'm not even caring for the most part that I'm like doing something that's self-destructive towards a future NFL life. So this goes on 2003, the gangster fame I got because.

• 23:53Speaker 05

  The biggest dope boys in Columbus, I'm with them. The biggest dope boys in Youngstown, I'm with them. And where football was that thing, like hustling became that thing and the street culture became that thing. You know what I'm saying? But it conflicts with who you have potential to be, but on some level, I don't care.

• 24:07Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 24:07Speaker 05

  If I don't come from, so then I ended up going to California and this was 2000, spring 2004. It's the same person, same behavior that goes out to California and I'm doing the same thing. 2005 comes, it's time for me to get ready for the draft. And somewhere in my head, I'm thinking like, man, I can go ahead and just pull it all together. So I was like, um, you know, you know, working out at 24 hour fitness or working out at some nonsense. That's not like training. You know, we ain't talking about, this ain't hang cleaning training. Me and you going back and forth to see if, you know, if we can beat one another. It's not even the same environment, but somewhere in my head, I think that I've trained enough in my life that I'll come here and I'll run a fast 40, I'll do a vertical jump, I'll do skill drills, like somewhere in my head, I think I could just turn it on.

• 24:53Speaker 05

  And like literally, like if you would have put me with a lot of detective tests, I'd have been like, man, I'll go ahead and perform and I'll be able to do this. But I ended up getting to the combine horrible. The, the performance is one thing, but when you look back on just even all the team interviews, you know, you go through and you, you do all the interviews with all the teams, just horrible. It was Coach Anderson for Cincinnati. I think that was his name, I think running back coach, I don't know if you know his name, but I remember him bringing me to the side. I was like, yo, bro, like, you know, your mind ain't in this, you know what I'm saying? And he knew that, like I was just like in a different space and as they asked me questions about playing football, I'm so hardened and so resentful of like not being the guy going into the combine because I thought like I'd be a first round pick and

• 25:34Speaker 05

  you know, I'll make millions of dollars, like all that stuff was like a buildup to just, you know, what ended up happening after before drafted.

• 25:40Channing Crowder?

  I gotta rewind because it did, that didn't make sense to me when you, when you read the story and you look at it and I said, talking to you. You're from Columbus.

• 25:48Speaker 05

  From Youngstown.

• 25:49Channing Crowder?

  From Youngstown, but now you're in Columbus, now you're still in Columbus. You all of a sudden moved to LA? Like, why LA? And to be honest, who was funding this? Because you ain't had no money yet.

• 25:59Speaker 05

  I'm running dope between Youngstown and Columbus. You know what I'm saying? So hustling and it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't petty hustling, I was like really hustling, you know what I mean? And, um, the last time, well, I almost, I almost got robbed two times back home. Somebody is outside my house and I didn't see this coming. I'm like, okay, was it some girl I was messing with? And I lived in the suburbs. Was it somebody else who see me coming back and forth from the club? But literally, you know, my guy was pulling outside, uh, pulling back, backing out the driveway. He said, I'm like, yo, Reese, somebody in your bushes. My mother in the house with me. And I come outside with a gun and I'm like, yo, bro, I gotta get gone. So I, I knew somebody in LA. I get on a plane, go to LA probably two or three days later. I got the money that I have, uh, landed there probably 2000, what, 2004, spring 2004.

• 26:42Speaker 05

  Uh, stayed at the, I think it was the Sheraton or Hollywood Highland. And I was just there just like taking a breath from everything that I had been going through from the last few months. And so for real, LA was an escape from all the shit that was going on in the streets. But then also like, man, I've been dealing with this dude asking me, am I gonna play football again? This dude asking me what happened with Ohio State, you telling me like Ohio State did your own. Like all that stuff just replays like that traumatic event. And I was like, man, let me get away from this. But being inside the streets and doing what I was doing, I end up like literally running from it. You know, let me run out to LA. Let me just take a breath and a break. When I got to LA, I ended up going out to a, a party at the beach. There was a party in Marina Del Rey. I went to the party with, uh, some girls who was there.

• 27:27Speaker 05

  And we just literally at the party, hanging out, doing a whole bunch of nothing. And a dude came up to me at the end and was like, yo, bro, like who brought you here? I'm like, who you here with? And I'm like, yo, these girls. And then he was like, you know, who is you? And so his buddy used to gamble, uh, on games. So his buddy knew who I was. And so the next thing you know, he was like, well, what you doing in LA? And so I saw like, uh, opportunities just to like, yo, like this is what I'm doing. This is what's going on. And then we end up, uh, basically hooking up and I stayed out in LA for a couple of years. And, you know, he was, uh, my road dog one of the time I was out there and I was halfway into, uh, football. But the majority of the time I was into like, you know, his lifestyle and everything that was going on in, uh, Los Angeles.

• 28:05Fred Taylor?

  So all of this, everything you've just mentioned.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  Blowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bull spend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it, it wasn't.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  Cut the bull spend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 28:39Fred Taylor?

  Came from rooted from cellphone infraction?

• 28:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:44Fred Taylor?

  No stacks, no, no big bags, just cellphone payments?

• 28:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, so cellphone payments, you know the stuff, you can go look this stuff up if you want to fact check it. Cellphone payments, $250 birthday party, and just a consistent line to the NCAA about things that I was doing wrong. But I don't have like $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 check that anybody gave to me that can be reproduced. The actual situation that happened was, and I go back to what he was talking about, it was a funeral at Ohio State. One of the homeboys, I grew up since my childhood, he got murdered in a drug deal. Alright, so we had the national championship. Ohio State, I called Ohio State, I called compliance and the administration of Ohio State to say, yeah, I want to go back home to go to a funeral.

• 29:30Speaker 05

  Had this been my grandmother died because of old age, it wouldn't have been a problem, but we can't have our star player going back to a funeral over a drug deal going back. And so then I started to have like, you know, different issues with that. I'll speak two things to that. Like, we can come and get you out the hood, you know, saying that we can dress you up and decorate you, but we only want certain parts of your story. If you're not coming from, I'm like, nah, this is where I'm from. Like, he got killed the way he got killed, like, I want to go to it. And so what ended up happening was, Media Day had come that Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, whenever during the national championship you do media. And so you got to figure like me, I'm 18 years old, 19 years old, I don't have etiquette. You feel I'm coming from? So, when I'm sitting in front of the camera, they're like, what's wrong? And I'm like, man, they lied to me.

• 30:16Speaker 05

  So I don't know who no athletic director is. I don't even know the athletic director at this time is ahead of the coach. The coach is the most important thing to me from my perspective, you know what I'm saying? So, they're like, who lied to you? I said, the athletic director, the people who I talked to on the phone. And so they took that and they ran that in the media. And so he was embarrassed from that. And so, just imagine, you go any kid right now, 18, 19 years old, you just don't even have context for this stuff. You know what I'm saying? So, he held a grudge. And so then you think to yourself, like, man, we got 19 return to starters next year. If you're not coming from, we got 19 return to starters. We didn't made our money, we didn't establish our brand, like, we need him, but like, we really don't need him. Expendable.

