Terrell Davis Unlikely Road to Hall of Fame Career, Dad’s Tough Love & Wake Up Calls

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 Following the recent surge of research and acceptance of CBD’s health benefits for athletes, Davis launched Defy, a CBD-infused sports drink company designed for athletes. Known for winning big at the Beverage Digest 2022 Awards, Terrell reflects on how his perception has completely changed and the mission of the company. Reflecting, Ryan asks Terrell about his father’s parenting and strict upbringing. From being the youngest of six children and always seeking approval from his father, Terrell struggled with understanding if his dad loved him. He speaks about his father's extreme parenting tactics and even walks Ryan, Fred, and Channing through the moment his father shoots a gun over their heads. Although Terrell wouldn’t parent that way today, he shares his ability to see the positive in what the world would consider negative parenting of his father. Seeking ways to appease his father, Terrell took a liking to football because he knew his father enjoyed the contact of the game. He shares candid stories about dominating on the field at a young age but his turning point was the passing of his father because the reason he started playing was no longer present. No stranger to adversity, TD talks about the struggles he faced in his collegiate and rookie seasons and the conversations he had internally to change it around. Oh, how the tables have turned! Terrell takes the time to give Fred Taylor his flowers and says he believes Fred was the most skilled Running Back to ever touch the field. High regards from someone Fred considered a role model, they take their time to discuss the HOF criteria. Of all his accomplishments, Terrell still wonders if he’s made his father proud. 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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Every game day, you show up for your team. Now, it's your time.

• 0:11Speaker 00

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• 0:30Ryan Clark?

  What's up, man? We're having an argument right now, TV.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  What's up? What you arguing about?

• 0:35Ryan Clark?

  Well, I'm telling him I could have played corner in college.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  And what's the big debate?

• 0:43Channing Crowder?

  Every safety wants to play corner and their ass gets slow and the motherfucker gets run past their ass seven days a week.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  I was just watching the Packers' Super Bowl, man.

• 0:50Ryan Clark?

  Oh, why you watching that?

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Because I had to... I just, uh... Well, I got some goodies in here, so I just want to make sure we get a chance to talk about this stuff. But, uh... Yeah, but this is my drink right here. Let's go ahead and put that on there.

• 1:01Ryan Clark?

  Go ahead, man.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  I know you guys got your little sponsorships and stuff like that. I'll say the Happy Dad over there, man.

• 1:07Ryan Clark?

  You know, that's a black thing.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  Well, we gotta talk about this at some point.

• 1:09Fred Taylor?

  Oh, yeah, no, for sure.

• 1:10Ryan Clark?

  You know, black people, everything little. Yeah, go ahead on to your little house.

• 1:14Channing Crowder?

  They diminish everything.

• 1:16Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, it could be 15,000 square feet. Oh, little house.

• 1:21Channing Crowder?

  Got your little wedding coming up.

• 1:22Fred Taylor?

  No wedding. This is dope, though.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, let me just talk about this. This is a brand that I created, or I helped create, about in 2017. We launched it in 2019, and it's a performance company. Really, we call for the everyday athlete, right? You know, we are used to playing on a higher level, and everybody wants to be like us. But this is really meant for the everyday person. You know, the weekend warrior, the yoga mom, whoever, the parent, firefighter, whoever. Anybody wants to feel better. So this is a CBD drink. It actually won Beverage Digest's, uh... It's the number one drink, CBD drink. We won that category. And our Boost, which is a lightly caffeinated, pre-activity drink. I don't have any with me because we're out of it. But, uh...

• 2:07Fred Taylor?

  You can get that thing.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's, uh... That one, the best low-calorie, uh... Low-sugar drink.

• 2:12Fred Taylor?

  Can I get the Spirit Airlines version? The yellow-black one?

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:16Fred Taylor?

  Help me recover from this flight I took.

• 2:18Channing Crowder?

  I got a better way to get my CBD.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  How you get it straight?

• 2:22Channing Crowder?

  The old-fashioned.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  And I didn't understand it back then, right? We had players that would come in and obviously they get caught up in this stuff. And you know, when I played, it was taboo. You couldn't, obviously you couldn't have it. So I would always think, man, you just smoking this stuff because you want to just get high. But I didn't know, understand the benefits of CBD. And there is some effects with THC as well as CBD. And the stuff works, man. I mean, as an anti-inflammatory treatment, pain management, stress, sleep anxiety, all that stuff, man. It really does work. So we were able to get that and put it in the drink. Well, I've been drinking this, man, and it's been helping with my inflammation in my knee, my back. Y'all know the game, man. I'm in the beat now.

• 3:03Ryan Clark?

  We do know, he been in the gym.

• 3:06Channing Crowder?

  He thick.

• 3:06Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, he been in the gym.

• 3:07Channing Crowder?

  Hey, RC, drink a couple.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Man, I'm trying.

• 3:09Channing Crowder?

  Drink a couple. We in Denver.

• 3:11Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, you right.

• 3:11Channing Crowder?

  You look a little weak.

• 3:13Ryan Clark?

  First off, I'm sitting, I'm not playing football, so I ain't gonna die.

• 3:17Channing Crowder?

  TD, last time he was here, they took all of his insides out.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  I know, what happened? I know, because you wouldn't come here.

• 3:21Ryan Clark?

  He died.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  You couldn't play here.

• 3:22Ryan Clark?

  That's not, I could, I could, I could be here, though.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  No, you can be here, but you couldn't, you couldn't play.

• 3:27Ryan Clark?

  No.

• 3:28Channing Crowder?

  Is he looking flush, TD?

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Nah, man, nah, you don't get me in there. Don't try to get me in on this conversation.

• 3:34Channing Crowder?

  Not one more.

• 3:59Ryan Clark?

  Terrell Davis, man, welcome to the show.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you, sir.

• 4:02Ryan Clark?

  To sit down with a Hall of Famer is always a blessing and an honor for us. These are Freddie T's favorite shows. Anytime we get a running back, especially one of your caliber, which are few and far between, he gets into his whole running back bag, so.

• 4:17Fred Taylor?

  And don't forget the SEC East, where it started.

• 4:21Ryan Clark?

  What does that mean?

• 4:22Fred Taylor?

  It's not the SCC West. There ain't no LSU stuff. This is old school.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  I forget. We come from Florida boys.

• 4:28Fred Taylor?

  Throwback. This is old school throwback SCC, the real SCC.

• 4:33Ryan Clark?

  That is fine. We got Channing Crowder. We got Freddie T. I'm RC. Thank you for everybody that's supported us. To Happy Dad, our partners, we'll pull one up early. You know, we'll go, oh, this is cold too, Chad.

• 4:46Fred Taylor?

  Oh, let me grab. Shit, we in cold ass Denver.

• 4:49Ryan Clark?

  Freddie T., tap the top before you open it?

• 4:52Fred Taylor?

  That's what you need.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  All you gotta do is just put that outside.

• 4:55Ryan Clark?

  I told you, tap the top. We'll slide that one.

• 4:59Fred Taylor?

  A little seltzer?

• 5:00Ryan Clark?

  Oh, boy.

• 5:00Fred Taylor?

  Oh.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  A little seltzer?

• 5:02Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, so cheers. We appreciate it. It's cold, you know what I mean?

• 5:05Fred Taylor?

  I guess you want to. Hall of Fame edition. We're doing a little day drinkers.

• 5:09Ryan Clark?

  Cheers, day drinkers.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  I'm a day drinker.

• 5:12Ryan Clark?

  And also DraftKings, for your sponsorship. I mean, let's just really get into it. You have really defied the odds in becoming a Hall of Famer. And I think people will look to going to Long Beach before you actually got an opportunity.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Somebody did some homework on that. Somebody pulled off the.

