Marcus "Swagu" Spears from NFL to Analyst Talks Cowboys, Celtics & Growth as a Man

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 Former Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman Marcus Spears a.k.a “Swagu” joins The Pivot Podcast for a candid conversation covering his faith in God to pressures experienced while playing for the Cowboys to the expectations faced by sports analysts and the challenges men encounter through temptation. Receiving negative feedback as ESPN analysts for not speaking on the Favre situation, Ryan explains how it’s not his job as a host on a football show to talk about a former player’s off the field business- agreeing with Marcus that as football analysts it’s their job to cover what’s going on with players and football teams who play on Sundays. Avoiding speculation and understanding that not all the details are public, the guys talk about the Boston Celtics troubling situation involving the head coach and the shadow or casts for the organization, players and fans. And as men of color in power and positions of success, Marcus struggles to understand how and why people fall into these situations to lose everything they’ve worked for over temptation. Channing, Ryan and Fred all agree but also aren’t naive to the actions that led to Udoka’s suspension and the effect it has on the black community, especially females who looked to his partner Nia Long as a queen in their world. The men dive into a deep conversation of infidelity and Marcus opens up about how he is now in a place that he would never go down that road again. Although stardom was familiar to Marcus, transitioning from college to first round pick of the Dallas Cowboys was challenging on many levels. The guys talk about pressures faced by being drafted early and the environment created by high profile owners such as Jerry Jones and what it’s like to play with a star on your helmet. Marcus shares Joe being deeply rooted in his faith was the only thing that kept him afloat during his career. Admittedly, as a former player and now ESPN analyst- Marcus speaks truthfully that he feels Jerry Jones is intrusive and adds stress to his players. Sharing his most pivotal moment and impact as a man, Marcus touches on his family. Self-aware of how he’s become successful, he pays homage to all those who have cared about him and believed in him along the journey such as his sister, Deidre Spears and how her emotional journey had inspired him the most. We are your one-stop platform for all your sports and entertainment conversations. Our partnership with DraftKings continues and special offers to check out for this wknd's football games. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY)1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/LA/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA).21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MI/NJ/NY/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Void in ONT. Valid 1 per new customer. Min. $5 deposit. Min $5 bet. Bet must win. $200 issued as eight (8) $25 free bets. Sponsored by DK. Ends 1/15/2023 11:59 PM ET. Eligibility restrictions apply. See T&C at sportsbook.draftkings.com/footballterms#1 Rated Sportsbook App based on Eilers&Krejcik (2Q22). Product Analysis: Testing, Scoring, and Ranking U. S. Sports Betting Apps 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

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 0:30Channing Crowder?

  Man, come on, man.

• 0:33Channing Crowder?

  There it is.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  My dog.

• 0:34Channing Crowder?

  Yes, sir. Welcome to the pivot.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  I'm honored. You always French, bruh. You always sharp.

• 0:42Ryan Clark?

  That's a tailorsuit?

• 0:43Speaker 02

  What's up, my brother?

• 0:45Ryan Clark?

  That's a tailorsuit.

• 0:46Channing Crowder?

  You know, my dog been intermittent fasting.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, when you big, you can't go to the regular store, so.

• 0:50Fred Taylor?

  Hold up, you on that good, healthy shit? You intermittent fasting?

• 0:53Speaker 02

  I am, man, I am. It's a struggle, but it's working.

• 0:56Channing Crowder?

  How much weight you lost?

• 0:57Fred Taylor?

  16-8?

• 0:58Speaker 02

  I've lost 42.

• 1:00Channing Crowder?

  You trying to be fine?

• 1:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. I stopped eating meat, pause for a minute, but.

• 1:04Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, eight months. I stopped eating meat for eight months.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  How it feel?

• 1:07Channing Crowder?

  One time, I feel good, but one time in New York, the vegan option was 50 minutes away on Uber Eats.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Nah, I gotta get.

• 1:14Channing Crowder?

  And the chicken wings were 15 minutes.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  Gotta eat some protein.

• 1:17Channing Crowder?

  I said, I gotta get that protein.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  I see you.

• 1:19Ryan Clark?

  And that's how you started putting that meat back in your mouth, huh?

• 1:21Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 1:24Channing Crowder?

  It says, I'm, you know, you know how I ride. This is okay.

• 1:28Fred Taylor?

  Pause, it was a joke. It was just a joke.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Y'all too close.

• 1:32Channing Crowder?

  Hey, that's my guy. That's my dog.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  First of all, man, hold on.

• 1:36Channing Crowder?

  Okay.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Because you be interviewing this shit.

• 1:38Channing Crowder?

  Hey, see, see what he about to do?

• 1:40Speaker 02

  I'm just, I'm proud of y'all, bro. Let me say that before we get it popping. I'm proud of what y'all doing. I don't say for the culture anymore, I say for the world. This is becoming global.

• 1:51Fred Taylor?

  Love it.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  So shout out to y'all for what y'all doing. I've been watching, I've been supporting.

• 1:55Channing Crowder?

  All right, that's it.

• 1:56Fred Taylor?

  Hey.

• 1:58Ryan Clark?

  Well, I mean, you know, a lot of times you gotta come on and introduce people. I mean, it's obviously Chan, it's Freddie, I'm RC.

• 2:04Fred Taylor?

  Just Freddie? That's it?

• 2:06Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I'm being nice today. I'm not Freddie T, Freaky Freddie, Freddie Flowers. I mean, you have so many freaking nicknames.

• 2:12Fred Taylor?

  Give them to me.

• 2:13Ryan Clark?

  That's what happens when you're the favorite of the show.

• 2:15Fred Taylor?

  Stop it.

• 2:15Ryan Clark?

  That people call you all these different things. He's so calm. It's always, Fred has so much wisdom.

• 2:21Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 2:21Ryan Clark?

  Every time he speaks, you can tell that he truly listens before he talks. You know what I mean?

• 2:27Channing Crowder?

  I get tired of it.

• 2:28Ryan Clark?

  It's actually true though. You get tired of it?

• 2:30Channing Crowder?

  I get tired of it. But you sitting with your legs crossed.

• 2:35Fred Taylor?

  See, that's the thing. He's confused.

• 2:38Channing Crowder?

  No, no, no, you see how? Boy, I love you, boy.

• 2:41Fred Taylor?

  He's confused. See, but I have to be.

• 2:44Ryan Clark?

  You see how sophisticated I am?

• 2:45Fred Taylor?

  I have to be more of me, the more of him we get.

• 2:48Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 2:48Fred Taylor?

  I have to scale it back.

• 2:49Ryan Clark?

  That's a good point.

• 2:50Fred Taylor?

  That creates the balance, because he's gonna always drive.

• 2:53Channing Crowder?

  Yeah. All the people saying that, it'd be 60 plus. All the old women love Fred. It'd be old as hell. My aunties. Hey Chan, give me Fred's number. I was like, Fred, you 72. Your husband just died. Why you need to go? Why you need to go? She wanna talk. She wanna talk. She wanna talk.

• 3:39Ryan Clark?

  So our viewers, first of all, thank you, obviously, to DraftKings, our sponsor. Also, happy that, we appreciate you guys. We got the Big Swagu on. I mean, he's Marcus Spears to some people. But as he's risen to fame on ESPN, become one of the brightest stars on any network covering sports, you know, the world knows him as the Big Swagu. It gets a little slimmer Swagu now, because he's intermittent fasting. You know, this is Freddie's line, but since I usually start the show, I always tell y'all, man, this is a show, this ain't a podcast. And what we know is that, you know. Anybody can podcast, but not everybody can pivot. And that's what we gonna keep doing. I think, man, this is one of those shows you get really excited about because you can do it so many different ways.

• 4:23Ryan Clark?

  There's people who get an opportunity to see you now and what you've grown into that understand the knowledge you have about speaking about sports or other things that are involved in culture or that are happening in the current news. But it's a story that got you here. Swagu wasn't always this. Like, I remember the kid that came my junior year. That was the big-time freshman tight end, big-time hooper, top 50 player in the country. And, and, you know. He was, he was. My dog averaged like 30. Yeah, he averaged like 30. That was, that was skinny Swagu.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  That was, that was lil' Swagu.

• 4:59Ryan Clark?

  That was lil' Swagu.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  That's how the old-school ass.

• 5:01Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, that was, that was lil' Swagu. You know, Swag, when you look at where you are now.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:07Ryan Clark?

  When you growing up in BR, near Southern's campus, was this what you expected to be?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  No, man, no. I tell people all the time, you can't expect this, right?