• 31:00Speaker 05

  Oh, it's two parts of this, though. All these questions is bringing up more thoughts. During the spring,

• 31:06Speaker 05

  um, I had a car, and so my transmission went in my car, and I called a coach, I say, yo, I need to go ahead and get a car because I can't pay $2,000 to fix this transmission. When I go use the car, the gentleman had repo'd a car from somebody who he had given a car to. And so you remember back in the day, these, uh, 800 or 300 CD cases that you would put CDs in? So I'm driving the car, I skip class, I go to, uh, work out. So as I'm working out, I drive the car over there, it got two 12-inch speakers in the back. You have the car that has the CDs in it, and I've had this car not even 24 hours. So when I go here, I'm working out, the secretary comes into the waiting room and she says, hey, uh, who's driving that black money car outside?

• 31:51Speaker 05

  I'm like, yo, I know I'm not supposed to be driving it, so I don't say nothing. And she says, oh, whomever it is, somebody broke into it. I took a Gatorade and was like, shit. Smashed it, go outside, the car fucked up. Back inside, I called Coach Truss, I'm like, yo, like, what should I do? I'm like, like, do I report this? He like called campus police, report this, tell them what was in the car. So, stay with all these moments. That happened at the national championship. This happens in the spring. I'm already cutting up during the summer. I've already embarrassed the athletic director. Now you have the NCAA investigation come on. So when the investigation comes on, I'm going back and forth with these people. I'm lying because they, they know what hap- what goes on in college sports.

• 32:32Speaker 05

  But I'm just playing stupid. I'm like, and I'm not saying nothing, I'm not talking to y'all about nothing. All this stuff happens inside the investigation. You know, the school has to recommend suspension. Are you familiar, you familiar with this? Yeah. Average person don't notice. They think the NCAA hands down, hands down a suspension. So we're thinking it's supposed to be three games. This is why Jim Brown got mad. So Jim Brown saying, if y'all supposed to be on this guy's side and y'all supposed to hand down the infraction, why would you suspend him indefinitely? Like, why would you suspend him with like, longer than what it was? That's when they gave, basically gave Jim Brown the finger and said, man, get the fuck out of here. And we're going to suspend him indefinitely. Come to find out, the real issue was this. It wasn't about me.

• 33:16Speaker 05

  Jim O'Brien, who was the basketball coach, he had gave a kid from Serbia $7,500. So the NCAA was getting ready to pose infraction on Ohio State anyway, over the basketball program. And so the athletic director didn't want to look like a dumbass that he had this program that was running rampant. So let me go ahead and throw this dude up under the bus. Show you that we're hard on people doing the wrong thing. And just kick you out of here. So this is all factual information. If you're not coming from, but you don't have pivots, you don't have social media, you don't have anything. Only thing you have is your local stations who produce the information for the university. But they tied to the school. It's got tied to the school.

• 33:58Speaker 05

  And so you can't defend yourself and say whatever narrative that you put out there is the narrative that you put out there. So part of my suspension was this. Part of my suspension was to say I lied about the stuff that got broken into with the car. And they said, oh, in order for you to come back, you have to go tell the police that you did that. So I say, man, I didn't say nothing wrong. I've never filed an insurance claim. If I would have filed an insurance claim for the products that were taken out of the car, that would have been a criminal charge. If I'm coming from, I didn't lie. So these CDs that got taken out of here, these CDs are worth $15, $15, $20 back in the day, right? And so they multiply $15, $20 times 800 CDs. And so then this is where you get the infraction, and then this is where you make me look crazy. Bro, nothing more. I was just a dude in college.

• 34:42Speaker 05

  You trying to go out, grow out of, I call it your nigga phase. You from, coming from? Yeah. Every, what Prime doing over in Colorado? He can help dudes grow out of like the nigga phase that they come to on the campus. Little young black dudes from the hood who just don't. Don't know no different. Don't know no different. And so then you put it like I say, you know, fuck the university. It wasn't fuck the university. It wasn't fuck the university. It wasn't fuck the coach. It wasn't fuck the athletic director. At the end of the day, I wanted to go home for a funeral. And from a funeral, then now you can put all this stuff inside the narrative. You know what I'm saying?

• 35:13Channing Crowder?

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• 35:29Ryan Clark?

  Andy Geiger was the AD at the time. And that's who hands down the suspension. It happens right before the season. But just thinking about all the things that have happened to you. You know, you were in Youngstown, in the hood. You move away from your mother at 15 to escape what you were in. And try to get yourself to a better place. You get suspended from the team. You go back to hustling, right? So you, you leave from the, the comforts of football and having all those things because they kick you out of it. You go back to hustling. So now you run from that. Stuff's not going right in the hood. Folks outside your house. You leave Youngstown again and, and now we going to LA. So I'm running from that.

• 36:13Ryan Clark?

  And we're constantly running from everything that's happening. Right? You get, you get sentenced to three plus years in jail. You doing that. And you finally get to this place where you out or whatever it is. What was the day you decided to stop running though? Because it seems like you've run from everything. And now you're running two things to help people. You're running two things to tell your story. What was the moment in your life where you were saying, all this running, not dealing with the things at hand? Not truly processing trauma, truly processing damage has led me to this point. I gotta try something different. What was that moment for you?

• 36:52Speaker 05

  Let me tell you this, when your life fucked up, you know it's fucked up. But oftentimes you don't know how to fix it. You know what I'm saying? So I don't want to say, like, uh, like, oh, I just was oblivious to what was going on. Like I knew I was. Running, avoiding, just because you don't know how to, what is the first step to even put this shit back together? And so, actually, prison is what happened, right? So, when I first got incarcerated, the first seven months of my incarceration, you're locked down on 23-hour lockdown. And I think like, if you want to talk about like a transformative moment, that was it, where if I sit anybody inside of a cell for 23 hours, nine by four, like this shit just makes you reflect, you know, whenever you get incarcerated. And you ain't drinking, you ain't high, you don't have things, people, family members,

• 37:35Speaker 05

  fans, you have nothing to distract you, you just begin to reflect on like, what fucking got you to the situation that you're in? Just like, starting to reflect on like, how the fuck I put myself there. And it was a book, and I always like shout this book out. It was a book that really kind of, if you want to call it running from yourself, and gave me more control of, like, basically how to be proactive. It was called As a Man Thinketh. And it was a small 70-page read, it was a dude who was getting out of jail, a dude named Lamont, came down, he said, "Hey man, I know who he is, obviously, I'm a fan, I just came home from the federal system, can you read his book?" And so, when I first started to read As a Man Thinketh, it was like, simple language, easy to understand, but it talked about like, thoughts being things.

