StarTalk Sports Edition Series Premiere – Changing the Game, with Arian Foster

SERIES PREMIERE: Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with former NFL running back Arian Foster to explore his illustrious NFL career, the rise of science in football, and much more. Co-hosted by Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Photo Credit: StarTalk.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hello StarTalk fans. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and delighted to alert you of a brand-new version of StarTalk called StarTalk Sports Edition. As most of you know, I've always had a deep appreciation for the intersection of sports and science. And on this show, alongside my co-host Gary O'Reilly and the one and only Chuck Nice, I'll be exploring the intersection of sports, science, and especially the ways technology have touched both. So catch StarTalk Sports Edition every other Friday. That's every other Friday on the main StarTalk feed. And as always, don't forget to keep looking up.

• 0:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk begins right now.

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to our first episode of StarTalk Sports Edition. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And here with me in studio are my co-host Gary O'Reilly, a former professional soccer player from the UK, and of course Chuck Nice.

• 1:18Chuck Nice?

  Hi Neil.

• 1:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hey Neil. And today, we have former NFL running back Arian Foster in studio. He joined the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the Houston Texans, and he still holds the record for rushing yards and rushing touchdowns for the Texans. He's now pursuing, of all things, a music career under the stage name Bobby Fino. And he hosts a podcast called Now What. Welcome to the show, Arian.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  Welcome.

• 1:44Chuck Nice?

  It's pretty funny. Just before we cameras rolled, we were talking about Monday for you, after Sunday on the gridiron and recovery. I'm interested to know, like, what it takes to recover after a game. I'm not talking like, like, practice is gotta be rough enough.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:08Chuck Nice?

  But what happens, especially for a running back? Like the kind of Everybody wants to tackle the running Well, I mean, listen, every time you touch the ball, there's contact. That's all there is to it.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:17Chuck Nice?

  You know what I mean? Your position is, is probably, aside from lineman, the, like, you know, the front lineman, you know, offense and defense line, your position is probably the only position on the field, other than those two positions, that's designed for contact on every single play.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32Chuck Nice?

  Wait, wait, wait. Except when they can't catch him and he scores a touchdown.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:36Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's often.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  If you look at it percentage wise.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  We'd like it to be like that, but no.

• 2:46Gary O'Reilly?

  You have recovery. Talk us through.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  So, I mean, I remember it hurting. I don't know, there's no, I can't get

• 2:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay, next question.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  I can't, there's not a, there's not a pretty euphemism I can give you, but it just, it just hurts. And so, over the course of my career, you, you develop, uh, you kind of desensitized and you become, the pain becomes normal and it becomes a part of the routine. And you, and it becomes pain management rather than, uh, trying to avoid it. It's gonna happen. So, uh, there's a, there's a saying in football, it's like hit or be hit. And so you wanna deliver the blow rather than take it, cause that'll hurt more and cause you more damage. So, to answer your question, Mondays, it, I mean, it just hurt. You, you, so, I mean, the technical side, you wanna get in the ice tub, you know, try to decrease inflammation.

• 3:36Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Um, and you wanna try to, uh, you don't, you, you wanna eat foods that, that help, that are high in, um, antioxidants.

• 3:44Chuck Nice?

  Once again, yeah. And once again, mitigating inflammation.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so that's basically, that's all basically pain is, is just inflammation.

• 3:50Gary O'Reilly?

  We're gonna get on to the dietary thing.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, for sure, because you have an interesting, uh, sort of thought process during your career, as far as that goes. So, you're talking about your own personal mental strategy to cope with the morning after.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:07Gary O'Reilly?

  And how long does it take you to, to find yourself in that place? Cause obviously you know as a running back, there were certain things going to happen. So how long does it really, once you're in the NFL, cause the NFL's got to be a lot different to anything else that you've experienced.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  I'm getting that. It's different at each junction in the career, right? So like when you're, when you're, when you're, when it's early in the career, you're kind of still young and you, things don't really bother you that much and you can kind of bounce back. But as you, as you, as you age, you notice the effects more.

• 4:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you hit twenty-five.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you age.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, relative, the term you like, relative to other football players. Um, so as, as you start to age, you start to feel the effects of it more. And what you, like I said, it's kind of like what I said, alluded to earlier is like, it's about pain management. You have to, you have to find a way to manage the pain. Yeah. And I was in the NFL at a time where the NFL wasn't in love with the science part of, of the sport. Alright. And so they were actually trying to hide some of the science part of the sport, like stuff with CTE. And so I, I came, that was my era. Now they're embracing science. Sure. Which the world should, but now they're embracing science and it's going to do nothing but benefit the players and their organization.

• 5:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The role that science could play in learning what can happen to your body and preventing that, uh, you know, concussions and other.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  The, I mean, it's just like anything and I don't, I'm not saying this because you're here, I'm an advocate for science, but anything that science is infused with, upgrades. It just doesn't matter what it is because it's, it's empirical data that does nothing but help and, and grow whatever you're trying to do. So, um, early on, like, like I remember vividly as a, as like a kid and in high school, and even in college, you were considered weak if you got a drink of water while you're, while you're, while you're in practice or like where you're doing workouts. It's like, no, you leave the water alone. It's like, and like looking back, it's like this is the dumbest thing possible. Cause now you got guys falling out.