• 5:20Speaker 02

  My grandmother, actually, when I was born, spoke over my... She told my mom I was gonna be a preacher. And I didn't, you know, my mom say that all the time. Shout out to Irma. But I didn't know what that meant. And the one thing, growing up where I grew up in Louisiana, man, my mom used to always tell me, and I took it for granted, boy, you gotta know how to speak to people. You gotta know how to talk, right? Have a conversation. So as I look across any job, right, that I could have had or any path I could have led, that could have led me to anything, like, I feel like this is my calling. Football chose us, right? Like, we were big, we were usually the best kid on the team. We was, we had the right mentality.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  So you see that path early in life. Like, I knew I could probably go to the pros my junior year in high school. Born, I kept doing whatever. But what I'm doing now, man, is my calling. I tell people that all the time, it's my calling. And, you know, it's funny, man, because I, I just...

• 6:24Speaker 02

  Starting that SCC Network at ESPN and then what I'm doing today, personally, you see a progression, but you still want more, you know? And I think for me, man, I try to keep that levels me, right? We both had career, I mean, we all had careers. And we had careers that we really could choose what we want to do. But I think sometime, man, your calling just called you.

• 6:49Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  And I think that's what I'm doing now. Um, so, you know, the success and stuff, the attention, all of that, cool. But it's, it's been a mission, um, since I got into this arena, man. So it's, it's, uh, it's paying off right now.

• 7:05Channing Crowder?

  But, but Swag, you so humble with it.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Appreciate that, bro.

• 7:08Channing Crowder?

  You know what I'm saying? Like, you so humble with it, but it's not easy. What you did is not easy. SCC Network, you and, uh, Greg, y'all had y'all show. I wa- watched as a, as a, as a, as a, as a brother and as a fan, I watched the progression.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:20Channing Crowder?

  But that, what you did is not easy. So you talking to these young players getting out of, out of the game and you jumped straight into it.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:29Channing Crowder?

  Like, you act, you acting like it's easy to do what you did. Bro, it's not easy to do what you did. Cause if it's easy, a bunch of [BLEEP] would do what you did.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  You right, you right, Chan. And, and I think, man, you know how we are, bro. Like, it's so many people it take though. It ain't about getting yeses, it's about getting the right one, right? It's about, like, my wife and my sister led me to television. I want to do radio. I remember you was doing radio. And that was my goal. Like, I'mma do Dallas radio. And a lot of people don't know this, man, when I went, cause, cause everybody see it now, right? They see you on the network, they see you a lot. Dude, I interned at the Dallas Morning News.

• 8:06Channing Crowder?

  You still got the card? The ID card you showed?

• 8:09Speaker 02

  For $2.75 an hour.

• 8:12Fred Taylor?

  This was after your.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  This after I finished playing football.

• 8:15Fred Taylor?

  $2 and how much?

• 8:16Speaker 02

  $2.75 an hour.

• 8:17Fred Taylor?

  Wow.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  I interned at the Dallas Morning News because for me, bro, it was really about, you know, I don't, I, I'm, I'm super transparent. I went through a period of depression when I retired. Like, I ain't know what to do. Man, when you start playing football at six years old, you know every year of your calendar, what you gonna be doing. And y'all know this, when your career end, it's abrupt. Ain't nobody escorting you out.

• 8:40Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  It ain't no programs for you to go to to help facilitate your mind around, you know, what you gonna do next or, and a lot of us come out unprepared. But for me, man, I kinda wanted to just throw myself into that. And being in Dallas playing for the Cowboys helped tremendously, bro. But to your point, Jen, I had to humble myself, bro. Like, I had to, I wanted to earn where I'm at right now. Like, I wasn't no Pro Bowler, All-Pro. I didn't have a resume to just say, hey, I'm Marcus Spears, hire me. Um, I wanted to earn it. So I, I just, I felt like I had to take my necessary steps. Like, not everybody's else's. Not young people that's asking me, how you get into this? I had to take my necessary steps.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  And I think that part leading up to where I am now, man, just, it's a blessing, man, but it, it, I've always said, bro, when people look at me, I'm just a reflection of the people that cared about me. And that's what keep me humble. Like, to be honest with you. I take credit because of the work that I do. But ultimately, bro, like, it took a lot of people to get me here, man. Like, a lot.

• 9:47Fred Taylor?

  So much just went through my mind, man. And, uh, you know, you, you mentioned your grandmother.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:52Fred Taylor?

  Saying your calling was potentially being a pastor. And then you spoke about your mom. And then you talk about being humble. One side of that for me is, you know, we're in an environment where a lot of these young kids, they see a lot of us and they see superstardom and all of this. And they try to get there, you know, so fast. And they try to put the shine before the grind. But I think that most of these kids these days are entitled, right? Or they have that mindset. And they don't necessarily think that, uh, they should be as humble as you were. You have to pipe that down a bit. But when I see you, I always see the cross right here on the side of your face.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:32Fred Taylor?

  You're talking about being humble. You're talking about your grandmother mentioning you about being a pastor. I wanna talk about your faith and your beliefs.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:40Fred Taylor?

  You know, and the fact that you're a no-nonsense. When I see you on TV, you're transparent, you're straight to the point, and no-nonsense. That, that, that foundation, speak to that.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  Man, faith for me is, dude, I trust God, bro. Like, it's simple for me, like, we, we, you know, we in a time now where religion and what, what your ideologies are, gotta reflect mine, or we disagree and we don't like each other. And we don't have no discourse. I believe in God. God been the one constant in my life. I know that if I live long enough, I'mma see people I love to death die. I'mma see them go away. My grandmother passed three years ago now. And, you know, you don't imagine life without them.

• 11:23Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  But after we had the funeral, I had, the next day I had to wake up and figure it out.

• 11:31Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? And, um, for me, that's what faith is, bro, like, and, and honestly, like, not pushing it on people, that's what has sustained me. Like, my belief in God, I wake up every day thinking this. How much did you keep away from me that could have killed me? That's how I think. Like, I don't think about, like, the blessings and the, cause that is the true blessing.

• 11:54Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Like, when, like, when we grew up, you saw homeboys get killed.

• 11:58Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Fall to the wrong things, end up in bad situations. You see young kids getting killed now. And, and I, I think of that context, and, and it's not in a negative way, I just, I, it's, it's, it's, it's really not by your own power.

• 12:13Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  And might, so, I just, I, you know, I tapped into God, and I, that's what sustains me, man. That's the constant. Out of all of the relationships, like, you know. I, I said I wasn't gonna be no preacher, but, but.

• 12:26Channing Crowder?

  And you sound like a preacher.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  But for real, though. Well, he got the voice, for sure.

• 12:30Channing Crowder?

  He has the voice.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  But it's simply, it's as simple as that for me. I, I just, I, I believe in God, man. And, and whether, whatever your religion is, whether you, what you believe in, whatever sustaining you, you know, I hear people say the universe, I hear people say science, what's to say, God does sustain me, man. It's something that I can't see that has sustained me.

• 12:51Fred Taylor?

  Correct.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  So I choose to believe that.

• 12:52Channing Crowder?

  That's something that I, that I. Struggle with.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:56Channing Crowder?

  The, the signs and then they, my wife, she be into them rocks. Them power rocks. And then she be like, oh, you're, you're a Virgo, you a Sagittarius. Cause how you act like, all that shit. Well, my, my parents had sex and I got born on December 2nd. So now my personality set on where my daddy nutted. I don't think like.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  You don't, you don't buy that.

• 13:17Channing Crowder?

  I don't buy it, but, but to the point of like, that, that bigger point of there's something else out there.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:23Channing Crowder?

  I think that, and you just said it, the, the, the, the religion thing is, is something now especially that people are, and these young, this young generation is questioning.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:32Channing Crowder?

  And you're so faithful with your kids. How do, how, how is that conversation with your babies about faith, about God, about a higher power?

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:41Channing Crowder?

  That has a plan for you, cause I do believe in faith. I do believe that your path is already written. You, you, you just don't have to it up. Don't start smoking crack.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 13:48Channing Crowder?

  You start smoking crack, your path will be fucked up. So, so crack is the. Yeah, if you start smoking crack or selling pussy, your path is messed up. That, that was my two things.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  It messed it up. It can mess it up.

• 13:59Channing Crowder?

  But ha, ha, like the conversation with kids, because I think, I think right now swag. Be, like, I, I even before in the past, I think right now this generation is really questioning faith.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I think, I, you know, we, being in church two weeks ago, man, I think it's a battle between, um, everything being questioned.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Wanna make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 in 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  Right, like, as, as this information floods our children, now they got outlets. Y'all think about this for a second, right? Do y'all remember when we used to gasp when we heard a curse word on TV?

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Man, that's so normal now. Yeah. Like, my mom never played a song with a curse word on it, right? So, as it has evolved into the society we live in there now, I think kids are being pulled to what they can see, touch and feel. And we were more driven by faith, right? And you gotta realize, bro, like, we came out of a generation where our people literally didn't have rights. You know what I'm saying? Jim Crow was 1963. Exactly. Like, my mom was living during that. So, all they had was faith. And I think that pressed upon us, and even as an adult at 39 years old,

• 15:53Speaker 02

  I had to get, like, get back and ask questions. Like, what is this really about? So, that's why I'm always so, I'm always like, with my kids, man, like, I teach them the constant. Like, your mama gonna die, your daddy gonna die, I don't know when the time is, I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm gonna impart everything I can impart on you before I check out of here. And that's not by my plan, that's not by your plan. But if you want something to hold on to in case everybody leave. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? In case you, you find yourself in a situation, you in the middle of nowhere. Are you gonna choose God, or are you gonna choose to go crazy?