• 5:35Ryan Clark?

  Right. Before you got an opportunity to go to Georgia, because people just 100% throw you into that. Also, the adversities of facing migraine headaches coming up and obviously having one affect you in the Super Bowl. But I believe it starts earlier than that. And not a lot of times do we allow Hall of Fame players to show us how they became Hall of Fame people. And that's what this show is about. But for you to start wasn't with a gold jacket. It wasn't with a silver spoon. Growing up with your mother and father, you were sixth child out of eight. But your father was a hard man and your father dealt with some demons as well.

• 6:17Ryan Clark?

  How did those things affect you and your siblings coming up?

• 6:22Speaker 02

  I mean, from my dad's standpoint, it was necessary. Everything that we all, we end up transforming from, I think, comes from, it comes from our parents. My dad was, he was more like a military dad, but he had never been in the military. He was a street dude. I mean, he was, he was a gangster off the street. That's, that's the way he was raised, and he tried to raise us in a way where he didn't want us to experience that, so he was really hard on us. So anytime we got in trouble, or anytime we didn't do our schoolwork, it was, it was smackdown. I mean, back then, it was, you know, got the extension cord, it was whoopings. And he didn't have a lot of, he wasn't very empathetic, like, it was, that wasn't his role. So, anytime you get in trouble, it was, you knew what was coming.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  And so, that kind of shaped and formed me from that hardened position where if something happens, you had to get over it. You know, you couldn't cry, it wasn't no time to have, you know, no sorrow, no sympathy, no nothing. And so, being the youngest of six at the time, I was able to watch my brothers get in trouble, I was able to see them do things, and also be able to look at that and say, I don't want to do, I don't want to be like that, because, you know, they're getting in trouble. And so, and then my pops would, you know, every time we got a whoop, and it was in order. Like, oldest guy at first, all the way down to the youngest, so by the time it got to me, if we got in trouble as a group, obviously the energy wasn't there.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  So I never got, I never got the full, the full, you know, wrath of it, but, um, yeah, I mean, to me, but you know what, Ryan, when you, when you're in it, nobody knows that their situation is different. I thought everybody's parent was like that, I thought everybody's dad was just hard,

• 8:05Speaker 02

  you know, never could, in my opinion, I never could please him. And football became the one way that I can relate to my dad, or at least try to get his approval. Because I was the youngest, and it was always about, I was mama's boy. And I was the youngest, and every time I would cry, I'd run to my mom, and he'd get pissed off, he didn't like that. And so I didn't think my dad even liked me. I was like, you know, he doesn't love me because he would, you know, he loved my other brothers because they were more like him. They get into fights and, you know, he'd praise them for getting into fights at school. Because that was, that was his world. Me, I'd run home and tell my brothers, my brothers, and they go to school and beat up the dudes and get into a brawl. And pops didn't like that.

• 8:46Ryan Clark?

  Internet is, is weird and you can correct me if I'm wrong. How much truth is there to a story of your father shooting bullets in the house to see who was scared? Because your quote, though, was that you weren't scared because he loved you.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. No, and that's true because, I mean, at that time, feeling like my dad didn't love me didn't mean that I thought my dad would harm me. You know what I mean? Like, I'd never thought in a million years. And, you know, that story is true. It is true. It was one night we were at, we went to bed and he came home, we had a little, you know, he drank a lot. And for some reason, he'd always try to give us lessons. And everything was a lesson. And one day he came in, it was pretty early in the morning, probably two or three in the morning. And the four youngest were living with him. And my oldest two were with my mom because they had separated. And he woke us up, we got tattooed to our bed. And he just sat us up and he started talking about how life is fragile and how we're only worth six cents.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  That's how much a bullet costs. And then he just shot four shots over each of our heads. He left, he finished talking, left the room and, I mean, it was weird because we looked at each other and it was like, all right, we went back to bed. Like, it was just nothing.

• 10:01Ryan Clark?

  No.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, like it was nothing. I mean, and so again, at that point, I didn't, that was my normal with him. He had to know Joe Davis to know that he would do a lot of things that were unconventional. And looking back on it. Now that I have kids.

• 10:20Channing Crowder?

  It's an unconventional understatement. Shooting at you to know, to let you know that you can get shot.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  But you have to understand.

• 10:27Channing Crowder?

  TD, that's crazy.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, you might consider that, but I didn't. And it's almost like certain things happen now that we can't, we can't do. And we look back and say, you know what's crazy? Right in the back of a pickup truck. Where the bed, right? And we used to be in the back of the pickup truck with no seatbelts or nothing. That was the way it was back then. You can't do that now. Like, you would never put your kids in the back of a pickup truck.

• 10:50Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  Right? Now that's crazy.

• 10:52Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  So, it's just how you were raised. What, when did you grow up? It was all unique. I never thought for once that my dad would ever harm me. I had never felt that. Like, he would give us whooping, that was it. But as far as like, you know, shooting us, no. But, um, no, he did that. That's, that's a real story, man.

• 11:12Fred Taylor?

  Your dad is in the streets, so maybe not as much time at home as you guys and your siblings would have probably liked. Your introduction to sports.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:22Fred Taylor?

  How did you get involved?

• 11:24Speaker 02

  So I had my older brothers, they all played everything. Baseball, basketball, football. For me, football, because of the violence of football, I realized that that was a way for me to get my dad's approval. You know, I played baseball, sucked. Played basketball, I mean, nothing else resonated with me. I'm, I'm the only, I'm the only football player ever who say they can only play football.

• 11:50Fred Taylor?

  I became that guy.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  Huh?

• 11:52Fred Taylor?

  I became that guy.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  You became that guy? But I promise you, everybody, I bet you, every time you talk about what sport you would have been able to, been a pro in, everybody, you probably would have been like basketball or something, right?

• 12:02Channing Crowder?

  A pro at it, no, but I could hoop.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Let's see, there you go.

• 12:05Channing Crowder?

  I'm just being real.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  I'm saying. But everybody, everybody's like, was great at everything. I was great baseball player, I could have been a basketball player, I could have been a...

• 12:13Fred Taylor?

  That's always the DBs and receivers.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, but every, every, every person I know, every, every athlete I know, claims that. When people say, what other sport would you have been good at? My response is nothing. Like, I'm a football player. And I'm not, I wasn't just a running back, I'm a football player. Like, I played defensive line, I played linebacker, I was a kicker. I played it all. I just love to get, I love the sport of football. So going back to early years, when I realized that football was what like my dad, what he appreciated was that the contact and the violence and all that stuff. And since he considered me mama's boy as a being the youngest, I didn't like that. I hated him calling me that. So I needed to find something that could get his approval.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  And my brothers all play football, so I was like, this is a perfect fit. And from, and then I was playing with them just in the backyard pickup anyway. So, you know, you play with your other brothers, this will make you tougher. Make you tough, right. And then in many, you play with kids who are your same size, you know, same age. Oh, it wasn't even, it wasn't even, it wasn't even a competition then. Right. Cause I was running, I'm, I'm, my first position was they put me at, I was left guard. I was left guard.

• 13:29Channing Crowder?

  Nose, nose tackle.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Huh, your nose tackle?