• 38:19Speaker 05

  And you essentially create your life and create your reality from what you think about. And so, I had never heard this before in my life, but I understood the concepts from football. So I was like, man, I remember I used to visualize having success running the football, I would visualize doing things like that, but I didn't know I was actively doing something that was like a thing, you know what I'm saying? I didn't know you can attract things to you, right? And that part right there, like, triggered something like inquisitive in me. And I didn't even know, I didn't know I was like, being inquisitive, but now, you know, understanding vocabulary better, like I understand I was being inquisitive. So even being sentenced to seven and a half years, I was like, man, I'm not really mad that I'm here because something else outside of football like just sparked in me, right?

• 39:02Speaker 05

  So I end up going to prison up in Toledo, Ohio. So when I get to prison, there was another gentleman, another thing that kind of happened that, you know, stopped me from running. A gentleman by the name of Mr. Kelaconte, and he was an African warden, he's from Sierra Leone. And so he was like, "Yo Maurice, I have a son your same age, and if my son was in the same situation, I would want somebody to help him." And he was like, "Man, I'm going to put you in a bunch of like, our therapeutic courses and like, the education wing." And so, a lot of people think prison is just... Sales bars and dudes acting crazy and that's the housing unit, but they actually have different units throughout the prison where you can go to education and other shit. And so what ended up happening was he started sending me back and forth to courses.

• 39:45Speaker 05

  Uh, they had thinking for a change, cage your rage, drug and alcohol courses, uh cognitive, cognitive behavioral therapy courses. And, uh, I was, I was, I was in what's just called a closed security facility, which means you're locked down for 20 hours out of the day, so you assign your housing unit. And literally, uh, it was a catalog called bargain books. I tell this story all the time. I couldn't read real well, um, re-comprehend, do anything prior to playing football. And I was like, man, fuck it, I'm never going to be able to play football again. I'm thinking like I got seven and a half years, I'm 22, I'll be 30, you know, it's not like realistic. And so I was like, man, I'm gonna go ahead and, um, just start to educate myself. And so when dudes would send me 40, 50, 60 bucks, I would take this stuff and I was like, man, I'm gonna just start learning how to read, become interested in something and just become good.

• 40:30Speaker 05

  And so the next thing I know, like the same fucking passion that I have for football and the film study and then you say like something being a vehicle for something, I was like, shit, I can read and I like reading and I enjoy reading and I enjoy comprehending and I enjoy having a better vocabulary or communicating like to different people. And so that's what really happened, you know what I'm saying? Like reading changed my life like nothing else, like, like fuck all this other shit, like reading and self-education was what really changed, right? And so then what happened from there, um, I don't know, like that, that shit just kind of set me on a different path, you know what I'm saying? Where what I thought was possible or who I see myself as like, you know, I don't care if you are running back, I don't care if you producing a show, like everything has to

• 41:13Speaker 05

  start with some sort of vision, you know what I'm saying? And, um, I think even for the things that I've done in the past, like having an understanding, like, um, I remember I read Power Versus Force, right? And it's a book by, by Dr. David Hawkins and it talks about scales of consciousness. And you can only function at the level that you understand and you can only see the world at your level of consciousness. And so what may be true to him may not be true to me based upon our level of consciousness, our experiences and the shit that we basically go through. And so as I started reading this, you can accept like your failures, like, like the only reason like people become depressed about shit is because like you don't have an understanding on the events that took place.

• 41:55Speaker 05

  You feel I'm coming from, so you can forgive yourself when I say, alright, I thought I was a street nigga, so I understand why I failed in Denver. You know what I'm saying? I used to drink and smoke because I thought I was a street, like, you know, so like, the only, the only reason you get out your fucking mind and become inebriated or howl at a time is because like, you, you're not aiming towards something. And the reason you're not aiming towards something is because you don't, you're not serious about a goal that you've prepared for. You feel I'm coming from? And so, like, when you start to just reflect on your life, and then in prison, you have the time for it, that's when I go from running because you don't know what's going on to, man, now I'm living my life I know.

• 42:34Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, bro, and prison, prison changed you.

• 42:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:37Channing Crowder?

  Prison changed, that was, that was the change was, and you're a order, like, you can, you like, you know what I'm saying, you educated, motherfucker, you couldn't read, you can read now. You got some words and shit. But, the story of getting them seven and a half, I wanna hear you tell it, cuz, in my mind, you robbed two people.

• 42:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:57Channing Crowder?

  And then later on was riding around their neighborhood with a damn arsenal and a bottle of Grey Goose in the car. That's the story I read. I wanna hear that out of the horse's mouth.

• 43:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, nah, I mean, and, and, and, I feel like, it was a serious situation, but, you, you, you can, like, you know, as life goes, you can laugh and reflect on it right now. But, what happened was, um, I would, like, the actual people, so I was going down there for somebody, and I got committed to robbery, right?

• 43:23Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 43:23Speaker 05

  I was going down there for, uh, a specific person. So it wasn't like some random, I was walking through, uh, the alley, and I was like, oh, let me just go rob these people. And who I thought was back there wasn't there. The, the reason I didn't have a mask on or something like that was because the person, if I was gonna, what I was going to do to the person, they were gonna know who I was, whether I had a mask on or off, you know what I'm saying? And so I was going down there for something prior to we had going on. But the people who were there when I did it, I was like, man, let me just take your shit, just because I'm back here. You know what I'm saying?

• 43:51Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 43:51Speaker 05

  And so then, even the people who was with me, they didn't even know what's going on. It was like, there was a person inside the nightclub who told me that a person was going to the back, or whenever they got back there, they was gonna call me. I wasn't too far away, they called me. I told the people who I was with to get in the car with me, come on. I parked where they didn't even know what the fuck was going on. I walked back there, I thought I was gonna see somebody else, but since I do what I was doing, I was doing, I just took the shit from them, and basically was leaving. And essentially, that's what happened. But, that was December 31st, 2005. Once I had that case, like, once I had that case, like, all of the resentment and... The anger that I have from getting kicked from school and kicked out the NFL, all that shit escalated, you know? Even during this time, I have my daughter, she was, we got three kids now, but my daughter was,

• 44:36Speaker 05

  her mother, she was like, you know, probably, I don't know, maybe three, four months pregnant at this time. So you're dealing with the pressure of this shit, you're dealing with the pressure of, you have a criminal case, you're dealing with just everything, you know what I mean? And at this time, smoking increased, drinking increased, like, everything in my fucking life. Like, I can't even remember any time in 2006 where I'm sober. You know what I'm saying? Because, I mean, just every day, you're drinking, you're smoking, and you're just like in a dark place, right? And so somewhere in my head, you have to remember, I told you, like, I think I'm a street nigga. Man, instead of going to court with these people, I'd rather try to kill them. You see where I'm coming from? And so what actually happened was, I was like, when you're preparing to go to trial, you get different discovery packages, right? So you can serve, fucking subpoenas to people, you get addresses.