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Because there's a lot of situations where we know by our own might, we can't handle. Right. Like, we know that. We know there's things that we can't handle, and we've actually seen people come back from it. It's something sustaining you. So, that's what I teach my kids. And that might not be something for every parent, but that's what I teach my kids, and that's what I talk to people in my circle about. And it ain't, bro, I ain't converting, I ain't baptizing, I ain't, you know what I'm saying? I'm just literally telling the story of what has sustained me, you know? And I'm fortunate that my wife thinks the same way.

• 17:09Ryan Clark?

  When you speak of where kids are now, and you talk about things that you could touch and feel, obviously biblically it says, faith is the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen. And then so that's the hardest part for the mind. Now that we do have so much information, it's hard to get young people and just people in general to focus on that when you feel like in this world, we have access and could do everything we need to do on our own. So why do I need to lean on that? But you mentioned that we all played in the league. And for as much as it's something that you believe is out there, it is hard for that to be tangible. I know where you're from. And people from where you're from are talented enough. They're smart enough. They don't always make it.

• 17:52Ryan Clark?

  Right? There are circumstances that keep them from being able to do that. You are All-American at LSU. One of the more famous plays in LSU history, the interception and the national championship for a touchdown.

• 18:04Channing Crowder?

  He looked ugly running down that field though.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  I scored though.

• 18:07Channing Crowder?

  But you looked ugly running down that field.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  It don't even matter what it looked like, Chan.

• 18:11Channing Crowder?

  But did, and I know and I love it.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  I did.

• 18:14Ryan Clark?

  He had great, hey. I'm gonna say this though, Chan.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  That game wasn't ugly.

• 18:17Ryan Clark?

  Hey, Chan, I'm gonna say this now.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  I looked real good after that game.

• 18:21Ryan Clark?

  Hey, I'm gonna say this now too. Best hands, top five hands I've ever seen in my life. When he got to school, no.

• 18:27Channing Crowder?

  Hands?

• 18:28Ryan Clark?

  He got hands like pillows. Like honestly, bro.

• 18:30Channing Crowder?

  He played deep tackle.

• 18:32Ryan Clark?

  He played tight end. He was an All-American tight end.

• 18:34Channing Crowder?

  He made money playing defensive line.

• 18:38Ryan Clark?

  But he was an All-American tight end we recruited.

• 18:41Channing Crowder?

  Your hands that good?

• 18:42Speaker 02

  Throw it, throw it over here. I got it.

• 18:44Ryan Clark?

  Hey, hey, so, but I say that to say, you do get drafted first round, but you go to America's team. Right? And were you the same year as DeMarcus? So is both of y'all, DeMarcus Ware comes in the same year. What's that like when you walk into that building? And it's Jerry Jones and it's the star and it's the Lombardi trophies and all the Hall of Famers. What's that feeling like when you walk into the building as a Cowboy?

• 19:09Channing Crowder?

  You, you, you go back to little.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Like when I showed up and you was at LSU and you and Brady James, Trell Ford,

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Jarvis Green, like you go back to how I'm gonna earn my way. And then too, man, like it's so polarizing, right? Like I remember being little, watching the Dallas Cowboys on Hard Knocks. And knowing about the the triplets with Troy and Emmitt and and Mike and and all of the great players, man. And I just, when I got there, Bill Parcells was the coach. For me, it was like a overload. It was like football overload, bro, like. And I played for Nick Saban and you, like, we say it all the time, like, the coach you play for, that don't propel you. Right. For, because I tell, like, when we talk to dudes, and I know y'all do this too, man, when you leave practice facility in the league, you go home and you on your own time. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, we had study hall in college.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  We lived in a confined space. You could tap in with your partners, you could tap in with, I was right down the street from my family. That's not everybody's situation, but when I got drafted to Dallas, man, it was, it was time to like, from a football standpoint, and I tell people all the time, man, football is difficult for us because it's the mental and physical. And the physical, we know we gonna get hurt. We know we gonna deal with something all year long. Like, we know that. As good as we feel in that offseason coming in, we know we gonna deal with something. But in Dallas, you deal with that on top of pressure of winning, on top of the pressure of the media presence, always available, on top of Jerry's expectations, Ricky on top of Bill Parcells' expectations,

• 20:47Speaker 02

  and then the weight of being a first-round draft pick. Like, I know people like to talk about the beautiful side of it. The weight that comes with being drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft? Like, bro, it it's something, you either embrace it, or it's gonna eat you alive. And when I got to Dallas, you know, y'all know schemes and systems. I wasn't playing the same football I played at LSU. Like, all of the success that had led me to be drafted in the first round. All that's gone. All that's gone. I'm doing something totally different now. That was an adjustment period. I wasn't getting sacks. I was called the bus because D D Ware was having so much success, um, early in his career. This guy, this a wasted draft pick. The same year, Aaron Rodgers went 30th or 32nd in that same draft.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  And, you know, hindsight 2020, shit, I would have drafted Aaron Rodgers too. Right, yeah. You know what I'm saying? You know, so, so for me, man, it was, it was, it was more about the mental part of kind of bringing it back to football. Cause in Dallas, it becomes about so much more, man. But I brought it back to football and then once I got to that point, I started kind of maturing and I was around some great vets. Greg Ellis and Leroy Glover. Um, them, them was my two, two vets that really taught me like, hey, man, like you gotta settle in, you gotta find your way. Like we could give you nuggets, but your way is gonna be your way of how you last around. And then eight years, man, play eight years in Dallas. And really, my rookie year was the reason why I was able to.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  Cause I was around people that knew the league, knew how to function in it. And then I had to get over the fact that I was no longer gonna be who everybody was coming to the stadium to see. And y'all know as football players, that's the hardest way, except him.

• 22:31Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, he never had that.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know what I'm saying? So it's just, it's just one of them things, man, where you gotta, again, humble yourself.

• 22:38Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  And really understand like, I'm not gonna be Bron. I could be PJ Tucker. I could be Pat Beverley. Like, my role can be as important to the whole thing as opposed to being so important that I want everybody to recognize me for what I'm doing.

• 22:53Channing Crowder?

  But Swag, that's tough though.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  It is, bro.

• 22:56Channing Crowder?

  Like RC was just saying, bro, all American high school, all Americans in college. I'm the same way.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:01Channing Crowder?

  I was in that 05 draft.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  I know, I know.

• 23:03Channing Crowder?

  I went way behind all of y'all. You were 20, I was, I was 70.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  You bald.

• 23:08Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, yeah, we did it though, but, but like, do you ever look back? Cause I look, I look at stuff and Mel Kiper.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 23:15Channing Crowder?

  Sack of shit.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  You hate Mel?

• 23:16Channing Crowder?

  I hate Mel cause he told me I'm going top, I'm going first round and I end up spending a, um, I got a million dollar credit line.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Well, that ain't Mel's fault.

• 23:24Channing Crowder?

  That's Mel's fault.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Oh, it ain't Channing.

• 23:26Channing Crowder?

  Swag, he told me I'm going first round. I looked at the first round and said, I'm gonna make eight million dollars. I can get a million dollar credit line, I'm good. And I went and spent $370,000 before I got a penny.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  That ain't Mel's fault.

• 23:40Channing Crowder?

  That's Mel's fault.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  Uh-uh, dumb dumb, that's you.

• 23:44Channing Crowder?

  But to that point, you go first round.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:47Channing Crowder?

  You get that acceptance. But like you just said, that's what posed me or what I wanted to ask a question about was the pressure of being a first-rounder. You're set, you got money, you're good to go. What's the pressure there? Like, why you talking about pressure, bruh? Bruh, you set, you start, you gonna start if you're a first-rounder.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  I'mma tell you this, bro. You know this, and Fred know this, and RC know this. The pressure of success is way harder than the pressure of not having nothing. Like, as you get older, you start realizing, like, because when I say pressure, it comes from the expectation of what you supposed to be in everybody else's eyes. And then you internalize that. Like, Dwell went to the Pro Bowl his second year. In my mind, why I ain't in the Pro Bowl? Like, what happened to me? What happened to my game? Like, what I'm not doing in the offseason? I'm working hard, I'm showing up, like, what's going on? So I think a lot of times, man, you just have the pressure of what everybody else has seen and the expectation of that.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  And the funny thing is, and this is something for the, for the younger generation. Man, money don't solve no problems outside of you being able to... The internal problems, money don't got nothing to do with that. They got billionaire that wanna jump off a bridge right now. And they got somebody around them that's hopefully talking them out of it. Perspective, like, if, if, if Bill Gates... We all, we all talk about how much money Oprah got. If Bill Gates' money went to Oprah money, he, that's failure.