• 13:31Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Cause this, I mean, the way they do it is pretty simple, right? They line you up and they run, you run gases and they take all the fast kids. They say, you guys go over there. All the slow kids, you go over there. I was in the slow group. So I went over there and they put me at left guard. And my brother, uh, just ordered me, Terry, he was the right guard. And we would have competitions during the game, who can knock out the most players. And this, this is, I'm, I'm seven years old. I mean, it's like for a seven year old. And we were trying to just, how many kids we can try to put and have the ambulance come out there and then take them off the field. And I never happened, that's, it's little league. But it was D cleators and all that stuff and we would, we would, uh, have a competition to do that. And that was fun for us.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  And then so the contact was really, really, um, it was fun. The last, second to last game of my, my, uh, first year playing, I used to pester the coaches about playing running back. For some reason, I wanted to play running back and he would never let me play. And then finally, like second to last game, we were beating a team pretty bad. So one of my coaches, I kept saying, hey Frank, I need, I want to play it. And he's finally like, all right, we gonna let you run the ball. And that was, that was the day. That was the day, man. That was the day that in my true position as running back. Now, I wasn't like Fred T. I wasn't shaking folks out of their boots.

• 14:50Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, he was 4'2" though.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I wasn't that dude. I wasn't a fast guy, but you couldn't bring me down. And so that, I mean, I probably scored, you know, two touchdowns that first game. And then I started the last game of the season, and I probably had five touchdowns, you know, 200 yards. I mean, I'm a little seven-year-old. I'm just running through them, man. I'm just crushing them.

• 15:12Channing Crowder?

  And it's funny hearing you talk, because you joked about RC research. And everybody looks up at Wikipedia. It's what you do. You see the store. Then you go back and look at the store. You wrote your book. So you see, I didn't read the book. I can't read no long book. I buy one, though.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Get the audio. Get the...

• 15:26Channing Crowder?

  Audio books.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Audio books now.

• 15:27Channing Crowder?

  As you read it, your father's painted as a monster, really. They say abusing animals, abusing kids. That's why you're talking about it. It's just kind of, I was like, damn, it's not the same.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Hell, no. Hell, no. No. But no, again, when I look back, my dad, I'm, shit, I'm 80%, 70% of what he built in me. And again, looking back, it wasn't, yeah, was it weird now? I would never do that to my kids. Like, that's one page in my dad's book I wouldn't, I'm not gonna take and use with my kids. But, so when we separated, my dad never, we always have food. He'd always had dinner made for us. He'd always, I mean, he was a very caring dad in terms of like providing. But was he, did he have his rules? Absolutely. But was he neglect, was he like a dad that neglected us? Hell, no. You know what I mean? He was tough.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  But he worked two jobs, provided food for us, made sure we had clothes on our backs. We went to a nice little school where he lived. But no, he was demanding. I mean, it wasn't easy, you know?

• 16:31Channing Crowder?

  Did football make it better?

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Football was, what got our relationship to a point where, um, where I felt like, okay, now pops, you know, he respects me as being like my other brothers.

• 16:45Channing Crowder?

  That's all you wanted?

• 16:46Speaker 02

  That's it. That's it. But he never, and my dad never said he loved us. That's just... Not that he didn't, but you know what I'm saying? He wasn't that person.

• 16:55Ryan Clark?

  When you have that sort of upbringing that it seems now you look back on very fondly in the sense of who it made you to be as a man. You're at Long Beach, you play like five games, and I looked at your stats, bro. You had 280 yards. You in Cali, by Pitter, was over recruiting at Georgia, and they come get you. You've played in five games, you've rushed for like 280. What are your expectations of yourself as you're headed to play big time SEC football?

• 17:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good question, man. It was weird because you just said it. I had, I played five games at Long Beach State. I walked on Long Beach State, end up getting a scholarship after my first year there. I redshirted, and then I played five games. I severely sprained my ankle in training camp, came back, played five games, and did the other one. So I didn't, I didn't play a full season. And then the season, Long Beach, bless, you know, George Allen was a great coach. And we weren't that, we weren't good, man. I mean, we were like, you know, we were like 100 and with a bottom program in D1 football.

• 18:04Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  Fast forward to that, you know, one year where we have Willie, Willie Brown's our head coach. We don't win a lot of games, and then when the season ends, they call us all in, they say, they're done. I mean, a team meeting, it was like, okay, I'm thinking we about to hear some good news. And they just said, listen, man, the program is done. Like, no financing, no money.

• 18:27Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  They have discontinued the program. And it's like, wow. Man, like, I had worked my way up from like 7th on the depth chart, earned a scholarship, but now you tell me the program's canceled? So that was interesting. So now you're scrambling, all right, what am I gonna do? I can stay at Long Beach, just be a student. They honored scholarships, so you can stay there. And that crossed my mind, but then the other side of me is I love football, I wanna play. And there was no schools knocking down the door trying to give me a scholarship. So I took a, a, a visit over to UCLA, uh, called them up, sent them some, you know, like I said, two minutes of, of highlights, which wasn't that much. And I did an unofficial visit there and they were, they were interested, but they weren't really clamoring.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  They, they had some other guys they wanted to sign. So in the meantime, I come back home, you know, within about two weeks span, we're looking for schools. My, my buddies were cutting up tape, trying to send them out to schools. And then I come back to my dorm room one day and you know, we had the old school answer machines, a little red dot, a little red lights beeping. And so I'm checking through the messages and, um, I hear this, this dude with a southern voice and he's like, hey, hey, hey, Terrell. This is, uh, it's Bob Pitter, uh, from the University of Georgia. I'm like, what? Like, I mean, I'm shocked to hear Georgia, like Georgia. So I'm, I run it back for my, my roommate to hear it. And I said, did he just say Georgia? He's like, yeah, man, he said Georgia.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  So I called him back and, um, he's like, hey, man, listen, we, uh, we're interested in bringing you out. Come look at the school and bring some tape. If we like what we see, we can offer you a scholarship. You know, I didn't know, I didn't know how they found me then. But the story goes, uh, cause I asked Bob Pitter about that. When I went to the, to Hall of Fame, I asked him because I was like, man, how the hell did you guys come out to California to find me? Like, it ain't like, I mean, come on, Miss Georgia, right? Right. Like you gotta skip over all these states. You gotta go over a lot of, and then you go into one of the worst programs in the country. Like, it ain't like you going to, you know, a respectable D1 program. And he said that he called, they saw it on the news and they, they just, they was like, listen, let's just see if they have anything there.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  And they asked him and said, do you guys have anybody on your roster who you think can play in the SCC? And the person said, yeah, we got one person that can, that we think can play in the SCC. And they said me.

• 20:47Fred Taylor?

  Wow. So you fast forward 91, 92, you transfer to Georgia. You're playing behind one of the best backs in the country in Garrison Hurst. He goes on to get drafted and 93, you become the man, become the man.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:59Fred Taylor?

  But injuries slow you down. So 93, 94, you know, you're still a great player, but the injuries. No, no, no, you're a very good player. And then the injuries are a big thing and those things are slowing you down. And another rumor has it that former coach Ray Goff, he didn't share your, your, your film and footage with the NFL, with the pro scouts. Is there truth to that?

• 21:23Speaker 02

  I was told by certain scouts that that that happened. He and I, we just butted heads. We just did not like each other. But when I went to Georgia, the biggest thing that happened to me, and it happens to a lot of players, was that the lights were too bright, man. Like, I'm at Long Beach State. You go to Georgia, and I'm behind Garrison Hurst, who, you know, top five in Heisman Trophy ballots. The dude was bad. I mean, Garrison's probably one of the best backs I've ever played. He probably is the best back I've ever played with. Because the skills were off the chain. And then I'm behind him for a year. He goes to the draft, and then, all of a sudden, it's time for me to shine. And I had worked my way up again from like 7th to backing him up.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  And then, when it was my turn, and now I'm on these like SCC magazines, and everybody's expecting me to be Garrison Hurst, to be the next great Georgia running back. Man, that's a lot of pressure, man. That was a lot for me. And I just never felt comfortable with that role. And then you add injuries. You add the, you know, fighting with the head coach. You know, I'm not from Georgia, so I'm out of my element. I'm missing being back home with my friends. So I struggled at Georgia, big time. And that was kind of my career there. My junior season, I came out, I was actually, came out the gates smoking, man. Like, you know, back to back, like probably three straight 100-yard games. But we weren't winning games, we were losing.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  And so everybody was like, ah, you know, this dude, this running back ain't Garrison. Because I wasn't giving you 50-yard runs, 70-yard runs. I'm giving you, I'm a chain mover. I moved the chains. Like, I'm gonna play the game the way the game.