• 45:19Speaker 05

  So as I'm talking to the lawyer throughout this process, I find out what the address is, right? That they have on file. And so I'm thinking to myself, like, in order for me not to go to court, like, you know, it sounds crazy, like, as you, as you sit here and talk about it, even I'm 39 years old, there's some things you like, you become embarrassed about, you be like, damn, like, my mind was really in this space where I thought this shit made sense. Literally, I was like, man, I'm gonna go ahead and kill these people, and I thought that it was like, gonna make sense to me. So, you know, I gear up that morning, and I ride over to where I'm supposed to go, and I think I'm being a genius, I set the cell phone down, because at that time, I'm thinking like, oh, you know, they'll ping my cell phone at the hotel that I'm gonna say I'm at. And then as I'm going, I get off at the wrong exit, and I go to make a U-turn, and there was a police officer who was sitting inside of the Home Depot parking lot.

• 46:04Speaker 05

  And when I made the U-turn, I seen him, you know, it's 2, 3 in the morning, and I'm like, man, we see each other, obviously, and I know he's gonna pull me over, so he actually, you know, get behind me. And I don't know why, for the love of God, but when he came behind me, I just start thinking about an episode from Cops.

• 46:21Channing Crowder?

  You hit it.

• 46:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, so, so, I waited for him to get out the car, and walk up on the car, and I was like, yo, man, let me get a head start, you know what I'm saying?

• 46:31Speaker 05

  So next thing you know, I get on the freeway and I'm flying down the freeway. And at the end of the day, I'm in my mother's Hyundai. You know what I'm saying? Hyundai and going too fast, right?

• 46:41Fred Taylor?

  You at a high-speed chase at 38.

• 46:45Speaker 05

  It had to be police in the area because you know, before you know it's like, I don't know, four or five police officers, they right behind you. And then I'm driving to a, on a freeway towards a, an area that I really don't know. So I'm like, man, let me make a U-turn and come back towards the city. And once I start coming back towards the city, and this was another moment. This was like inside of the movies. I'm like, man, this dude was standing in the middle of the road and I can clearly see that he had spike strips. And I'm like, man, this joker about to really throw these strikes, you know what I'm saying? But I'm driving, he throw the spike strips out, they bust the tires. You know, I get off on the exit and once I got off on the exit, like at that point, you know, I knew I was caught. And so at that point, like that's how, that's how everything happened.

• 47:22Fred Taylor?

  This is the first time we've done a show. I felt like I'm in the fucking movie. I'm really watching a movie. And it's not amazing, but man, you, that's a lot of shit, bro. That's a ton of shit. Like the details of it all, it's crazy. Do you have any regrets? Or do you just chalk it up as this is why I am, the purpose driven where I am at in my life right now, the success story, the entrepreneur, everything you have going on from philanthropy, speaking to companies? Or would you have any one thing that you would point out and say, fuck, I wish I hadn't done that?

• 48:01Speaker 05

  I said all the time, man, I wish I would have learnt about educating myself earlier. You know what I mean? Because like, you know, like when I told you, like how you, how you come to pass, or not come to pass, how you learn to accept things is looking back and saying, like I can only function how I was programmed to function at that level. You know what I'm saying? In my neighborhood, I don't, I don't know how you get me out of the mentality of wanting to be a real nigga. So whatever consequences is gonna come from that. They came from it, you know what I'm saying? But if you say like, what could I had done different? I just wish I would have educated myself enough to be a better person earlier. You know what I'm saying? Because like I, I had people, I had, you know, in Denver, like you, you know, that was supposed to be like a shit experience, but I had Coach Shanahan on people trying to bring you to the side, you know what I'm saying?

• 48:44Speaker 05

  But personally, if I would have just educated myself, and I say education, I'm not talking about like, you know, let me read from an English book or let me go to math class. Like personal and professional development and consciousness and how behavior, interpersonal skills, shit that you just don't get from the classroom, you know, saying like thinking is a skill. And I don't, I don't think people really understand that, or we don't have places in society where you understand it, right? I wish that would have happened earlier because you would have been a, you, you would have been more mature faster.

• 49:14Fred Taylor?

  It, it, it's tough because socio-economic disadvantages are real.

• 49:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, 100%.

• 49:20Fred Taylor?

  And a lot of times, you know, they say you're a product of your environment. I like to say you're a product of the product, which is those environments, the demographics in which we come up.

• 49:30Speaker 05

  1,000%.

• 49:31Fred Taylor?

  You're only exposed to certain, you know, level of things. So you only know what you think you know until you don't know, right? Just hearing your story, I mean, I've, I've gotten it at surface level, but to actually hear it from you, you know, man, um, I'm, I'm, I'm super proud of you.

• 49:49Speaker 05

  I appreciate it.

• 49:50Fred Taylor?

  You know, like how you've been able to bounce back, you know, and be able to go and give it back to these kids in the community.

• 49:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:56Fred Taylor?

  And the people in these business settings, what to do wrong, what to do right.

• 50:00Ryan Clark?

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• 50:16Channing Crowder?

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• 50:26Fred Taylor?

  Channing, the flash deals are great, but if you find a ticket that's cheaper, they will price match you up to 110% of that purchase. Go to the App Store and download the Game Time app. Make it happen.

• 50:38Ryan Clark?

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• 50:55Fred Taylor?

  That leads me to, back to Ohio State though. Have they accepted you back?

• 51:00Speaker 05

  It's twofold. The people, and I don't think that there's, it's two types of love. You have institutional love, then you have everyday people fan love, right? And I get so much love from people that like it supersedes everything else. You know what I'm saying? Because people realize like, you went out here, you made me feel something. I remember you came as an 18-year-old kid, you was brazen, tough. And really the catalyst, I'm not saying I'm the catalyst, but I'm damn sure one of the people here who picked this motherfucker up. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of people who've been great.

• 51:35Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, well, it was what, 34 years between championships?

• 51:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:39Ryan Clark?

  You changed it, bro.

• 51:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was, just respect, being respectful to teammates and people. You know, it's a lot that goes into everything, you know what I'm saying? But definitely contributed my piece of it to do it. And so from a, from a fan standpoint, like I have the connection from the institution, like it's still not there. You know what I'm saying? And so we had a reunion, you come back and like they deal with you, but there's no like formal embracing connection, right? So for the past five years, I've been going to UConn men's basketball team, right? They don't care what you do. Man, I don't care who you was before you got here. It's something about your story that I think has value to our people. We gonna embrace you, we gonna be, have you be a part of the team.