• 25:15Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Think about it. Like, so, I, I, I always, I'm always cautious, cuz when I used to hear that, I'd be like, "Man, yeah, I got big bag when I got out of school, I'm playing for the Cowboys." Ain't no... Man, listen, that expectation that's coming from that front office, and that expectation that's coming from that coach, and then too, like, when you in the league, the dudes that draft you, they job on the line. You know what I'm saying? Like, we see it all the time, so it's press... It's a different kind.

• 25:44Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? But it's relative, man, it's relative. And, you know, a person that got money got a different set of problems than a person that don't have that type of money. But it don't make them problems no more or no less, it's just relative to the life that they live in. And when I got drafted, the expectation was to revamp a defense, be exactly what Bill Parcells thought I was gonna be, and it didn't happen until, like, my second year. And it was, bust, he ain't ready. It's all of that, right? And you hearing this? You hearing this? Because football was all I knew as a profession at that point. And I was still too young to realize, like, these things take time.

• 26:25Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  So it was just pressure, man.

• 26:27Fred Taylor?

  Hey Swag, you keep talking about pressure. You mentioned the front office. When I think of the Dallas Cowboys and I think of pressure, you know, we hear all these different mysterious stories about Jerry. He need to step back, he need to do this, need to just let him go play. And then when you add the fan base in there, probably one of the greatest, craziest and greatest fan bases on the face of the earth. So I understand why they call it America's team. Fred, you missed delusional. No, no, no, no, I did, I did, I did, I did. I did.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Not on your show.

• 27:02Fred Taylor?

  It's the truth, it's the truth, it's the truth. I mean, because we're-

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Fan base don't think they-

• 27:06Fred Taylor?

  Look, this is what I know. The Cowboys fans- The Cowboys. The Cowboys fans and the University of Miami fans are the same people. Every year, they gonna win. You're stuck in the 90s and the early 2000s. Absolutely. Get away from that. Hey, the last quarter- The last quarter of surgery does not compute to Dallas Cowboys fans. No, but I'm talking about pressure. Let me get back to my point.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Gang up on mornings.

• 27:31Fred Taylor?

  So where do you feel the most pressure from performing for the fan base? Who's gonna be everywhere to support you guys?

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:38Fred Taylor?

  Or the front office? Because Jerry don't play.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  It's the front office. The fans gonna, you go, you run for 190 and three touchdowns. Fred the greatest, you fumble twice, we need a new running back.

• 27:51Fred Taylor?

  For sure.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? So the fan, you know that's a roller coaster.

• 27:54Fred Taylor?

  They ride the wave.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Right, they gonna, they gonna ride the wave.

• 27:57Fred Taylor?

  It seems like Jerry riding the wave too with his recent comments. About Cooper and Dak.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Jerry know what he doing, man.

• 28:02Fred Taylor?

  Like, what's going on?

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Jerry know what he doing.

• 28:05Fred Taylor?

  Finish your point.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  It is, the pressure from the front office is this. You get poured in the office. We paid you this amount of money. We want you to do this job this way. If you don't, we gotta figure out what we gonna do. Because again, eight million dollars to Jerry ain't nothing. I see you to Detroit. You know what I'm saying? That's not something that I'm worried about. Like you in your, you in your bag like, man, I'm, I'm good. No, that ain't, because ultimately when we get up there, whether we want to admit it or not, we want to have success. Okay, how much money we get? If you doing it and you devoting that much time, you want to have success at doing it. So that, that type of pressure is different conversations with the owner of a team when you then been drafted first round.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  And they pay you a certain amount of money. Channing, you gonna have a different conversation as a third rounder with your owner.

• 28:58Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Than I'm gonna have as a 20th overall pick. So that, that's the pressure I'm talking about.

• 29:03Channing Crowder?

  But what's the better way? Like there's, I, I'll say it in Miami, because I'm Miami based.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:09Channing Crowder?

  Steven Ross doesn't mess with the team. He hires people to mess with the team. Jerry Jones is there every day.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Every day.

• 29:13Channing Crowder?

  Every day, walking around the locker room, he know y'all like.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  And I think he too intrusive. I'm on record saying it.

• 29:20Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Too intrusive. Because I don't even know if Jerry realized the pressure he puts on his players. And the guys that play for that team just by his presence being there every day. And you the GM.

• 29:32Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Right?

• 29:33Channing Crowder?

  That, that's weird.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  It's so weird. I've, I was, I, I went my last year and played in Baltimore. I stole Steve Bishoty twice. Saw him two times. And it was welcomed. And you could feel a different aura around the program. The building was football. And it was us. You think about it, bro. Like, we all sitting in a room at 15.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  If your mama walk in, the culture changes.

• 30:02Fred Taylor?

  Conversation changes.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Especially when she controlling the environment. Now, it's different if a, like, assistant or secretary walk in, you be like, don't tell my mama nothing.

• 30:14Channing Crowder?

  Right. Yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  Right, but, but, but when she walk in, it's like, alright, we gotta straighten up cuz you got the power to get me out of here and it won't bother you. I, I, I just, I, I've always thought that dynamic is, is, is not good.

• 30:31Channing Crowder?

  I think it's detrimental to the Cowboys because I would not want the owner, the GM-

• 30:36Speaker 02

  I believe it is.

• 30:37Channing Crowder?

  -to be looking at me every day, talking to me every day, evaluating me every day when I'm sitting there in the steam room. I don't want the owner to look at me.

• 30:44Ryan Clark?

  I, I, I think the difference is you look at it differently because the GM is the owner.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  He's the owner.

• 30:49Ryan Clark?

  Right, so the GM in Pittsburgh was Kevin Colbert. I did see Kevin Colbert every day. But Kevin Colbert didn't write the checks.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 30:56Ryan Clark?

  Right, he, he, he decided and he was in on the meetings on who played and who made the team, but he wasn't the guy ultimately that cut the checks. And I think that's what makes Jerry's aura different. Right, I can go have a conversation with Kevin Colbert that wasn't an owner-to-player conversation. It was a conversation about what was best for the team and he didn't have his money invested in it.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 31:17Ryan Clark?

  You see what I'm saying? So you look at it differently because as a GM looks at, at players that he can move around the chessboard in order to win a championship, we are still a commodity. So you're either an asset or a liability to that man.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  But also the point, what you just said, RC, if you working in, in connection with a general manager, right, his success is directly tied to yours.

• 31:41Fred Taylor?

  For sure.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  Jerry's ain't. I'm gonna be the owner whether you, I cut you or not.

• 31:47Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  I'ma still have these deals, this stadium, I'ma still have this. So I've always thought it was detrimental because the thing that I've learned is when you in business or you have ownership of something, there are times when you gotta detach emotion from the decisions you making. But if I paid a hundred and fifty million dollars for a franchise and it's worth three or four, five billion dollars now, I'm emotionally attached.

• 32:15Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Right?

• 32:16Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna make decisions.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  Based on football?

• 32:21Ryan Clark?

  It's emotional decision.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  It's an emotional decision that time. So I think that's the part where it gets cloudy. The one thing I've always said, man, Jerry want to win. Like, I believe he wants to win. That's his life. His life is take risk and win, right? And it's a respect to be had there. I respect them for that. But I do think when you own a team and you are a general manager, you emotional. Now, he'll deny it, but he don't even notice it. Like, you don't, if I'm coming to Freddie T. house and he my boss, you think I'm gonna come in here and rip the cabinets off the walls? And knock the cups down, break all the china and the dishes?

• 33:06Speaker 02

  And be like, damn, I'm sorry.

• 33:09Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Freddie T. be, no, bro, that's it. Like, that's it.

• 33:13Ryan Clark?

  You can't come back?

• 33:13Speaker 02

  You can't come back.

• 33:14Ryan Clark?

  And I'm not allowing you nowhere around here.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Nowhere around here. But if you, if you the cousin.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  Like, man, we better clean this up before he get here.

• 33:53Ryan Clark?

  Yeah. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use promo code DEFENSE to get $200 in free bets if your team wins when you place a $5 bet on any football game. That's code DEFENSE, only at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official betting partner of the NFL. You're talking about Jerry and, you know, you guys being America's team. There's this, there's this very...

• 34:20Ryan Clark?

  Sharp edge you have to walk when you are a former Cowboy and you're on TV because you guys are so popular. And it's a topic, whether you guys are winning or losing, the Cowboys are in the ace. And now you look at this team that Jerry has put together, you thought you put it together in a certain way, where Dak Prescott is the franchise star. That star is out. And now you got the Micah Parsons and you got the Trayvon Diggs. Like this team is about defense. Basically, what you said was, when you were drafted, it was to change this defense and rebuild this defense into something that could help you all win a championship. Well, this defense seems like that. When you look at a guy like Parsons and what he's brought to this, to this team,

• 35:03Ryan Clark?

  you live in Dallas. What's the feel about number 11?