• 23:02Ryan Clark?

  They give me 10 yards, they give me four plays to get it.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Exactly. So whether it's second or sixth, all right, I'm trying to get you seven, eight. I'm trying to get you closer to first down. And that's the way I played the game. But they wanted, they wanted the pizzazz. They wanted 90-yard runs, and that just wasn't me. So, fast forward to my senior year, when this is when I thought football for me was done. You know, I struggled at Georgia, couldn't stay healthy, conflict with the head coach. And then I tore my hamstring the second game of my senior year. And I missed five games. And during that five-game stretch...

• 23:36Speaker 02

  To me, I'm like, football's really over. Like, I don't really have a chance to play on the next level. Doesn't look like it. And then one game I go to, it's, uh, I think we're playing Vanderbilt. Or something, and I'm sitting in stands. They wouldn't even let me sit on sideline. That's how, that's how much me and my coach was beefing. So they made me sit in the stands, so I'm sitting in the, in the nosebleeds. And I'm watching Georgia play. And I'm, so as I'm watching the game, I'm just, for some reason, I had a different perspective. Cause I'm like, you know, you can't tell when people are hurt. You can't tell what people are going through. And the people in the stands don't give a damn. Right. They don't care what you're going through. They, they just want performance. And so I, I used to always lean on, man, I'm hurt, so I can't play. And I realized, man, it don't matter what you, what you're going through, they don't know that.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  And if you suit up, you better be performing. Absolutely. That's, that's the rule. You can't have excuses if once you put the pads on, it, they're out the window. And then I sat there and I asked myself a question as I was sitting there, cause I didn't feel like I fulfilled my, uh, my potential at Georgia. And I said, damn, did I give it everything I had when I played, when I was on the field? And the answer came back, and I was like, no, I didn't. Wow. I didn't. I don't know why. I, I asked myself that question. Now,

• 24:48Speaker 02

  we had four more games left, and I was on my way back from, uh, from the torn hamstring. And I just said, man, you know what? I didn't, I, I, I really didn't have the, I didn't enjoy college like I thought I would. At least the football part of it. And I said, man, when I come back, I wanna be able to walk off the field when my career's over. Next, after these next four games. I just wanna be able to walk off the field and just ask myself the question, did I give it everything I had? And at the answer, I wanted to just be, yes, I did. And that's it, right? I was like, that's the only thing that my, my goal is from now. I, I cannot, I don't wanna walk away from this, this situation with regret.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  And I said, I can hold my head up high if I walk away and say, man, yeah, I gave everything, everything I had, and that wasn't good enough. I'm cool with that. But what would kill you over your life is when you say, damn, I should've played harder. I should've did this, I should've did that. And I said, I didn't want that. Eventually, I came back that next week, and I was ready. They put me at fullback because Heinz Ward was a freshman. He was a starting running back. When I went down, Heinz became the starting running back. So they wanted, they didn't want to bench Heinz. And so we, I played two games at fullback. And man, when I tell you, man, I was running through, I was running through brick walls. As a fullback, I'm talking about ISO blocks. It didn't matter. I was doing everything and I didn't care, but I had the most fun.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Every game day, you show up for your team. Now it's your time.

• 26:18Speaker 00

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• 26:37Speaker 02

  During that period that I had at Georgia, I was free. I didn't think no more. I didn't care what, what the fans thought. I didn't care about, you know, whether I had 100 yards. If I needed to break up, you know, go for a thousand. It didn't, it didn't matter, Fred. And it was, it was all about playing football, the way I played it when I was little. And when I found that joy and when I found that right kind of cadence, man, I was happy. And then finally the coaches came to me and they were like, hey, man, we noticed something different in you. Like you just look different out there. You know, we love the way you've been practicing, love the way you've been. And they didn't have me at scout team during that two weeks too, and I was killing them. I'm playing, I'm playing scout team. I'm just, I'm running through them. And normally if, if the play is called, you know, toss right or whatever, 18, I'll keep it right side.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  Man, in practice, I'm taking that thing, I'm reversing field, I'm doing everything. I'm just, I'm having fun. I don't care.

• 27:27Ryan Clark?

  You're back to being seven years old.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  I'm back to being seven years old, man, last two games. And so then they came to me and we're playing Auburn. We have Auburn and Georgia Tech are our last two games. And they said, hey, man, you look, you're looking really good. So we're going to make you the starting running back. So they put me start against Auburn. Auburn was like on a 20 something game win streak. You know, they were number one team. And so they made me the starter. And from there, man, I, I just, you know, went to that game, had probably the best game I ever had. Caught the ball, blocked it, everything, ran the ball. We didn't beat Auburn, we tied them. But it was for the first time that I had to play the game the way I wanted to play a game. The way I wanted to play a game. And I did something interesting that night before we played Auburn.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  After our team meeting, I got up there and I would never do this. Enough. I would never address the team. Like, I don't know what happened, but something compelled me to say something to the team. And I stood up there and I told them, like, hey, man, listen, and kind of paraphrasing it, but more likely, give me the football, I guarantee you, I'll get 100 yards and we gonna win this game. But I, you know, I said some other stuff and that was a sign for myself of kind of taking things to the next level and maturing a little bit and taking responsibility and accepting that role of, man, that spotlight, when you accept the role of being greatness, it's not easy. Like, people think that, you know, that everybody embraces that role. They don't.

• 28:56Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Man, it is hard to be the man.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  It's hard to be the man.

• 29:04Channing Crowder?

  And being that man, to be honest with you, TD, you weren't good at football.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  No.

• 29:09Channing Crowder?

  You weren't, like, if y'all talking, going through, you know, the transfers and then come to Georgia, you weren't good at football.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  I was a football player though.

• 29:16Channing Crowder?

  You had a jersey and a helmet. But then, but then you become like, RC came, well, we brought in, we brought in a Hall of Famer. Like, was that the switch? Because as you talk about growing up, you weren't good, got to college, you weren't good.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I didn't say I wasn't good. I said I wasn't, I wasn't a foot.

• 29:33Channing Crowder?

  I'm telling you wasn't good.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm saying, well, all right, if you, if you ask, and I'll probably skip this entire thing, but from the time I was seven years old, when I told you I got the rock and started destroying kids, I was the best back in probably San Diego, probably California, from seven to 12. So I had, I had experienced that as a kid, being really good. As a matter of fact, they gave me a name, Boss Hogg, when I was trucking over fools. I was trucking them. So Boss Hogg was like a legendary player in San Diego, ask anybody about Boss Hogg, from seven to 12. So I was really good. And then I quit. When my dad, my dad died, I just lost everything. I lost... I lost my, my passion for football. I lost my passion for life. And so I stopped playing.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  And then when I came back to play in high school and I got back into football, I remember distinctly having that feeling of, man, every game we played, if I didn't score four or five touchdowns, you know, we probably, we could win, but it was a little bit of pressure feeling like every game you had to be the man. And I, I wanted, I didn't want to be in that spotlight. So that's why I ended up playing nose guard in high school. So most people think, I know, I just, I, I volunteered to be a nose guard. I didn't want to play, I played fullback and nose guard. Because I wanted, I wanted to help our team win, but I didn't want to be like the...