• 52:22Speaker 05

  Any game you want to come to, we gonna bring you up here on a monthly basis, work with our guys. All these dudes who've been part of UConn's basketball men's program for the past five years, I've seen them go from, you know, the shabby team when Dan Hurley got there to championships last year, you know what I'm saying? So you also understand that if these people wanted to, they could mend the bridge or mend the fence, but I'm not the one to say, hey, let me run down, let me try to talk to you, let me, you know, do whatever it is what it is, you know what I mean? And it's just gonna be what it's gonna be, but. You know, who knows, you know, who knows what the future holds? You know what I mean? Uh, maybe they want to separate from me totally. But man, I don't like, it's like anything else. The fans is who, the fans are who ultimately make you.

• 53:07Speaker 05

  And that's who I have connection with. So I'm like, I'm totally cool with that.

• 53:10Fred Taylor?

  No, I was just gonna say in this day and age of NIL, you know, and all that other stuff, you know, it stemmed from the cellphone.

• 53:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:18Fred Taylor?

  Right? And, and those infractions and getting money. Now I think, uh, you have an amazing voice to be able to give back to those kids. So they can avoid, it's not as, uh, um, restrictive. You know, they can get money now, but there are other parts to that story that these kids travel with. You know, a lot of them want to go back and be that tough ass back at home.

• 53:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:40Fred Taylor?

  In the offseason. Your story can help them, you know, steer clear and circumvent them from becoming a statistic. You know, if they hear that. So I think it'll be beneficial if Ohio State, you know, created some sort of program or at least let you come back often to speak.

• 53:54Speaker 05

  Well, I say this, man, it's, it's no difference then. And I, I'll just use them because it's obviously a big thing. It's the same thing that Prime doing.

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• 54:32Speaker 05

  You know, and like, so think about this, for the past, I don't know, 10 years, I go to LSU, I go to Alabama, you go to all these major universities. And when they usually bring me in, it's like, they can't say, but man, can you talk to the niggas on our team? You know what I'm saying? Just what it is. We ain't here for the premier superstar. Hey, man, we have some guys who in a rough situation. I remember when Dalvin Cook was down at Florida State. And he got into a thing down there and his brother, you know? Is can you talk to these niggas and can you get them out of a nigga phase? And this is what you have on your campus. And this is what you have that run out of these tunnels. This is what you have that's jumping around, we talking about busting somebody head. This is what you have running down on kickoff.

• 55:15Speaker 05

  This is what you hear blaring through the speakers, you know what I'm saying? And it's a process. And so when I go down and I talk to these dudes, I was just down in Florida. Like, young dudes, just, I connect with them. You know what I'm saying? And I just let them know that, like, I've been in this space at one time where you a knucklehead. And I see why you talk the way you talk. I see the, the, the image you trying to project. I see all of this. But I can make it make sense why that shit is a dead end. You from coming from, but then I also can make sense on ways you can leverage yourself if you take this shit serious, right? So, reason people don't improve their behavior is because they say, what's the fucking point? You know what I'm saying? If I can go ahead and be who I am and I can go ahead and play football and be an athlete, like, I'll attain all my shit that way, right?

• 55:59Speaker 05

  But when you mathematically break down, like, this shit doesn't last long. You mathematically break down how, even if you do get paid, that shit don't last long. You from coming from, you mathematically break it down to them, or, or you, you talk through operations of how you land, how, how you could land, if, how you get fucked up. And then I can say, okay, bro, that shit didn't work out for me and I'm still a millionaire doing this other shit. That's how you influence people. People ain't getting influenced by a motherfucker who don't have shit. Yep. You know what I'm saying? People ain't getting influenced by a motherfucker who ain't doing nothing. And so when they hear me talk, when they hear reality, and they're just passionate, bro, I hear, if UConn didn't pay me, I still do it. This is like, yo, the circle of life. I had coaches and people invested in me, and nothing feels more rewarding than going back to these dudes and saying, you know what?

• 56:44Speaker 05

  Like, in most cases, you on these university campuses, they getting what they can get out of you. Let me show you how to make this shit last. Let me show you how you can go back to your hometown, not be embarrassed. Let me show you things that you can get into even if you don't know. These are books that you can start with. These are people that you can start with. And you hear it go off in their mind, you be like, damn. Like, I didn't know I can do this even before the show. We talking.

• 57:04Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 57:05Speaker 05

  I figured this out. This is how you can figure this thing out in your area. And I can break it down to you and talk to you. And that's, that's what I feel I can give to. And it ain't gotta be Ohio State. I just got pride from being from Ohio. No difference than the dude from Florida, Georgia, Texas. Every motherfucker feel like their football is the best football.

• 57:22Channing Crowder?

  Hell, yeah.

• 57:24Speaker 05

  You know what I'm saying? And so I, I just, I have pride in representing our state. You would love to contribute, but there's nothing greater than, man, when you get these young dudes who... I, I was there Florida with Kaderius Tony, you know, for... When, I, I got a thing where he, he, you know, he was a rapper in college.

• 57:42Channing Crowder?

  I've heard.

• 57:43Speaker 05

  You know, I, I'm here when I seen Jamal Adams when I go down to, uh, uh, fucking LSU. And Leonard Fournette, you know, and I, and I, I go to, what's his name, Les Miles? And I said, man, we, we all, like, I say like ignorant shit. I was like, would, uh, would your coach put his kids in the same class he got you in? He got everybody sitting around like, what the fuck? Who, who did we bring here?

• 58:02Channing Crowder?

  You're like, taking social dance?

• 58:04Ryan Clark?

  You know what? The, the, the thing, listening to Fred and you talk about socio-economic standing, right? And, and that does influence your decision-making. Because you start to feel there's only certain ways to get certain things. And there's only certain ways for you to elevate yourself out of the position that not only you are in, but the position you've seen your parents in, the position you've seen your grandparents in before that, as it pertains to society. But the other thing is, you know, you keep calling it a phase. For some people, it's not a phase, right? They're, they're, they're like, if you don't see an old gangster, it's because he's dead or in jail. But he's never, he's not out of that phase.

• 58:46Speaker 05

  No.

• 58:46Ryan Clark?

  And when you look back on yourself, when you look back at to who you became based on circumstance, how do you feel about that person? Like, can you look at that person and... In your adult mind and being 39 years old say, you know what? He had a good heart, right? He was a good kid, right? But he only saw these things. He didn't know enough. He couldn't read well enough. He couldn't comprehend well enough to be anything else, right? And, and also, how do you feel about that kid? How does that influence the way you do deal with young people now?

• 59:22Speaker 05

  I don't know, it goes through phases. Embarrassed about some things. And I think that you start to get embarrassed when you have kids. And you start to realize like the, the behaviors that you trying to inflict in them or instill in them, like you stumbled on things like that. And so at certain phases, I get embarrassed, like, um, I'm embarrassed even when I talk about that police chase. You know, I'm embarrassed because like my moms didn't raise me like that. Even though I was out of the house early, like my mother didn't raise me to be like a degenerate. You know what I mean? Embarrassed because, you know, coaches who invested time into you. You know, you get embarrassed by that. The other stuff I can accept because you just say this is part of the environment, you know? And that same thing is what drove me to be good at football. The same thing is what drove me to be, uh, just who you are.