• 35:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's going to be probably mentioned in the same breath with Emmett Troy and Mike when he done. Rare, bro. Like, that's what comes to mind with Mike. Rare. Like, we watching it. We've seen football players before. He's rare. It's a rare talent that he has, a rare skill that he has to do something. He don't even really know what he doing yet. And it's just his ability, his God-given ability is just taking them to heights that people have never seen rookies or the impact. So I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, when you play for the Cowboys, I will say this. Doors are open and you don't even know where they open at.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  You start finding out later, right? I make, I make no qualms about it. I'm, my career is a large part of playing for the Dallas Cowboys, what I'm doing now. And I'm fortunate for that, grateful for that. But you also have a ultimate responsibility when you are there and when you are playing there that you, you, you better make sure you take advantage of what you have at your disposal. I'm living proof, bro. Like...

• 36:19Speaker 02

  I'm one of the faces at ESPN. I ain't make one Pro Bowl. Wasn't an All-Pro. I don't have no sack records. I don't have, like, I ain't in the Ring of Honor or nothing.

• 36:28Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  But I played for a team that's world globally recognizable. And I can speak to that team and I speak to the game. And that tremendous, like, that, that helped me by, by a landslide. And I didn't draft me. That's why it goes back to, took a lot of people, bro. Like, the humble nation.

• 36:47Ryan Clark?

  You know what? That, that, that makes sense. And it kind of helps me transition. You mentioned who you played for, opening certain doors.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:55Ryan Clark?

  And I think we all live in the world, you know? I know we can't go anywhere with Channing without people running up to him. Same thing with Fred. I've been around with you and it's the same thing. And, and, and I laugh sometimes because when I'm with my family members who don't do what I do for a living or who don't have the money I have, they're like, how are you rich and you get all this free stuff?

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:16Ryan Clark?

  Right? Or, or you pull up to a restaurant and you don't have a reservation. Everybody in the front has a reservation. They say, we got you, Mr. Clark.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:23Ryan Clark?

  Right? All of these things you get to do, the places you get to go because of who you are. Right now, there's a topic that it seems that many people want us to talk about culturally with Brett Favre. Misappropriation of welfare funds. Um, and now it's a, it's a tens of millions of dollars scandal. And he wanted to use it or use it to build a volleyball facility. They've, there've even been text messages now that he was focused on getting more funds in order to build an indoor football facility at world. And this is as well. And this is something that we haven't analyzed and we haven't talked about.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:02Ryan Clark?

  Anybody looking at the outside end of this situation goes, okay, it's one of the poorest countries, I mean, poorest states in the country. Education is trash.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:10Ryan Clark?

  Right? Obesity is high. You have all of these things going on and you're pulling money from the most underserved. And from the people who need it the most and you're pulling that money for your own. Right, but that's because of the rooms he can be in. That's because of the conversations he could have, the text messages he could send. To do that as a millionaire, you are a scumbag. Right, to do that as a millionaire, you have lost the heart for the people or you never had it. Now, I never watched Brett Favre play football or do anything and said to myself, I think he's a great human. But you never think people will do this when they don't need to. But for us, it's been, you laughed about it. I got called the coon because when they asked me why we didn't talk about it, I was like, because I don't,

• 38:55Ryan Clark?

  because I don't really care to analyze what Brett Favre was doing. It has nothing to do with the current and present time of football.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 39:03Ryan Clark?

  He's not playing on a team. He's not going to hurt an organization. This is not going to be a black eye to the NFL. There is nothing for me to say and I already feel how I feel. But when you look at the pressure that's put on you now with this job that you've earned and that you've worked for, that people feel like this is something you should speak on. Culturally, this is important. How do you answer the question when they say, why haven't you talked about it?

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Because I ain't fighting they battles. Like, you know me, RC, like, I love our people. But I ain't about to get on TV to fight no battle. Like, I ain't, the things that I feel like are necessary to talk about that pertain to what we are talking about or infiltrate the sports arena that's relevant and current, I'll talk about it. If I want to. I think a lot of times, man, like, when you come from a marginalized society or a group of people and we see things happen in certain situations, our first reaction is emotion.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  And that's fair, right? And I've had to grow a little bit not to discount the emotional part. I pride myself on not getting emotional about things that, that's not directly tied to my family or somebody that's in my first, my household, right? I try to detach that, even at times within my family, I say, okay, I know this hurt, but how do we make it not hurt? As opposed to having a three-hour conversation about how it hurts, right? And I know I had to-

• 40:34Ryan Clark?

  So you're looking for solutions?

• 40:35Speaker 02

  I'm looking for solutions and I, and I had to grow a little bit of sensitivity to the fact that everybody don't operate like that. And that's something I've been working on, but with the Brett Favre situation. That was the thing, like, I was like, how does Brett Favre stealing money from impoverished, low-income welfare recipients to Ryan Clark becoming a cool?

• 41:02Channing Crowder?

  How responsible are y'all too, to be that voice? Cause y'all are the ones on national TV.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  Channing is very important, but here's the thing, bro. It's not all encompassing.

• 41:14Ryan Clark?

  And other thing is this too, Chad, how is me talking about Brett Favre stealing money from welfare recipients gonna help black people? Like, like, like, that's, like, that's my thing. And then, and then it's the issue of having to explain it. And, and, and he always talked to me about it. He always talked to me on the ledge of like getting back at people. I have a need to be understood. Like, if you don't, if you don't like me, it's cool. Like, if you say, RC, you said this, you did this, you did that, and I don't like you, and everything you said I did and I meant, I meant, I'm like, oh, F you too. That don't bother me. I just hate when you don't like me for something I ain't do. Right? And so now, like, we're, we're talking about this, and people are like, well, Michael Vick, Jameis Winston was stealing crab legs.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  In the middle of their career.

• 41:59Ryan Clark?

  But guys, what you're, you're, you're looking at, like, the actual crime. It's about the relevance of the person to my job. Like, I think he should be being talked about on the news. So you want me to jump from analyzing Tua Tagovailoa, right? You want me to go from, oh, Tua jumped up, he lied and said his back was hurt. You knew he was concussed. And you know what? Brett Favre stole 77 million dollars. That's not how it works.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  And to, to your point, RC, it's important for us, man. And that's why y'all platforms so important. Because a lot of people don't understand that. A lot of people don't understand how television works. A lot of people don't understand, like, you not just going on TV to soapbox. You know what I'm saying? Like, you creating platforms, like y'all doing, for people to come on here and be transparent. Be able to have a detailed conversation. Cause even if I talk about Brett Favre, I got three minutes. You think Brett Favre stealing welfare money? Take three minutes to talk about? Or does it take a show and a half to talk about? So nuanced. It's so nuanced and you gotta go through a whole bunch of channels in the middle of games being played on Sunday. And everything that's transpired in NFL.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  So I, I just, sometimes I gotta like take a step back and I be trying to tell RC, hey, bro. Like I take some off the side. Hey, man, let them people talk. Let them people say what they gonna say, man.

• 43:23Fred Taylor?

  Most of the time, it's blacks calling blacks coons.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Hundred percent. That's what it was.

• 43:28Fred Taylor?

  But there was an incident that happened where Eric Biennium dove into Patrick Mahomes. You know, and then Shady McCoy, he made a comment saying, uh, Eric Biennium is so bad. You're so bad, that's why you don't deserve to be a coach, a coach in this league. Do you know how hard it is as a black man to become a NFL coach?

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Bro.

• 43:53Fred Taylor?

  Why should another black man put gasoline on that topic? We're talking about black on black crimes all the time.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Hundred percent, dawg.

• 44:01Fred Taylor?

  I think that comment was unnecessary by Shady. And it was a grab, in my opinion, because I, I've never been in that organization.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:10Fred Taylor?

  And people say what they say about EB, about why he's deserving and why he's not deserving. But as a black man, as a man who I am taught to mind my business.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:21Fred Taylor?

  Right? This is my business now to speak on certain things, but there's a way to do that.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  Man, free the T to your point, I'm not saying nothing detrimental to no man that the world don't need to know.

• 44:33Fred Taylor?

  That's where I am.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  If that's your personal experience, it don't matter. Me, me, me and Perk do a podcast together, me and Kendrick Perkins. And Draymond called him a coon.

• 44:42Fred Taylor?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  And I'm sitting on there like, bruh, you, what, what does this do?

• 44:47Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  For you to divulge this publicly and start this discourse?

• 44:52Fred Taylor?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  What does this accomplish?

• 44:53Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Other than you being emotional?

• 44:55Fred Taylor?