• 30:50Ryan Clark?

  You want to be the guy?

• 30:50Speaker 02

  I did not, uh.

• 30:52Ryan Clark?

  With that, take us to Tokyo, Japan and trying to get home and quit football, your, your rookie year. First off, the fact that they sent y'all on a preseason game to Japan is absolutely bonkers.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Why you say that?

• 31:08Ryan Clark?

  To, to spend that money and listen.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  You know, back in the American Bowl, they, we traveled not only to like, we went to Australia. We went to Mexico City. We went to Japan. And then other teams went, I think they went to Europe, went, uh, I guess they were going to Europe back then.

• 31:25Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  So the American Bowl was...

• 31:27Ryan Clark?

  It was a big deal.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  It was a big deal. It was, it was, it was the, it was the, it was a version of, of what we have now, where they go regular season, but it was preseason stuff.

• 31:36Ryan Clark?

  So you was try, you were trying to quit and come home. What was it? The language barrier? You couldn't get, you couldn't get yourself back to the crib?

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that happened. That happened in my rookie year.

• 31:46Ryan Clark?

  Yeah. That's the game, San Francisco. You make kind of the special teams tackle. It kind of, that, that sounds almost like playing fullback for you. Where you start an ascension doing something that wasn't going to be your job.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  My job doing it. Yeah, so it was my rookie season and again, I go to get drafted, Denver, six round, get to Denver and you guys know how camp is, man. If you're a six round draft, brother, you get no reps. So I was getting no reps. I'm, I'm on the depth chart, six, I'm seventh on the depth chart. We have a new coach, so they have, they don't know, they don't, definitely didn't know me. And they were trying to really get players that had experience to give them more, more time and reps. So in our camps for super long, we talking about, we had five, we had six weeks because we had a new coach and we had five preseason games back then. I know, y'all young boys, y'all young boys, y'all wouldn't know what to do with that, with that six week training camp over there.

• 32:43Ryan Clark?

  Well, Freddie T negotiated the CBA that set y'all up like that.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  He probably managed.

• 32:49Fred Taylor?

  It's on the whole head in a group, that's a running joke.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  We played the Niners actually twice, which is weird. We played them the first game in Denver, and we played them again in Tokyo. The following week, we get there on, I think it's Tuesday, and it is, I don't know if you've ever been to Tokyo, and it is hot, I mean, it's hotter than being down in Georgia and Florida, man, the humidity is through the roof, and it was super hot. We were practicing against the 49ers, so we're doing the joint practice with the Niners when we get there, soon as we get there, and we're down to two backs. So now I go from getting zero reps in training camp to getting all of the reps. And I am blowing it, man, I'm telling you, I'm exhausted, I don't, I'm blowing the assignments, I'm dropping passes, I'm getting my ass kicked on, on pass pro, you name it, I'm, I'm, I'm losing.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  You know, I'm struggling, and I, and so in my mind, and I'm getting, my coach is cussing me out, I just think, man, at this point, they gonna cut me anyway.

• 33:45Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  So what the hell am I doing here?

• 33:49Speaker 02

  I go back to the hotel, and I'm like, I'm getting the hell out of here, man, like, I, I can't keep doing this, bro, like, this is just stupid. And so I called down to the front desk, you know, they didn't have, there wasn't no phone with Travelocity, this ain't no Expedia, you don't, you don't just book through your phone back then, we didn't have, we didn't have these nice phones. And, but Japanese wasn't great, so we weren't communicating. And I'm like, let's go take a flight out. Didn't understand her, she didn't understand me, so after about 10 minutes of frustration, I was like, you know what, screw this, man, when we get back to Denver, I'm done. Like, I'm just gonna quit, I'm going back to Georgia, I'll figure it out, but I'm done, like, I'm going, you know, football just wasn't, wasn't for me at the time.

• 34:27Speaker 02

  So we, we, uh, gotta go to the game, so I go to the game, and, you know, again, my mind is already, I've already quit. So that game comes and I'm just, you know, watching every, every quarter go by. Then we have halftime, we come out, third quarter. And at halftime though, I'm starving, man. So I gotta eat, brother. Like, you know, y'all veterans on the sideline. They got hot dogs, they got nachos, they eating whatever. So I'm eating, eating with the fellas. And then all of a sudden they called me, uh, special teams coach, Richard Smith. He's like, hey, 30. And everybody screaming 30, go on the field. Now this is on kickoff. They tell me to go on the field, kickoff, so I would go out there. And I remember thinking though, I'm like, damn, I'm in this game and I'm, I'm, and I, you know, I had done kickoffs as a kid.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  We all run down there. But I'm all, but I'm also conscious and know that, man, it's the first time I get a chance to prove, to show something. So I'm like, dude, like, whoever getting that ball, I'm, I'm running down there. I'm knocking somebody's head off. That's, that was my mentality. So when I saw the dude catch the ball and run, I was like, oh yeah, this is on. It's on. That was my shot. Beelined it. Hmm. Tyrone Drakeford. I remember his name too.

• 35:34Fred Taylor?

  That's exactly who it was.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  My bad, man. My bad. My bad, T. Drake.

• 35:38Fred Taylor?

  Wow, shoot. Thank you, Tyrone.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I appreciate it. That was actually textbook tackling. If you watched the film, it was textbook, Frank. Really good. But that, that was the play. I made that tackle, man. And, um, that was the one where I went back to the sideline. That was probably the first time that Elway, I even seen Elway give, you know, had said something to me. And as the preseason progressed, I was getting more and more responsibilities and I was answering the bell with everything.

• 36:03Fred Taylor?

  You go from a sixth round pick, 196 overall, like the sixth guy on the depth chart. And typically, special teams is the way, if you're gonna make any noise and if you're a long shot guy.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:14Fred Taylor?

  Special teams is the way you can, can make the team.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:17Fred Taylor?

  But you did more than that. You, you, you, you gained, you came from sixth on the depth chart to the starter. Your rookie year in 95. You ended up with 1,100 yards rushing. The most yards by a back, uh, drafted that late. And then in 96, you ended up having 1,500 yard rushes. You got new money.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  Oh, shit.

• 36:41Fred Taylor?

  New money. Five years, 7 million dollars.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Upgrade from that, that.

• 36:46Fred Taylor?

  Five years, 6.8.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, you can't skip over my contract. You gotta tell the world, you, you.

• 36:50Fred Taylor?

  Well, let's go about, let's get to the contract. I'll let you hit it.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  My, my signing bonus was for $38,000.

• 36:58Fred Taylor?

  Say that again?

• 37:05Channing Crowder?

  I went third round, but it wasn't no thirty-eight thousand.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  Thirty-eight grand. My base salary was a hundred and nineteen grand. My first year.

• 37:13Fred Taylor?

  That's huge.

• 37:15Ryan Clark?

  I'm supposed to be sad?

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, no, not sad, no.

• 37:18Ryan Clark?

  My first, my signing bonus check, six hundred and eighty-three dollars and like seventy-four cent after taxes.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you were undrafted though.

• 37:25Ryan Clark?

  Well, I know, but you ain't gotta say it like that.

• 37:27Channing Crowder?

  Back to my point, y'all should have been better at football.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  It was how much?

• 37:33Ryan Clark?

  It was, it was a thousand dollars. Total, but after taxes.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  That was signing bonus? Damn.

• 37:39Fred Taylor?

  That's what you call wipe your ass money.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Cause you came in two thousand and?

• 37:43Ryan Clark?

  Two.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Two.

• 37:45Fred Taylor?