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a macho thing.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:11Gary O'Reilly?

  I grew up in the same, same ethos. You know what? You're weak if you drink.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:15Gary O'Reilly?

  You're onto the sideline. You're going to see your mama, you're going to do this.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Hands off your knees.

• 6:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Get your hands off your knees. I'm like, I'm tired. Like, are we, are we pretending that we didn't run right now?

• 6:26Gary O'Reilly?

  You were.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  I never understood.

• 6:27Gary O'Reilly?

  It was peer pressure, it was coach pressure, it was, um, a lot of it's constructed in your own mind, but it was enforced upon you all the time.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  It's a culture, especially in football. It's, it's, it's a culture of this. Pretend macho ego driven thing that I was never in love with. And so you get kind of like you call like I used to call some of that stuff out. I'm like, why are we pretending like I'm not tired? I'm tired. I'm thirsty. I'm gonna drink water. And so like you get kind of typecasted as like the the bad one, the you know what I mean?

• 6:58Chuck Nice?

  Interestingly though.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  You're just banging for rights.

• 7:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. What's what's funny now, though, is the approach to that is just the opposite. It's like we see now that you've reached your peak. And at this point, it's time for you to take a break because that's going to increase your performance.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're tracking how many steps you take.

• 7:13Chuck Nice?

  They're talking that right.

• 7:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And when was the last time you did take a drink and how much you did drink?

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what the electrolytes were when you did it.

• 7:19Chuck Nice?

  That's right. And and and the fact is that being hydrated is probably the best thing you can do when you're doing any physical activity.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  Thousand percent. I mean, I mean, to what we were talking about off camera was I spent the majority of my career dehydrated. And I didn't know. Uh, it wasn't until my last year where the sports science side came on and like they started hooking us up to all these things while we're practicing. They took our our levels and so I I didn't understand magnesium, potassium and these things that kept you hydrated as a human. That I I was I was burning more calories than that. You're like a lot of these things that it's not common knowledge unless you have somebody that who's an expert in these things. But it's not information you're privy to unless you go out and seek it. And so.

• 8:00Chuck Nice?

  See, I spent a lot of my time dehydrated because I drink a lot. And I don't mean water.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  As you should.

• 8:06Gary O'Reilly?

  It's interesting. Everybody thinks everybody thinks about the the harvesting of data as the telemetrics, particularly in NFL. But a lot of it now has come into the biodata. Each individual athlete's hydration levels, heart rates, everything because.

• 8:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that where it's gotten now? I mean, because right, as you said, it's easy to to monitor the the kinematics of things. How fast did he run? How long was he running? How what's the temperature outside? You you have that, but what's going on inside your body relative to someone else's? How much energy do you have left that you might not know you have? Or maybe you're ready to collapse and you don't know it, but I know it because I've got the data.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  They're starting to take that into account, which is a beautiful thing, but it's it's like when you see it, when your time has passed, you're like, are you kidding me?

• 8:52Speaker 02

  But it is, but it's it's better for the players, but like, so like I said, they're starting to take that account. Whereas before. The culture of football was this one size fits all model. And I used to hate it, cuz like, for example, I used to, we, for workouts, like, we had this slate of workouts, and I used to do the same things that the linemen were doing, and I'm like, this makes no sense. I don't do what they do, they don't do what I do. Why are we lifting the same? Why, this doesn't make any sense. And I used to, I used to protest, and I used to get, he's a troublemaker, I'm, I didn't ever- Did you get your ass whooped by other players? No, that never happened, that never happened.

• 9:26Chuck Nice?

  Did someone have a stopwatch on that?

• 9:29Gary O'Reilly?

  That was instant, nah.

• 9:31Chuck Nice?

  That never happened. That's so funny, it's like, we don't-

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Were you annoying in the, were you a geeky annoying in the gym? I was, I was, I was the guy, like, always had something to say. Cuz the system was broken, and I, I'm like, if the system's broken, we gotta fix it. Like, why are you guys not-

• 9:44Gary O'Reilly?

  See, you, you're a-

• 9:45Speaker 02

  He's whistleblowing on the weightlifting. You know that's bad.

• 9:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, no, no, what we have here is an athlete who has seen the future from where he is. Now, okay-

• 9:55Speaker 02

  I would like to think that.

• 9:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you. See, the thing is, why am I doing the same standard practices that a guy that doesn't do my discipline of skills, I should be doing my own things. And we, we kinda got there in soccer, happily, after I finished playing, long after. But you did something that you could control yourself, which was your diet. You went to a plant-based diet. I mean, while everyone else is ziggy and you're just zigzagged.

• 10:22Chuck Nice?