  Correct.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  About a run in or a situation you and EB had? Or running in a situation that you and Perk had? I don't operate like that, bro. RC will tell you all the time, we have a bunch of conversations. RC, man, look, folks can write what they want to write about me. Lie.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  If you want to. You know the truth when you putting this ink on the paper? You know what's going on for real in your heart about what you saying? Yeah. The type of stuff that you spewing. And I, I, I think for me, man, that's how I deal with it, bro. Like, I, I just. I care about black people. I care about people, though. Mm-hmm, right. The overall arching statement is, I care about people. I wanna be around good people. For sure. If your skin lime green and you good people, I'm cool with you. We good.

• 45:42Channing Crowder?

  I love them avatars. They was so fine.

• 45:45Fred Taylor?

  They wasn't lime green.

• 45:46Channing Crowder?

  They were blue, but that, that's always out there.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 45:50Channing Crowder?

  Her avatar was fine.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  It's just, it's.

• 45:52Channing Crowder?

  I'm just a bullshit, but what's a coon? What's a coon?

• 45:55Speaker 02

  It's a, it's a derogatory term that started.

• 45:58Channing Crowder?

  Yeah. But what, what, what is, like, cause you got upset, RC.

• 46:01Ryan Clark?

  No, I didn't actually.

• 46:02Channing Crowder?

  Upset, but like, you talked about it.

• 46:04Ryan Clark?

  It was this though.

• 46:05Channing Crowder?

  Being called a coon means what?

• 46:07Ryan Clark?

  That's funny to me.

• 46:07Channing Crowder?

  It's funny, but what is?

• 46:08Ryan Clark?

  That's actually funny to me. So what's happening?

• 46:10Channing Crowder?

  I called my, my homeboys. I'd be like, that's my ace boom coon. And I've heard people look at me like they'll, they'll sit back and be like, because I said the word coon.

• 46:19Ryan Clark?

  That's old school. That's an old school.

• 46:20Channing Crowder?

  Ace boom coon. Yeah, that's my ace boom coon. That, that, that's my ride or die. What is a coon? Why, why is that a derogatory term?

• 46:26Ryan Clark?

  I, I, I think the biggest thing is, it's not necessarily the word, it's the usage. It's the, it's the meaning behind it. One, for me, calling me a coon is never gonna upset me. Right? Like, I wasn't, when he said that, I actually laughed. And I was like, well, hell, I mean, now I hit, I hit the double double, right? On this side, they say I'm racist. On this side, I'm a coon. I ain't got nowhere to go.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  I'm in a spectrum. It's so large.

• 46:50Ryan Clark?

  I'm in the, I'm in the middle.

• 46:51Channing Crowder?

  I got you.

• 46:52Ryan Clark?

  Right, I just laughed, but I think what, what's happened is, we, everybody needs to be able to identify a person that they disagree with. Instead of just being able to identify they disagree. Those things are different. It's like, I gotta be able to label you because you don't think like me. And so, what happens in our job, and we talk about it a lot, is that people believe you're always supposed to be on one side, right? Because I've been on the side of black people so much, they think I'm just doing that because they black. No, I'm doing that because I think you're right.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 47:31Ryan Clark?

  Right? But you ain't always right. And when you are not right, I don't have to ju- I'm not gonna jump out here and poke my chest out for you, because when you are, I need to be able to have some sort of truth to what I'm saying, and people not always saying, "Ryan's just jumping over there." Like, the same thing with EB. The thing I noticed the most about what he was doing was he kept saying, "We're okay." "We're okay." And we know it, when you hot as a player, don't matter what the coach says, you not, you not, it's not registering to you. And so, if you're looking on the outside at Patrick Mahomes' body language, you think it's a fight.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:05Ryan Clark?

  But if you pay attention, that's why you can't jump to the intent of a man.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:09Ryan Clark?

  And that's the same thing with Marcus. Like, when he gets up and talks, and he stands for us, everybody. But the next time, when he sees it the right way, it's, "No." Just because-

• 48:19Speaker 02

  That ain't happen like that.

• 48:20Ryan Clark?

  People feel differently.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Chandler, I'm gonna give you an example, bro. I've been called a coon on one side by my people, and a racist by white people on the same topic.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Like, real talk. I can show you direct messages where, "Oh, you fake. You, you, you, the, the, the company control you." From out, from black people. And then, on the other side, white person, same topic. The same words. You're, you race baiting. Why it's all about race? So, bro, listen. You ain't gonna win. Like, and I think that's the thing that I, I, that's the conclusion that I draw. You're not gonna win. Do your job and be confident in what you say and your convictions. Some people gonna like it, some people not. I live like that when I'm on TV.

• 49:11Channing Crowder?

  Both of y'all, y'all, like, like you said, even for you to say that swag. Like, you reading those DMs. You saw the cool DMs.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 49:19Channing Crowder?

  You saw the, you saw the race bait DMs.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 49:21Channing Crowder?

  So you're seeing that, you're seeing your crowd, and that's what people gotta do. Your, your brand.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:26Channing Crowder?

  Swagu brand.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:27Channing Crowder?

  But how, like, how do y'all navigate that? Like, you have to navigate, like, I don't know if y'all are accepting what's going on, but y'all have to navigate to have two separate sides both criticizing y'all.

• 49:39Ryan Clark?

  No, I think if you always mean what you say and it's always authentic, those things don't shake me. Right? If you, if you, if you say, "I believe you're race baiting," that's fine. That's how I felt. Or, "If I believe you're a coon," that's fine, and that's how I felt. And so you don't have to switch those things. But listening to you talk about kind of responsibility brings me to something else. You have Swagu and Perk.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 50:03Ryan Clark?

  The, the podcast, and like, I, I know you love hoops, right? You probably love hoops more than you love football. You just ended up being 320, right? And so.

• 50:11Channing Crowder?

  He got too big?

• 50:11Speaker 02

  I grew out of it.

• 50:12Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, he out, he outgrew it. He, he, he just stopped growing this way and started growing that way.

• 50:16Channing Crowder?

  He got a little wide.

• 50:17Ryan Clark?

  When, you know, you talk about your responsibility and, and speaking on a, a black man in that way. We are now in a place with Boston Celtics suspended head coach, Ime Udoka, right? Where it's one of those topics where you don't know a ton about it.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 50:37Ryan Clark?

  You have to walk the line of not speaking on his name in a derogatory way that he did not earn. Not disrespecting women, not saying in any way that they are at fault, or insulting people, and then being able to actually like analyze and describe something and give something to people that's not ball.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:00Ryan Clark?

  You know, we had Stephen A. and Malika Andrews. They had a, a, a conversation or a debate or a disagreement that got heated. When you look at that situation.

• 51:12Speaker 02

  How do you or how would you approach speaking on that? First of all, what needs to be explained to a lot of people when we talk, I give opinions. I'm not a reporter. A reporter writes a report or they bring news, I give an opinion about the report that they brought. So that's two different things. I'm giving an opinion about something that I trust somebody reporting on has done the due diligence of giving you a report, right? So you give an opinion about that. That sometimes get misconstrued with people that watch you on TV because they like, you lying. I'm, I'm giving an opinion about the report. You can read the report too. This ain't my information. This ain't my information. I'm reading the report. This is an opinion about that. Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  I think another thing you gotta be able to do in order to be, have some success in this business, admit when you're wrong. Or admit when you get, when you gave an opinion and it was, it was based in truth. And information changes. And information changes. Okay? More information, reroute that opinion. I got more info, right? We, we in an unforgiving time though in media. We in an unforgiving time where, where people, I want those three words that make me hate you. Forget them other 35 you said. Let me pull them three you said and I'ma hate you for these three. I ain't gonna talk about nothing else. In one sentence, the Miami Dolphins good, but the Miami Dolphins ain't better than the Bills. Oh, he hate the Dolphins. Right.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Right? So, so if you always fighting that battle, this is a short-lived career for you. If you fighting that battle on, oh, let me make sure you okay and let me make sure you okay, even though we saying opposite things. All right? And then the other part, RC, is with Emae and that situation with this, with what happened with Stephen A. and Malika, which I, I think between discourse was between them two, it was misunderstanding, legitimately playing out in real time. What I know of that situation is when you in a position of authority.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  And sometimes we don't like to acknowledge it. We gotta operate and function in a different way. Right? We gotta do things differently. We can't, you, you, you have to grow as your role grows, as your visibility grows, as your responsibility grows. You have to operate in a different way. I don't know if you deem it fair as the individual, but it's true. Like, so what the guy that run everybody coffee in the Celtics organization, if he did that, it might, it'll be a firing and nobody would ever hear about it. But you're the head coach of this organization that everybody has eyes on.

• 53:55Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  Right? So their responsibility changes. And then the other part too is when you have these nuanced conversations about anything, race, women, men in the media, you better choose your words carefully. What I try not to do is err on the side of disrespectful. If I'm speaking truth and you feel like it's disrespectful, man, listen. I'm telling the truth, bro.