  But in ninety-five, you, you lead all rookies, you, you have an amazing rookie year. Then in ninety-six, you have well over fifteen hundred. You get the new money and from there, everything's up. And, and, and ninety-seven, Super Bowl MVP, you break all the other records, all of the Broncos record. And ninety-eight, you go over two thousand. In ninety-eight, and then in ninety-nine. The ninety-eight was MVP, league MVP, but you already had a Super Bowl MVP in the bag. And you were talking earlier about being the man. How did you handle all of that? It wasn't instant, we, you told us the journey and the hard work, but how did you handle that? From a guy who didn't want to be the guy?

• 38:27Speaker 02

  It taught me, man, you either, you either embrace it and accept what comes with it. And I used to have this thing, I used to think about an acronym and I call it, it's a, I call it rope. Responsibility, obligation, pressure and expectations, right?

• 38:42Speaker 02

  The, if you think about a rope, you can either pull yourself up with this rope or this rope is going to trip you, it's going, you're going to trip on the rope.

• 38:48Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  And it allowed me to kind of look at it and say, you really have a choice to handle pressure and handle being famous, handle being good. It comes with, it comes with a lot of.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  A lot of things we don't think about. We, well, these kids probably think, I want to be like LeBron James. But do you realize? What he got to deal with? Do you realize the amount of pressure? And, you know, expectations that LeBron has to deal with on a day to day, day to day basis? No, LeBron's been dealing with this since he was in, uh, youth sports. And it's not easy, man. And I, and so I had to say, I either, I'm either going to accept this and what comes with this, or I'm not. And when I embraced it after being in Georgia, saying, from this point on, I'm going to accept whatever comes with this. And try not to sabotage myself with looking at my, uh, my career and trying to just be good enough.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  And we all play with players and we all, you know, you guys know them. I know I played with players. They just wanted to be good enough that they can make the squad. You live the, live the life of an NFL player, but on Sundays, they didn't want to, they didn't want to contribute. They didn't want to, they didn't want the pressure of having to go play. We all know them. I, I, I'm not going to blow out no names, but I play with players like that. And it's like, they just wanted to make, and I was like that. I just wanted to be good enough at Georgia, you know, where I'm making a contribution, but I don't want to be the man. I don't want, I don't want games to pin up. And that, and, and then in doing that, you sabotage yourself and you, chances are you're going to end up sucking and being, and not being the player you're supposed to be or person you're supposed to be.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  And so when I, when I made a commitment that from now on, from now on, I don't care about what happens, uh, I'm going to accept this role of being good, it freed me. And, and it freed me to where, when I took that mentality to, to Denver, yeah, I expected to be the man. And when I became the man, everything that came with it, I was like, all right, this is what, this is what comes with this. And, um, was it easy? No.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Wasn't easy being, being the man and having to deal with, you know, crowds and not being able to go places and now interview requests, you're getting a lot of them. The team is leaning on you when, when they need a spark. That's not easy.

• 41:13Fred Taylor?

  I got a little ahead of myself because I, I kinda jumped over the 97 season in the year you won the Super Bowl MVP.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:21Fred Taylor?

  And the entire season, I mentioned, you had 17, over 700 yards rushing. And then in the playoffs, you did something only one back in the history of the game John Riggins had ever done. You had consecutive 100 yard games and each playoff game leading to the Super Bowl. There again, your team is, is leaning on you. They need you to be the spark if they're gonna do anything. But in the second quarter of the Super Bowl in which you won the Super Bowl MVP, you, you, you were nowhere to be found. You had migraines.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:50Fred Taylor?

  What was going through your head in, in the most important game in your entire life and your whole career since you started playing football? What was, well, other than the migraine, what was going through your mind?

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Fuck. Come on, man. Like, you know, this is the game we've all been, we've been, we've been working for as a kid. We didn't work our asses off to get here and all of a sudden a migraine comes and I, that was like my biggest fear was having my, having a migraine right in the middle of, of, of this kinda game. And my biggest fear came true. And when it hit me in the second quarter, the only thing I could think of was I was disappointed that I was letting the cats that we, I got there with down. And that's the biggest thing as a player, man. If we, if you feel that regret, if you feel disappointed as a player, that's, that's all I want you to, I mean, as a, as a teammate, we, I don't play the game for nobody else.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  I didn't, I never, I'm playing it for all the cats on this field, the coaches, in the locker room. Now fans, I mean, obviously kinda indirectly for them, but mainly for the dudes that I'm, I'm, I'm suiting up with. And so when I felt like I was letting them down, that was the hardest thing for me to get over. Was I'm letting, I'm letting, I'm letting them down. But I, there's nothing I could do about it. I had to let the migraine run its course. And typically what happens is my vision goes, and that's about an hour. And then, you know, once that clears up, I have a pounding headache and then I have nausea, vomiting. And then I could have a headache for anywhere from, you know, four hours to sometimes, my longest was two days. And so when it happened right in the middle of game, I'm like, alright.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  Started looking, doing the math on it. It happened in the second quarter. We got a long ass halftime coming up, I knew that. And I'm like, so there's a good chance I could, I could see. And I took my medication that I take once I get a migraine. And I actually forgotten to take my, my medicine to prevent the migraine. Because of everything that was going on, you know, it's the Super Bowl, so. My mind was just strictly on plays and just thinking about the game. And I didn't realize until I walked back in after, after our pregame, I'm like, damn, I forgot to take this medicine. And I was like, oh shit. So that really started thinking, now I'm really scared that it could happen. And then the perfect storm hit. You know, I don't know if you saw the play, but I'm getting a toss right.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  I come downhill, I cut back in and it's, yeah, Santana dies and trips me. And I fall down and then my, as I'm falling, my head gets hit on, I don't know whose knee it was, but right, I mean, it was like a. Right on top of my helmet. And I knew it. I mean, everything went black and I was like. As I kind of stayed there on my knees, trying to recover from it. I'm knowing what's about to happen and it's crazy. Alright, this thing's about to come and I'm praying it doesn't come, but I know it. Yeah, here's the other thing too. You think about, we're talking about different eras and, and time. If that happened today, I don't play in that game.

• 44:47Channing Crowder?

  Not another snap.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  I don't play in that game. Helmet's gone, I'm out the game, I'm in street clothes watching. So it's, it's kind of like, sometimes I'm like, damn, I, I wish. I played in today's game because of all the, the non-practices you guys, well, not you guys, but, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's beautiful and, and the game has not suffered from it. So I, I enjoy all that. But I'm also grateful back then that we had some liberty in, in saying, hey, I, I want to play.

• 45:16Channing Crowder?

  And bro, speaking about your greatness and them four, that four year stretch, and you have a gold jacket, so these doubters, you, you, you stuck your tongue out at them, I say. But you were in a system that was very advantageous for a back.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:29Channing Crowder?

  And when people speak about you and your successes, they always bring up Shanahan.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:33Channing Crowder?

  And that wide zone where you weren't, they would say you're not like a Marshall Faulk or a LeDanian that could play in any system, give them the ball.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:39Channing Crowder?

  Your success was based on Shanahan's play calls. What do you, how do you feel about that when people want to downplay a Hall of Fame career?

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Did you just say I had a, what, what's that, home?

• 45:48Channing Crowder?

  You got the gold jacket. But could you, because the doubters, that you couldn't, you couldn't, you couldn't play in the greatest show on turf and be Terrell Davis TD?