• 1:00:04Speaker 05

  You know, I mean, I think there's a certain level of, uh, aggression and joyfulness. Like when you grow up in the hood and you playing and you becoming tough and you playing little league football and all that stuff. And so like there, there's a part of that in my childhood. You know, I get, I get proud of different moments that I was able to take people from back home and, you know, like instill a pride in them. You know, where they have something to be proud of, a youngstown, where they be like, you know, so many people were happy for me. Like, man, we just, we happy that you, like, we happy you made it, nigga. You know what I'm saying? And I don't know, I don't know another way to say that. You know what I'm saying? But y'all know what I'm talking about. Where they get so happy and proud and like, I got like, I got a huge nigga audience. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:00:48Ryan Clark?

  He understands that. His audience is big too. His audience is big too.

• 1:00:53Speaker 05

  Hey, bro, don't worry, we going to connect. Go on, you go come down to mine, we going to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my crowd.

• 1:01:02Channing Crowder?

  But to this question though, because I actually had it written down. My question was, almost like, I don't think football was good for you. Because you had too much fame too early, it blew you up.

• 1:01:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Channing Crowder?

  But you would have never got out of Youngstown without football. You couldn't be moved to that apartment. You wouldn't have been at Ohio State. You wouldn't be on this show if it wasn't for football. But then, football gave you the opportunities to be with the worldwide West. Be with the LeBron, know those type people. Like, I'm really stuck on what would you be without football? Because I think it did some great things for you, but I think it put you in situations that you weren't ready to be in at a young age.

• 1:01:40Speaker 05

  I hate to say it, man, if you just like, so go off of facts, right? You know, I only got into football out of the juvenile system. You know what I'm saying? And if you progress, if you go off statistics, I'm probably just escalating and doing more of that. Like, I had a, just think about it, I mean, I had admiration, and it's, these are points where I get embarrassed, but it's just the reality of it. You grow up and you see people hustle, and they get things, and this is what you admire. You know what I'm saying? And how they get these things, like, when you hustle, you ain't gotta like, like, you don't have to go anywhere, you step outside your house. This is in your neighborhood, these are people next door to you. So it's not like you have to have, this is not like a great effort to do. You know what I'm saying? And so then, my older brother influenced me. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:02:25Speaker 05

  So, when I'm looking at my older brother, my older brother selling heroin like 40 going north, I can only imagine that I would be like a version of that, because this is who you admire. And so, like, football definitely saved me, and it was my vehicle out. But it also gave me, like, it takes you to a place where you meet different people, you see different things, and you start to say, hey, man, I can be somebody other than, you know, what I've been in the past.

• 1:02:50Channing Crowder?

  And you love football still?

• 1:02:52Speaker 05

  I love the technicalities of it. You know what I mean, like, um, I just, I just enjoy, but I, I can, I can fall in love if you, uh, was like, hey, man, this is how you build cameras. I fall in like, uh, like when they shot ESPN shot the Youngstown Boys film. I fell in love with filmmaking because like I understood the production of it. And the effort that goes into it and the research and the angles and the shots and it's just like in business. I'm not in love with one industry, the mechanics and how you make things work and all of that stuff. And I think just even from football, I think that's what I fell in love with. Like when you begin to watch film, you say, okay, this is why this works and this is why they do what they do. Like no difference in what a coordinator would do. But I think I found that, that infrastructure for whatever I get into where I can like engineer something. You can engineer how something works and this is how you make money.

• 1:03:36Speaker 05

  This is how you get customers. This is how you keep margin. This is how you keep employees happy. This is how you retain them. Like, you know, so I, I, I don't know what that's called. Maybe there's somebody else who has a, a better level of intelligence who can help me with it. But that's, you know, I mean, I don't know.

• 1:03:50Fred Taylor?

  Talking about help, you mentioned LeBron and all those guys. The whole entire crew, Rich, Wes, Mav, you know, Ernie. Right, right. Did any of those guys help or reach out to help during those moments when you were going through your stuff? Or were they just too young to really understand?

• 1:04:07Speaker 05

  That's a combination of two things, like, so, so take this in consideration. You have, I'm, I'm a year older than LeBron and we were all literally coming up at the same time. Like the, hi- his first game was on my birthday, like, like we all coming up at the same time. So I get in trouble. This is his second year in the league. Are you, you feeling coming from? Like this man is like never at any moment, he doesn't have like a responsibility to help me. Nor do I think that you would even know how to navigate to help at this time. You know what I'm saying? And so he's rich and I think sometimes when you're rich and you're wealthy and notarized or, or you're a notable person. I think people think that you should know, you know what I'm saying? But you don't know how to help somebody at this point in life. Like I'm suspended from school, like Jim Brown can't help me. Jimmy Sexton can't help me.

• 1:04:52Speaker 05

  Uh, my mother can't help me. There's nobody who has advice for something like this in my life. I'm pretty sure that they look at it and they say like, yo, like my man in like a twisted situation, but there's nothing that you can do. Even if he would have probably sat me down and was like, yo, bro, like, let's do something else. I probably would have ignored him because my ego at that time would have been like, man, I don't want no man taking care of me or helping me. Like, I want to do this myself. Like, I still got an ego. Like, I still had an ego still then. You know what I'm saying? So you fast forward, you know, I called, when I was in jail, I called Rich. He picked up my call. He still loved me. You know what I'm saying? You know, I was with Mav and Steve Stoudamard in New York a couple of years back and, you know, we hung out and we all good friends, but even in that moment, I don't think I'd have listened to them. But I think like, you know, just think about this, like, when you're in a dark place, bro,

• 1:05:35Speaker 05

  just think about, just think about the people y'all know who are in dark places, who depress, who just have a low perspective, they're not happy with themselves, they don't have their own goals, they don't have their own thing working. Like, that's where I was at. LeBron, like, he's an entity. You know what I'm saying? But I ain't got time to be doing this, but nor do I take it personal because I understand it.

• 1:05:57Ryan Clark?

  Correct.

• 1:05:58Speaker 05

  You know what I'm saying? And so, like, you get yourself in a better place in life, you get healthier.

• 1:06:01Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:02Speaker 05

  And then you add on to people. You know what I'm saying? But I don't think people understand that. Like, the victim mentality, what have you saying?

• 1:06:07Ryan Clark?

  You owe me.

• 1:06:09Speaker 05

  You owe me. You my dude.

• 1:06:11Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:12Speaker 05

  You should do for me. And that's, I don't know, I don't know, I just never went through that.

• 1:06:14Ryan Clark?

  And I think the other piece you had to think about at that point is, King, the King James image was what was big at that time. And obviously, it's different now because now it's going into fatherhood and businessman and those things, but it was the kid from Akron who was clean of all those things.

• 1:06:32Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:06:33Ryan Clark?