• 54:23Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  You know, now you determine how you want to respond to the truth. And everybody don't like that, but we've known that since we was little. It ain't take us to start working in TV or at some major medium to understand that everybody don't like to hear the truth. Right? They want silos and they want this. This gotta align with what I'm saying for me to like this. That's where we are now. So I think, I think that overall situation, Ime Udoka, you the head coach of the Boston Celtics, you can't do what you was doing. For me, that's simple. Like, you can't do what you was doing, and this is the result of that. Now, I don't understand why it's against company policy, but you only suspended a year. I don't understand that. I don't know, but that's the part of nuance.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  I don't know why that situation. I don't know if it's still an ongoing investigation, why they can't fire you yet, or whatever, whatever the situation is. But you divulge and you give an opinion about the information you have.

• 55:19Ryan Clark?

  So Chan, in that you've done radio for, for a decade now, and we've talked about the situation. I think Marcus is exactly right as. As you continue to elevate, you have to move in a different way. We've seen that in the small world we live in. But when you think of a Robert Salver, Salver who owns, who owned, because he's selling now, the Mercury and the Suns. And the things that he did that got him suspended for a year. And then the first thing you read is, Ime Udoka suspended for a year for a consensual relationship with a colleague.

• 55:55Speaker 00

  College football is back. So Hilton called and me, this superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 56:25Ryan Clark?

  Does that to you say, the punishment fits the crime? For lack of a better word?

• 56:31Channing Crowder?

  And that's the thing. The punishment fits the crime. And we've seen, and even Matt Barnes, he came out and he said-

• 56:37Ryan Clark?

  And he recanted.

• 56:38Channing Crowder?

  He recanted, like, I know more information. And I've actually seen more about what's going on in Boston. But the thing is, is that like, when you're a head of an organization, you can't go out and start messing with the people under you. And that's the thing. Like, I'm not trying to be the disciplinarian, whatever. But there is a certain standard you have to set when you're in top of an organization. And people have pushed back with me about this. There is a standard you have to set. If the pivot, I'll be honest,

• 57:13Channing Crowder?

  we're doing well. We need to start hiring people.

• 57:15Speaker 02

  Very well.

• 57:17Channing Crowder?

  Appreciate you, brother.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, very well, guys.

• 57:18Channing Crowder?

  But, so we start hiring people. We hire a social media lady. She would benefit from messing with me.

• 57:28Channing Crowder?

  You see what I'm saying? As, as, as, as the head coach of a, of a basketball team, you have to figure that out and see that you can't mess with these ladies in this building. Because you can take that as they're trying to better themselves and better their career. Your mortgage is attached to me.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  Yep, position of authority.

• 57:51Channing Crowder?

  And that's what it is. And they're like, hey, man, you know, Udo Koo, I can't say this motherfucking name.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  Udo Koo.

• 57:57Channing Crowder?

  Udo Koo. Udo Koo, Udo Koo, I don't know none of that. I'm, you know, I can't, I'm a country.

• 58:01Speaker 02

  I know it, I know it.

• 58:03Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 58:05Channing Crowder?

  But I'm looking at it, people like defending him, I'm like, I don't care how much further it goes, but when you're in a, a power, a position of power, you can't mess with people that are down there because our seat. Their mortgage, their lights, their water bill is attached to you liking them. So now if I fuck with you, now I'm gonna be hired more? I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have a better position in this company? That's the thing, the position of power, where you can't mess with that. You can't, you can't walk that line.

• 58:38Ryan Clark?

  I think that's part of the policy, right? Part of the policy is not only that, part of the policy is so this person doesn't think that this person has the edge on them because of who their romantic relationship is with.

• 58:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:51Ryan Clark?

  That matters as well. Fred, I was asked a question this week and I've been waiting to ask you as it pertains to the situation. I was asked, why would someone work so hard their entire lives to be in a certain position? As he was, and then even in understanding the rules, even in consensual, put that or risk that or put that on the line for that? And I forget what movie I was watching and for, for lack of a better word, it talked about all of the, all of the kingdoms, all of the great organizations, all of the great men that were brought down by sex, brought down by women, brought down by vagina. When you look at that situation, do you sit back and wonder?

• 59:33Speaker 02

  It's the right word to use.

• 59:34Channing Crowder?

  Swag, it's my ass said vagina.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm glad he did, man. I love you to death. Go ahead, RC. I love Channing.

• 59:43Ryan Clark?

  You know what I'm saying, Freddie T?

• 59:44Speaker 02

  He ain't gonna say the other word, Channing. Go ahead, man.

• 59:47Ryan Clark?

  When you... It's a serious situation.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  It is very serious.

• 59:51Channing Crowder?

  What are you saying vagina? Like, who says... Nobody sits around and says vagina.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  Adult people do.

• 59:59Channing Crowder?

  My bad, Swag. I'm sorry.

• 1:00:01Ryan Clark?

  Anyway.

• 1:00:01Channing Crowder?

  Appreciate you watching.

• 1:00:02Speaker 02

  Okay, I got you.

• 1:00:04Ryan Clark?

  Freddie T, anyway.

• 1:00:04Channing Crowder?

  Let's keep the vagina conversation.

• 1:00:07Ryan Clark?

  Freddie T, when... When you look at that, though, when you think about the position you're in, and now you make this decision, which isn't illegal, right? But it's against the rules that allow you to keep your job, and for a man with a family now putting yourself at risk to be exposed in that way, and for them to have to deal with that. And I was asked, why do you think people do that, not just him?

• 1:00:32Fred Taylor?

  You know, that's the craziest thing, right? But this whole entire situation, Channing say he doesn't even know how to pronounce his name. And earlier I said, I wanna mind my business for the simple fact, I don't even know how to pronounce his name. So why should I even be speaking on it? But in this arena, in this platform, I have to, right? That's the biggest mystery to me. Why did he put himself in that position? And that will continue to be the biggest mystery, too, pretty much for majority of the people that are invested in this, outside of the sports arena. Because you insert, you know, the most... One of the most beautiful actresses that we grew up having crushes on, and Nia Long. That changes the whole entire conversation.

• 1:01:15Fred Taylor?

  And that brings up the question even more, why did he do it? Look at what you have at home. You know, and then I was gonna ask you, Swag. You know, you have public, private, you have sports arena, and the people that don't care about sports, but they love movies, they love their black queens, right? I wanna know how many people that have been included in this? What's the percentage of people that are invested in this? Because he was Nia Long's fiancee or boyfriend. That's a whole different... That's more legs. What did, um... Who was it, Vic? I think Michael Vick said, "Don't get a table leg", or "Don't let it grow legs" or something like that, the chair legs. It's grown additional legs because of who was involved with it.

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 1:02:01Fred Taylor?

  Outside of what he is.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  It is absolutely relevant to, one, black women.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  Right, and a long history of them being treated wrong, marginalized, not just by black men, right, just in general. And then two, the one thing we've always kind of connected on was love. As an overall community, like we choose who our sisters and our cousins and my uncle is that we don't, that we attach to. Right, everybody calls Shannon, "um." That's the relativity of how they view that relationship. And I think to your point, when you start talking about Nia Long, Nia was family. For sure. Like best man, Love Jones.

• 1:02:51Speaker 02

  We, like, that's a gravitational pull to somebody that was representative of not only success, but a successful black woman. And she's been a staple in our community for decades. So for them, it was more about, "You hurt our sister." For sure. Or cousin, or the woman we grew up with, you know, and put on this pedestal and we respect and admire her for what she's done. So I think a lot of that comes into play. And honestly, Freddie T, it goes back to what RC asked you. The reality is, bro, we visible. And we can't operate like everybody else operate. That's, that's the reality of it. But also, the reality is, we do.

• 1:03:36Channing Crowder?

  That's the reality.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? It's always gonna be a bigger story. It's always gonna be a polarizing situation when one of us, if, if, if, if your partner get a ticket, it's like, dang, dude got a ticket in Jacksonville the other day. Right, right. Freddie T get a ticket, what was he doing?

• 1:03:56Channing Crowder?

  How fast was he going?

• 1:03:57Speaker 02

  What was in the car? How fast was he going? What was the interaction like?

• 1:04:00Channing Crowder?

  But Swat, why are y'all so taken back that somebody cheated on a famous person? None of us are. I was gonna say, because I use your word, "What's the best vagina?"

• 1:04:11Channing Crowder?

  New vagina.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  I'm married. I love my lady.

• 1:04:15Channing Crowder?

  I do too. And yeah, I told my wife ass up last night before I flew out.

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  I don't want no new one.

• 1:04:21Ryan Clark?

  Wait, wait. While he said it, and everybody just looked at it.

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't want no new one. Everybody got scared. I'mma say it, I don't want no new one. I'm fine with the one I have. It's great.

• 1:04:30Channing Crowder?

  I want to ask you swag. Do they run up on you?

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  Females?

• 1:04:34Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, but you big. You big fine. You swag, like you got swag. I gotta love you to death, bro. You know you big. You thick. Th-th-th-th-thick. Do they run up on you?