• 45:56Speaker 02

  I would say, it's, it's, it's a funny argument, because if you look at Denver, like, if you look at Denver's offense, we didn't run a wide stretch my rookie year. So, and I, and I said, if you know football, I said, go back and watch this film. You tell me if, if I ran a wide stretch and I have over a thousand yards. We ran the true split back formation. I was running the ball at a three point stance. I was doing dives and whams and bobs and all this other stuff. So I've already proven I could play in another system, because that wasn't what we ran my second and third year. We ran strictly San Francisco's west coast offense, which is strictly, the fullback and halfbacks are interchangeable. So I blocked a lot, I was, I was blocking a lot.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  And it's funny, because my longest run came from a, a 10 wham, which is, which, I mean, it's, it's the most old school looking play you ever want to see.

• 46:44Channing Crowder?

  Right, right.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  The quarterback turns around and I just do a dive, I dive up the middle, I run 60 yards down the field. So, I mean, to me, I don't, listen, I, I guess at this point, I never really, it doesn't really matter. Because I mean, what people say, whether, whether you can play in another system or not, um, I will say this though. Yeah, am I blessed to have played with Mike Shanahan? Hell yeah. Am I blessed to have played with Elway? Hell yeah. Am I blessed to have been with, you know, Shannon? Hell yeah. So, all of that was necessary. I'm not the one that's gonna come up and tell you that, "Yeah, I could do all of it." No, I needed my team. I needed my offensive line. I needed to be on a team that had the way we practiced.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  The way we went about our business, cuz Mike took everything from San Francisco. And we had kind of the, we were the first ones to not have, we didn't hit at all, really. We had our nine-on-seven periods during the season, and then that was it. And that was like eight plays. So, for them, it was all speed, speed, speed. It was the first time that I had to, in practice, get the ball and run forty, fifty yards down the field every time you touched the ball. And what that did for me, it allowed me to build up stamina and endurance. And I had never been known for speed, but I started to become faster the way we practiced. So, I'm gonna always give credit to being in that organization and call it a system, or whatever you wanna call it.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  But, I took advantage of it. And, you know, that's just the big thing. It's people who are in systems that cater to what they do. They didn't take advantage of it. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not, yeah, that stuff doesn't really bother me anymore. I don't really care about that. I do recognize that, as far as skills, no, I'm not the most talented skilled player. Cuz I always said that this dude over here sitting on this chair, he knows it. I keep saying it. I'ma keep saying it. As far as skills, I don't know if there's one better than Freddie Taylor out there.

• 48:39Channing Crowder?

  Agree with that. So, why didn't he have a jacket?

• 48:41Speaker 02

  Well, he played on a team, they didn't win a lot. I mean, it's, I mean, it's a lot. It's a small market. You know, you gotta say, timing, everything. I mean, when you stuck in, you know, no, not downplaying Jacksonville.

• 48:54Fred Taylor?

  Every time the Hall of Fame thing comes around, you know, I see so many fans, the Twitter, the Instagram, like, just all over the place. They would, you know, they defend me and say, "If our Freddie T had played in Dallas," or... Pittsburgh or New York.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:09Fred Taylor?

  You have a jacket already, but neither here nor there. We don't have any control of it, which is the reason why I don't have a jacket. But I always go back to the guys that has done it before me. Yourself always vouching for me. You got the Derrick Brooks, you know, the Ed Reeves, the Ray Lewis. Those guys who I've played against or the guys that have seen me play the position, Marcus Allen. Those guys, when they say Freddie T is my type of guy.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:36Fred Taylor?

  And when Jim Brown said that, that validated my entire career. So the jacket would be icing, obviously, but to hear it from those guys that you go to war with and that you respect and admire, it it it means more right here to me.

• 49:50Ryan Clark?

  I think that goes to the next point. Listening to you speak about your football journey is also about life for you. You started playing because you felt like that physicality would draw you closer to your father.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:04Ryan Clark?

  He passes, you lose that passion, right? That's that's one stage of TD playing football. And then you're sitting in the stands and you ask yourself a question.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:15Ryan Clark?

  You say to yourself, have I given everything I can possibly give to this game? And so no matter what happens for the next few games I'm back, if it's blocking for Heinz Ward, whatever it is, I'm gonna go out and do that to the best of my ability. You can't get home from Japan, but you get an opportunity on kickoff and you say to yourself, this is my opportunity. This is my chance to go show them that I have something. All of those things culminate with a Super Bowl MVP. All of those things culminate with the MVP of the entire league, which is dang near impossible for running backs to do.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Especially now.

• 50:50Ryan Clark?

  Right, and then you have 99, you have 2000, you have 2001. And ironically, you retire in the week leading up to a preseason game against San Francisco, which started it all.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:03Ryan Clark?

  You wait that amount of time to finally get your gold jacket. When you when you get that call and they're telling you that you are now a Hall of Famer, what parts of your career, what parts of your life, your journey, did you reflect on the most?

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Probably the tougher, the harder ones. Again, going back to my dad and how I always wondered, because I don't have the answer to this, but I always wondered.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  Every game day, you show up for your team. Now, it's your time.

• 51:41Speaker 00

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• 52:00Speaker 02

  Was he ever proud? Because he never got a chance to see me play. So I've always wondered, all this time, like, how does he feel? Is he looking down? Is he proud? I hope he is. You know, I feel like he is. And that, to me, was really came out during the Hall of Fame. Because I didn't think about that for a while, until I was, you know, getting ready to do the speech and started thinking about, or reflecting on the career. It's like, damn, you know, my pops, that's the one that kind of drove me to want to be good at football. And how does he feel about it? I've had moments in my life where I felt like I wasn't supposed to be here. I don't know if I did tell you guys the story,

• 52:41Speaker 02

  but when my dad died, that's when everything went off the rails, man. I kind of lost it. Wasn't playing sports. And it was one day I was coming back from a party about 2 o'clock in the morning, me and my buddy, and some friend of his. And we decided to stop at a neighborhood where, for whatever reason, see a friend. We pull up to the neighborhood. I'm sitting there in the backseat. He's in the passenger seat. She's driving. And there were some guys out there. Really can't see them, kind of super dark, and there's kind of some silhouettes out there. So a guy walks over to the driver's seat. He's talking to the girl. And all of a sudden, he sees my friend. Apparently, they're in opposite, you know, they're in rival gangs. And so, they start shouting, yelling. He gets out the car. I get out of the car.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  I walk around the back of the car. And they're in the street, about to square off and fight. And everybody, and so people coming, they're just like, you know, walking around, or just watching them about to fight. And all of a sudden, he runs. And the whole group runs after him. And as I'm watching them run off... I'm kind of watching it and um so as I look up, someone's walking toward me and I can't see it. I can't make out what it is, but as he gets closer, I start to realize what it is. It's a shotgun. And he walks up and he puts a shotgun to my head. And I'm just like, I throw my hands up and I'm backing up like, hey, man, I like, I'm not part of this. I'm just, you know, watching what's going on. And then as I'm, as I'm walking backwards, there's another guy who recognized me.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  And he tells the dude, he's like, hey, that's, my brother's name is Bobby, but the, the, the street name, they call him Sin, you know, Sinister Bob. So they call him Sinny Bobo. And he said, that's Sinny Bobo's brother. And so then the guy, you know, he's like, who? He says, Sinny Bobo. So he recognizes that and he pulls the gun off my head and he goes away. My buddy, I go over there, see, check him out and he's beat up, blood everywhere. They just, they stomped him out. And so we help him back in the car, get him a car, takes me home that night. That was really another turning point in my life. That's when I stopped playing football, wasn't doing anything, man. I put myself in a situation where I'm in the wrong damn neighborhood. You know, that, what, I'm fourteen, fifteen at the time, fourteen, fifteen. It's like, what am I doing putting myself in this situation?