  Who has transcended the hood or the projects. And now, if you connect yourself to this guy who is doing some things that they don't feel like you should be a part of or you shouldn't be connected to. You have the, the, the people who are supposed to protect his brand are saying, nah, you can't call Maurice, or you can't be someone who is publicly known to be reaching out a hand to him. And so I think that, like, all those things play into it, too. This started as a sports podcast. It has turned into not being that, any, that much. But I love football. You know, you were talking, you were like, I love the, like, I love football. And here's what I remember about Maurice Clarett more than anything. National championship, right?

• 1:07:16Ryan Clark?

  My favorite player of all time gets an interception, Sean Taylor. Right? Now, to this day, baddest human I've ever been around. Right? The most talented, the meanest, the most, just all those things, right? Dot picks it off, he's running. You're going over to make the tackle. And I think, and I'm talking about this play, because I'm talking about the best I'd ever seen do anything. Right? And this man who's like, well, I played football because it got me out of my circumstances. And I played football, but you run up to him to tackle him and take the football from him. In that moment, from just a football perspective, bro, what is going through your head when you see him running?

• 1:08:00Ryan Clark?

  And not to mention, Ohio State wins this game in overtime with a five-yard run from you. That's the touchdown. Right? Like, this is like the last moments we got to see Maurice Clarett greatness. What was all that like for you?

• 1:08:15Speaker 05

  The Sean Taylor thing had more to do with a running back drill. So you know, probably since you've been carrying the football, the first drill you're gonna do is ball security.

• 1:08:24Fred Taylor?

  High and tight.

• 1:08:25Speaker 05

  High and tight. And so, in the huddle, our quarterback was roommates with a guy, Ben Hartsack. And he was like, yo, can you throw me a touchdown in the national championship? So, I'm like, alright, like, he gonna throw his dude a touchdown in the championship. And so he dropped back and he threw the ball, and I didn't even see the interception. I just heard the crowd. And I was like, oh shit. And so then when I seen it with Sean Taylor, I was like, y'all gotta get on my horse. I gotta take the right pursuit angle, you know what I'm saying? And so I could see, and you know, if you ever wore it on visors, the reason I used to hate visors, they look nice, but it mess up your peripheral. You know what I'm saying? Like, it blocks a certain thing.

• 1:09:07Speaker 05

  And they had these visors that were like multicolored, like they like transitioned into like three or four different colors. And so when I'm running, I'm like, this dude don't see me. And you can tell when somebody see you, because they like, you know, they can, you feel it. And he doesn't see me, but he's carrying the ball crazy. And you know as well as I know, if somebody get their hand right here, that ball gone. You know what I'm saying? And I'm, I'm pretty strong. So when I got closer to him, to me, it was like disbelief that he let me get that close to him. And he didn't secure the ball, like at least he would have, he would have bunged it up. And I'd have stuck my hand right there. So I actually contribute that play more to drills at practice. You know what I'm saying? My coach, he used to always say, he used to say all the time, drillers make killers. And just drill to death and you go on basically get to where you gotta go.

• 1:09:51Speaker 05

  So I just basically put my hand in there and put my weight down and then Vilma picked me up. And actually, when he hit me, when he dumped me on my head, if you look, go back and look at the play, he dumped me on my head, like my neck started to hurt. You know what I'm saying? So when I'm coming off the field, I'm like, man, my neck hurt. And you know, like, I, I don't know if it was like anxious jitters or whatever it may be. Uh, that's what ended up happening. And so, but the touchdown was different, you know? And I know we have the controversial call for the game. You know what I'm saying? And we'll leave that alone.

• 1:10:14Ryan Clark?

  I was not passing the field. Stop it. Stop. I know, I know Chris Gallow is your Travis Hunter and all. I see you posted. Yeah, that was not passing the field.

• 1:10:25Speaker 05

  Apologize to DJ, Vilma, all you, I, I, we've made a man since then. So I was gonna fall with these jokers. I was like, look, man, hey, go, go, go beef with the ref. You know what I'm saying? I don't have nothing. So to, we'll fork all y'all guys. We apologize if you all feel any difference. I love y'all. We all brothers, you know, trying to figure life out.

• 1:10:49Speaker 05

  We, that's it. You know, we, we apologize. I know the comments gonna go crazy, like it's not our championship. But when, when we got the call again, they said, hey, y'all gotta go back on the field. You gotta play the game. And so then we called a run play and, you know, a score. And I was like, wow, this is like cool and amazing, but you know, I'm, I'm not joking with you. You can go back and watch the film. Like after we got, like I, I enjoyed the moment, but even after the game, I was like, yo, like, can we do this again? You know what I'm saying? So I, I, I don't wanna come off and say like, I don't love football. Maybe it's something inside of me that I had so many bad experiences later. You know what I'm saying, that makes me look at it like, like, somebody else can look at football, like, okay, you look at college sports and enjoy it purely.

• 1:11:29Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:29Speaker 05

  I look at college sports and then I add all of the other stuff that I see. You know what I'm saying? Like, I, I see the economics. I see the football player.

• 1:11:37Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:37Speaker 05

  I see the first generation kid who's coming from school. I see what's being marketed to his mother, the father.

• 1:11:42Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 1:11:43Speaker 05

  I see where, you know, the kids who complete school and they don't have nowhere to go, but they have a degree in their hand and they can't do but so much, you know? So, I see, I see more to it. And I don't say that that takes away from football, it's just, you just start to see.

• 1:11:57Ryan Clark?

  The picture is bigger for you than what happens on the grass?

• 1:12:01Speaker 05

  Hundred percent.

• 1:12:01Fred Taylor?

  You mentioned, and we, you've seen the show, so we usually ask people the biggest pivot. But you mentioned prison was, for you, um, trying to figure out this love for football thing. What are you most proud of at this point in your life?

• 1:12:14Speaker 05

  The biggest thing is, one, I was happy that, and this used to bother me. I was happy that I was able to be successful in front of my mother. Like, that was like, a big thing to me. Um, happy to be successful in front of my family. You know, I've been, me and my woman been together for eighteen years. You know what I'm saying? And being able to show, uh, that, uh, probably the biggest thing, bro, happy to get sober. You know, don't drink, don't drug, um, in a bed by nine, uh, just, you know, taking care of myself and, you know, and, and, and like, just in good health and good spirits, uh, being joyful. The mother piece was, you've done so much for me my whole life that I've been able to repay

• 1:12:59Speaker 05

  you with just being like a good kid, you know, and not being an embarrassment to our family. My family, my, my lady had graduated from college and I went to prison. Like, she graduated in December. I go to prison like, obviously like that next August. And it derailed her life. And when it derailed her life, she got a kid and so she put her life on hold. There was a post I seen from you, we said, uh, what happens when the best version of you is the worst version of everybody else? And I don't know what you meant to that. You was talking about your dad and the valet and how much pride you had in him and that, right?