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  The reality is, yeah.

• 1:04:47Channing Crowder?

  Because the flight attendant gave me her number on the napkin the other day.

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  My wife has been a part of sitting at tables when I've had conversations with my partners. And I'm transparent on TV, I'm transparent at home, right? And this me. Like, I don't know how to go on TV and be something else. That's who I am. And I tell, I tell my wife all the time, I don't cheat because I don't want to. Not because you fine, or you the mother of my kids, or I'm supposed to have this level of respect for you because you my wife. All of that matters. That's a part of the equation. But the reality is, I don't want to. That's where I am. And you being happy about that, and you benefiting from that, is great.

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  But if a man is getting married, or if a man getting in a relationship, and he think that woman is gonna stop him from cheating? Beyonce done been cheated on, and Holly Barrett done been cheated on. If them two people get cheated on?

• 1:05:51Channing Crowder?

  Anybody could get cheated.

• 1:05:51Speaker 02

  Baby, you don't look good enough to not get cheated on. It ain't no job you got, it ain't no amount of money you got.

• 1:05:59Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  You better hope and pray that your dude is done with that. Like, that's it. And I tell my wife all the time, we had this conversation in front of my dudes, and I got partners that's wow. You know what I'm saying? But, but for me and my house, like, I just, I don't want to. And, you know, I'm sure my wife is in that. I'm sure it's like, I don't want to break her heart and, like, we got kids and I want to set a good example. But the ultimate thing is, dude, I'm on the road Monday through Wednesday every week. I got plenty opportunity by myself. I can, I could be, I could say I'm in Connecticut where ESPN at. I could be in Manhattan.

• 1:06:43Channing Crowder?

  If you want to.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  That's the reality.

• 1:06:45Channing Crowder?

  But you don't want to.

• 1:06:46Speaker 02

  Don't want to, don't want to. And it was a time I did.

• 1:06:49Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:49Speaker 02

  Like, bro, come on now, I'm not, you know me, the, these cameras don't mean nothing to me when it come to truth.

• 1:06:55Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  It was a time I was. And I, over time, growing respect, having daughters, learning the dynamic of the relationship, and more importantly, not wanting to put myself in no situation. But I ain't finna preach that to you, or RC, or Freddie T, or every dude that I come in contact with. It's on your time. How you feel about that?

• 1:07:19Channing Crowder?

  I cheat on my wife with myself. I'm my own mistress.

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  I think she would prefer that.

• 1:07:27Ryan Clark?

  Hey, Swag, man, this is, I think, like, the, the, the cool part about things that, that y'all hit on, I think is, is one thing, part of our culture is to have quote unquote relatives, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, that aren't our blood.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:07:44Ryan Clark?

  That we adopt and that we hold close because of what they mean to us. And I think that was a lot of when, you know, Freddie T was, was speaking on Nia Long and also the way, uh, that you spoke on. I think the other piece of it is too, is that people, no matter what position they are in, are going to do what they feel at least fulfills them in the moment.

• 1:08:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:04Ryan Clark?

  If they're not paying attention to what it means in the long run.

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  In the long run.

• 1:08:06Ryan Clark?

  And I think that happens, but my, my question for you, and this will be the last one, and this is usually Freddie T's question. You know, you mentioned your wife and you mentioned family, you mentioned that this is your calling. In order to get here, in order to get to this place where you can say, I feel these ways, but I don't have to impose them on other people, or to get the opportunity to be yourself and be transparent on TV, there had to be a decision or a moment or something that happened in your life that was the pivotal moment that got you here.

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:36Ryan Clark?

  If you could go back and point that one thing out that helped make Swagu, what would that be?

• 1:08:41Speaker 02

  I'm gonna get real with y'all for a second, man. My sister was my hero growing up. My sister was an all-state basketball player, got recruited all across the country in basketball. And she is who I looked at as Deidre Spears. She is who I looked at as my hero. She was my first motivation.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  No coaches, no professional player. My sister was my first motivation. She made me wanna reach for heights because I saw it happening for her.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  My sister was molested in high school. And we didn't know, didn't know. And when she finally came out and told me and my mom, I saw her kinda clamoring to like, "I don't know what this means for me going forward." Like, "I don't know how I'mma move forward. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to maintain this." And this was at a time when black people didn't go to therapy. This was like, "We gonna handle it. We gonna love you, we gonna hug you. Hugs and love ain't gonna fix that." That brokenness that she felt.

• 1:09:53Speaker 02

  And it's funny, man, cuz I talk about it and she knows that I talk about it.

• 1:10:00Speaker 02

  Her ability to look at life positively tells me, "Man, you ain't got no reason to walk around here slumped over."

• 1:10:12Speaker 02

  Like, she grown, got a daughter. She a police officer in Bedford, Texas. She's gay, she's married to Stacy, who I love to death. And my sister picking herself up off the mat and being who she is, unbroken, positive about life, willing to give to people, and her energy, it teaches me every day. Now, she gonna cry when she see this. But it teaches me every day, like, "Bro, it's people out here dealing with stuff you ain't got no clue." And they still going and thriving. And this was this close to me. Like my ace is this close to me.

• 1:10:56Speaker 02

  So man, when you see me um maneuvering, you ask me all the time, RC, like, bro, you just so positive. I done seen the worst, dude. Like I done seen the worst in people. And I've seen somebody have to come back from the worst in a person. Being imposed on them, right? And my sister, so you know, tha- that's like the legacy of my sister is my motivation. Um, and then my wife, lost her mom at thirteen. Um, and went to St. John's, left St. John's, went to Tyler Junior College, left Tyler. We met at LSU. I ain't never seen her one day make an excuse.

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  We had a baby, she popped out, she started being a mother. She ain't never complained. Had another baby, popped him out, never complained. Had my little girl, popped out, ain't never complained. The people that are most important to me has given me no excuse not to maximize this thing. And that's what I live on every day. That's why I don't get on TV and feel like I need to appease anybody. Or I need to get people to like me. I genuinely do not care what you think about Marcus Peters. And I think it's my best trait. You know what I'm saying? But, but because of that. And, and, and that, that, that moment and dealing with the aftermath of that was my pivot.

• 1:12:25Speaker 02

  Um, I ain't never been through nothing like that. And for her to go through that and still be my motivation to this day, still have a positive outlook on life. Man, dude, I, I get up in the morning and I talk about football, basketball and sports. And these people pay me handsomely. Man, there's people out there in real life, not only depending on us to make them smile, laugh, and enjoy the day, but it's also people out there depending on us to kind of fill a painful void that they got somewhere in their life. I subscribe to that. I will try to do that. That's what I try to do. That's why I try to make people laugh and enjoy when I'm doing my job.

• 1:13:07Ryan Clark?

  First off, we like you.

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 1:13:09Ryan Clark?

  So, that's, uh...

• 1:13:10Speaker 02

  I like y'all too.

• 1:13:12Ryan Clark?

  I mean, I think, you know, we've had this conversation about you sitting down with us for a long time. We want you just to sit down and talk life. Sometimes it don't always have to be about what got swagoo here, like, just chop it up. And I think allowing folks to see that it's not just the laughs and it's not just being able to entertain, that there's so much depth into who you are is why we were very excited about you being here, man. And I think you're the best that's doing it. We talk about... I text it all the time in the group chat, man. I think you have something that not many people have. And I remember to this day, you walking down the hall, telling me your plans and telling me that you loved it. And you was like, "I see what you want to do." I was like, "Ah, I just like doing it."

• 1:13:56Ryan Clark?

  And you was like, "I want to be a star." And you are more than well on your way, man.

• 1:14:00Speaker 02

  Appreciate my brother.

• 1:14:01Ryan Clark?

  So, we appreciate you, my boy.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  I appreciate y'all having me, man.

• 1:14:03Ryan Clark?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:14:03Channing Crowder?

  Love you to death.

• 1:14:04Speaker 02

  Love you, bro.

• 1:14:05Ryan Clark?

  Bro, you stupid too, man. People say vagina, bro.

• 1:14:08Channing Crowder?

  Oh, I [bleep] swag, man.

• 1:14:09Ryan Clark?

  Swag don't say vagina. He ain't say vagina, bro.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  He can't.

• 1:14:14Speaker 02

  Appreciate you, man.

• 1:14:14Ryan Clark?

  Bro, that's the actual name of it, Channing.

• 1:14:16Channing Crowder?

  Nobody says the word vagina anymore. It's 2022.

• 1:14:20Ryan Clark?

  No, not everybody's walking around saying the P-word.

• 1:14:22Channing Crowder?

  That's a 1947 phrase.

• 1:14:24Ryan Clark?

  So, if you can't say vagina...

• 1:14:26Channing Crowder?

  Gucci.

• 1:14:31Speaker 02

  That is actually better than what I thought.

• 1:15:00Speaker 05

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. No two football players are exactly alike, and the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gets to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. And like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.