• 54:53Speaker 02

  But what kept replaying in my mind at night when I was trying to go to sleep was that I was, I was really about

• 55:01Speaker 02

  oh, I don't know how many pounds of pressure it is to shoot a gun, but it, it doesn't take much. And I'm like, that, I could have been dead. You know what I mean? That moment replays in my head a lot and how I got myself into that situation. And I feel like I was letting my mom down, you know, she was working her butt off. Because now she had to take all of us in when my dad passed. So now you got uh, my other brothers were graduating, but you have four or five at the house and it was a lot on her. So I always think I, I always go back to like these, these points in my career. And how I ended up as a Hall of Famer is like, the road is never really paved like this straight road. Most, most of us have this, this road and sometimes that road is not only a detour.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  Uh, sometimes a roadblock. Like you, you gonna find a lot of roadblocks to trying to get to where you want to go. But as I said before, I I love everything that's ever happened to me. Cause I think ultimately it made me who I became. And it prepared me for all those disappointments. It prepared me for programs shutting down at Long Beach. Prepared me for, you know, games where, you know, you're down or you gotta play hurt. Or people are down on you, whatever it is. You know, I just felt like all of that prepared me to be that that player that I became. Uh, not only as a football player, but I think as a man, like, you know, just kind of always being resilient. Stuff happens, you can't control a lot of stuff and you don't try to.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  And, you know, I I just like what Shannon was talking about, like I, like I never think I'm the the greatest. Now, on the field, was I the best back ever? Yeah, I felt that way. And it didn't matter what nobody else felt, cause that it wasn't for everybody to feel that way. But but when you get to that level and we all we all played on that level, you gotta feel like you're the best out there.

• 56:47Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  Now, anything after that and conversations of who the best ever? Biggest thing, I think you just said it. The biggest thing for me is if my teammates say, man, when TD played, that dude gave us that, that dude was a hit man. They don't, I don't need to, nobody say he was the best. I didn't even say when he played, man, we knew, we knew what he was gonna bring every time he played.

• 57:07Fred Taylor?

  A thousand percent.

• 57:08Speaker 02

  That's, that's the biggest compliment I can give to my teammate. It's not that, oh, yeah, he's, like, people got mad one time when I said Elway was the second, you know, we were ranking quarterbacks. And I had put, you know, put Tom at number one, Elway at number two. And they was like, well, is John the second? Well, you think he'll say that about you as running back? I was like, yeah, he probably will. He probably wouldn't even have me in the top 10. And that's fine. Cause it's not about who you think is the best running back. It's like, if you ask John, like, would he, would he, would he wanna play with another back other than me? And if he said another back, then that might be different. Like, I wouldn't say that, like, that's the only quarterback that I wanna play for. I respect Tom Brady, but I don't need to play with nobody but number seven. Cause I played with that dude and I know what he can do. I've been there. I I know that, I know number seven. I know what he gonna do every single game.

• 57:53Speaker 02

  And that's, that's the biggest compliment you can give a player, man. It's saying that they gave it everything they had when they played.

• 57:58Fred Taylor?

  It started with you being the sixth round pick. That's what most people probably, you know, know when they tie into your pro career. But you say you were the youngest of six at one point. You say your dad said bullets cost six cents.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  Oh, here we go.

• 58:13Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  I see, I see, okay.

• 58:14Fred Taylor?

  And you were the sixth back on the depth chart before you, you know, went on and did your thing. And it just led me to start thinking about appropriation in a sixth sense. Things that you can't explain, things that just happens to happen. And for that reason, you became, you know, that, that thing that just happened to happen. You know, in life, unexplainable. But I think that the number six for me and, and where it's led you.

• 58:44Fred Taylor?

  I am appreciative to call you a friend.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:47Fred Taylor?

  Because if it wasn't for all those things that you endured and experienced in your life, we wouldn't be here. But man, I just love and admire you, you know that. I wholeheartedly respect the fuck out of you for everything, not just as a player, but who you've become.

• 59:04Fred Taylor?

  I appreciate that.

• 59:05Speaker 02

  Likewise, you know, again, you know, and I'm always gonna say it. Not only from, I know you're a Gator, that's the only thing, that's the only, that's the only thing I can't, I just can't, I can't, I can't.

• 59:17Channing Crowder?

  Everybody hates looking up the hill at him, don't they?

• 59:19Ryan Clark?

  I travel with him all the time, so I went to LSU, so I'm with him all the time, I get it.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  Oh, I know, I know, but you said you told a story about you, about something about Florida, they recruited you and you didn't want to go there because?

• 59:30Ryan Clark?

  No.

• 59:30Channing Crowder?

  We didn't want him.

• 59:31Ryan Clark?

  Florida was the only SEC school that didn't offer me.

• 59:35Speaker 02

  That was the only one?

• 59:35Ryan Clark?

  They didn't need me.

• 59:36Channing Crowder?

  He got goofy and all, he's sick all the time, we don't do that at Florida. He got asthma.

• 59:44Ryan Clark?

  I don't have asthma. And you already said asthma is a mentality, not a natural sickness. I say, I say this, TD, from. My side of the football, the way you play the game, the biggest compliment I can ever give offensive players is I would have loved to play defense with you.

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:01Ryan Clark?

  That, that sort of physicality, that sort of mentality, those are the things that make running backs, at least to me, those are the things that make you respect them. To understand that if that dude was playing linebacker next to Channing, or if he was playing safety next to me, I would never have to worry about what we had to get accomplished and him giving everything to that. On the other side of it, man, listening to your story and the amount of times that you had to make decisions in order to be what you've become and who you are, never take that for granted either. I know you have all these moments that you say kind of helped you get to this point. We gotta make our own decisions.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  That's big, man, and that's, I think that's, that's what I try to, I try to always imprint that on, on young, our young people. Because everybody, everybody wants their situation to dictate what they do. And I've always said, man, we have a choice, like you have to choose that. And one of my, my beliefs is I've never allowed myself, or at least I try not to, I never allow my level of effort be dictated by the situation. Meaning if I go into a game, we're down by 14, I'm gonna give you the same. And that's the hardest thing to do, right? If you're down by 28 points, it's human nature is like, alright, man, we're losing by 28 points, let's just get the hell out of this game. Like, I, but I've tried even in games like that.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  And really, you talked about kind of Sixth Sense. I made the tackle in Tokyo and that's how my career started. You know how my career ended?

• 1:01:36Ryan Clark?

  No.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  Making a tackle.

• 1:01:38Ryan Clark?

  I did not know that.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  I made a tackle on a, on an interception. And when I made that tackle, ACL tear, teammate friendly fire came in from ACL. And so, most people like, man, what the hell you doing, dude? Like, I'd already won Super Bowls, league MVP. They were like, man, you should've just walked off the field. I said, I only know how to play the game one way. Like, that's the only way I know how to play the game. Now, I could've been that guy and saw the pick come my way, walked off the field and be like, I'm cool. But I just, I just, I don't play like that. And even in preseason games, I play the way I play. I just, I play the game one, one speed. I try to always play it one way. And I don't want to get sidebar with that, but I think it's important that people understand, man.

• 1:02:21Speaker 02

  Just don't ever look at something and try to play based off the situation.

• 1:02:25Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I think in the end, it's been said, the position doesn't make the man. The man makes the position. And you got to where you were during that. So, we appreciate you, brother. Cheers, man. Get a little.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  I said, I said, I said.

• 1:02:39Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, you can. Yes, look at ya. Yes, you can.

• 1:02:43Ryan Clark?

  Appreciate you, brother.

• 1:02:44Speaker 02

  No, appreciate it.

• 1:02:44Ryan Clark?

  Thank you. Yes, sir.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  Appreciate it, man.

• 1:02:46Ryan Clark?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:02:46Channing Crowder?

  Appreciate you, brother. Good man, man. Yeah.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  My man. Eddie T. Eddie T.