• 1:13:29Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 1:13:30Speaker 05

  And so I've been on like this redemption tour myself to try to redeem myself and to, all these things that I wish happened in my life with the NFL and wanting to make money and all this other stuff. And all this shit happens, but this probably is the, the most distant I am from my family. You know what I'm saying, because I'm so dialed into, you know, wanting to make me the best version of myself. So I can sit up here and say, like, I'm cool, like, you'll sit here and say, oh, man, this motherfucker talk real cool. And all this shit is cool, but like, I'm still dealing with the same shit. Well, I don't know how you took it, but with me, you know, I'm never home, I'm building the business, I'm on the phone. I'm building something and for me personally, I'm like, man, this shit finally working. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:14:10Speaker 05

  And I'm, I'm, to my girl, I'm like, motherfucker, like, nigga, this is 20 hour days I've been working. This is fucking prison, this is motherfucking, you know, being down in the dumps. This is being hungover and hating yourself. This is not knowing if you still want to motherfucking move forward in life. This is all that shit, you know what I'm saying? And then when you finally get shit working and you feel like you're the best version of yourself, you know, you see the disconnect grow from your lady because like, your ass is dialed into work. You know what I'm saying? And then trying to find balance with that, you know, and this is a real thing, you know what I mean? We, so we got two little boys, two, one is, you know, getting ready to turn, um, one turns four in December and one turns one, uh, October 6th.

• 1:14:52Speaker 05

  And so being present, but being in the house, but not being really present for the pregnancy and all this other stuff. And then she has complications during the pregnancy and she going through surgery. But even though I'm here, I'm still on the fucking phone handling the business, you know what I'm saying? And then shit with myself, I don't like, I don't even know how to fucking be present. You see where I'm coming from? And that's like, probably like a shortfall with me, right? I'm better, I can deal with business, but with people is hard.

• 1:15:24Fred Taylor?

  Okay.

• 1:15:24Speaker 05

  Because you become so stoic with business, like, when you deal with business, like, wherever you leave business, it stays there until you pick it back up, right? With people, people change or they have different moods and attitudes. And then somewhere in my brain, I'd be like, man, fuck this, I don't want to deal with this. It's easy for me to deal with something that I can build, mow, process and go through. And but then also knowing like I'm struggling with like relationship, you know, even like my daughter.

• 1:15:49Ryan Clark?

  She graduated early, right? She graduated like sixteen.

• 1:15:52Speaker 05

  She's sixteen years old, right? So she wanted to get into film production and she applied to Loyola Marymount for film, not film production, film studies. And in order for her to get to the program she wants, she has to go into film production. And so basically she couldn't do it because like you have to, like essentially it's the enrollment process, right? She basically filled out the wrong application and she wants to reapply next year. But I remember this was, this was my little girl and you know, she's by me and she's next to me and everything else. But I could see like, you know, how business and things that I wanted to accomplish personally, as these things started to take off, like my, just my time or connection or attention towards my personal environment. And so where things that I'll get up that'll bother me, I'll be like, fuck, like, how do you even balance this shit?

• 1:16:36Speaker 05

  And then I say, man, it ain't really no fucking balance because

• 1:16:40Speaker 05

  the things that you've created call for your attention. You know what I'm saying? Like this shit calls for, it calls for what it calls for. Then I ask myself like, and I don't know if it's me playing the game in my head to make me feel better. I'll say like, shit, if I was, if I was with the Jacksonville Jaguars and they told me to be out the house from eight AM to ten PM, you wouldn't say a word. But if I'm building something myself, something that I own, it just becomes problematic. And then I say, man, am I making an excuse for myself? Is this a real thing? Are we both walking into new territory that we both don't know about? And I don't know. You feel what I'm coming from?

• 1:17:18Ryan Clark?

  Well, bro, none of us know. And the, the piece you're talking about was talking about myself. Right? I, I spoke about the things I learned from growing up with my father and the things that I felt like in watching his life seemed important to me or important to him and seemed as priorities to him. And we accepted those things. And you expect that as you get older and as you have these relationships, that the people in your life will respect and accept those things as well. But we only see things from our perspective, right? Our personal story tells us who we are. Tells us how people treat us, tells us how people love us, right? How much time people give to us. And I think.

• 1:18:04Ryan Clark?

  Like, that's the hard part. And your girl's name is Ashley, right?

• 1:18:06Channing Crowder?

  Ashley, yes.

• 1:18:07Ryan Clark?

  You know, and you know, like, you have a daughter that she had to take care of, and she had to be the one for when you were dealing with things. And the difference between business and people is feelings. Right? Business don't have no feelings.

• 1:18:21Channing Crowder?

  No.

• 1:18:22Ryan Clark?

  Right? Whether I show up to my business, or I don't show up to my business, there's no feelings involved. No, it may fail, or it may succeed, but there's no feelings involved. It's not like that with people. And business doesn't remember being hurt. Business doesn't remember being alone. People do. And I think there is, you know, you're saying, you're talking about like, trying to get back all of these things. You actually never get them back. You just don't. Like, they, they, they don't automatically, or they don't just out of the blue become OK because we're now there. Like, that junk takes work. And unfortunately, for people like us sometimes, who get bogged down in processes,

• 1:19:06Ryan Clark?

  I am very cognizant of effort. Right? I feel like I gotta put effort into things. But then you look at it, like, we gotta put effort into our relationships, too. You know, and I'm, bro, I am, I am dealing with that, like, listening to you.

• 1:19:19Channing Crowder?

  We're achievers. There's no, there's no finish line in relationships.

• 1:19:23Ryan Clark?

  Nope.

• 1:19:24Channing Crowder?

  You can't, there's no end. Your business blows up, make a bunch of money, you know, you can sell it, make a bunny, now it's not there. With personal relationships, but there's no end. I'm reading a book now, what book am I reading? My wife bought it for me.

• 1:19:35Ryan Clark?

  Way of the Superior Man.

• 1:19:36Channing Crowder?

  Way of the Superior Man.

• 1:19:38Ryan Clark?

  I've read it.

• 1:19:38Channing Crowder?

  I'm reading it right now. That's the thing, is that you, as achievers, there's no, there, we have an end result. There's a finish line. There's no finish line in relationships. I'm, I'm, we're all, I treat everybody, but I think we all go through that.

• 1:19:50Ryan Clark?

  And I think the, and, and, and, you know, we have a, our lovely producer, Alicia, keeps us to a certain time. But I will say this, man, I thought this was amazing. I think getting an opportunity to hear you tell your story from your perspective was eye-opening to me.

• 1:20:09Ryan Clark?

  You started another conversation now. And so if you're up for it, man, we'd love a part two at some point soon. Yeah, anytime. Man, appreciate you, man. That was good, bro. That was dope, dawg. Oh, yeah, he about to start another conversation. That was gonna go another hour.

• 1:20:23Channing Crowder?

  Real talk, man.