  Clearly, you can be, um, as physically fit as necessary, you can gain muscle mass, and you can be, from what I understand, uh, more energetic by just having a plant-based diet.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Wait, were you plant-based when you were signed to the NFL? Yes, for- The whole time? No, no, not the whole time. For, for a short period of time. So, I'll tell you, so when I, when, in 2012, for about half the season, I was plant-based. It was, it was, it was that, that summer into half the season. Um, and the reason why I switched, we'll get into how I felt during everything, but the reason why I switched was, it was just annoying to me to have to, because, like, right now, you can walk outside and there's a vegan restaurant somewhere. Right. In 2012, yeah, in 2012, that wasn't the case. Not only that, I did it-

• 11:10Gary O'Reilly?

  It was the salad bar.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, it, it was it.

• 11:12Gary O'Reilly?

  If that.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Cuz I was in Texas.

• 11:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. By the way, the salad bar in Texas, barbecue. That's right.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a sprig of parsley on the barbecue.

• 11:22Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 11:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a salad, right?

• 11:23Chuck Nice?

  We put some temperature sauce on it. That's green. It's green.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  No, but so I did it in a time where it wasn't as socially acceptable. So I did it when...

• 11:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got your ass whipped for that too?

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, no, man. Nobody whipped me. I'm thinking, you trying me right now?

• 11:41Chuck Nice?

  I love it.

• 11:42Gary O'Reilly?

  The other thing is, you wanted to kick her. You're a running back.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 11:47Gary O'Reilly?

  And you've gone plant-based.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:48Gary O'Reilly?

  So how much flack did you take in the locker room?

• 11:50Speaker 02

  It was, well, not necessarily locker room, because everybody understood on my team, like, whatever I did, like, I can intellectually defend myself, right?

• 11:58Gary O'Reilly?

  For sure.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  And...

• 11:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, everybody's naked, so there's a limit to how much...

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, we ain't talking about vegetables.

• 12:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  No, like, on a national scale, it was like a national story. It got debated on sports shows and, like, I got called all kind of, like, it was, it wasn't like...

• 12:13Gary O'Reilly?

  What about on the field?

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Nah, nobody gonna...

• 12:16Gary O'Reilly?

  No trash talking?

• 12:17Speaker 02

  I could trash talk with the best of them.

• 12:18Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:19Gary O'Reilly?

  That's what I like.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  See, I don't want to...

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If he keeps trying me, you gonna see.

• 12:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you know what? I'm very interested now.

• 12:27Gary O'Reilly?

  We should stick around.

• 12:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I'm interested because I just want to hear some of the, because some of the best stories you hear about trash talking on, now, on the basketball court, you get a lot of chat.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Quality trash talk.

• 12:38Chuck Nice?

  A lot of quality trash talk on the basketball court. And, you know, you see a lot of barking on the football field, but I also hear there's a lot of good trash talk that happens.

• 12:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Run on the line.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  It's different. It's different.

• 12:50Chuck Nice?

  It's a different kind of trash. Like, one story, Reggie, it wasn't Reggie White. It was Reggie White who did the trash talking, but it wasn't him who told the story. It was an offensive lineman. He was lined up across from him. And the guy was, he said he was just needling Reggie all, like, half the quarter. And all of a sudden, Reggie just went like, "You know I know Jesus, and you about to know him too."

• 13:13Chuck Nice?

  And then he said, and then he came off the ball and just, he said he leveled me. And he said, and I shut up.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  If you pull out some gospel trash talk.

• 13:24Chuck Nice?

  Gospel trash talk, yes.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  I feel like, I feel like he had that one in his pocket.

• 13:28Chuck Nice?

  Cause I know what you're thinking, you're just like, why you bring Jesus in?

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're all distracted by that, right?

• 13:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Alright, so let's, let's try and knit these two things together. We spoke just previously.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Trash talk and vegetables?

• 13:40Gary O'Reilly?

  We're gonna get to that.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  My bad, man, my bad.

• 13:44Gary O'Reilly?

  So, they bounce, they're great.

• 13:48Gary O'Reilly?

  The recovery, post-match recovery and going to a plant-based diet. Now, it had to be some benefits. Was recovery part of the benefit of going plant-based, do you think?

• 13:59Speaker 02

  For, for me, yeah. And anytime I speak about this subject, I always have to preface it with, it is anecdotal. Cause there was nothing, I didn't, I didn't really have a barometer I can gauge on anything, anything other than me. I don't, to my knowledge, I'm the only plant-based running back that there, in the NFL that there has been, so. It ever was. Right. So I don't know, I don't know how to gauge it. So all I can say is like, yeah. For me, after the games, I felt, I, I noticed a difference in how my body felt. It, it didn't take as long to recover. The bumps and bruises, I didn't feel like were as, um. It, it didn't inflict as much. Yeah, well, it, it just didn't, it just didn't hinder me as much. It didn't hinder me as much.

• 14:40Gary O'Reilly?

  So, you hear that story coming up as a, as a, as a running, as a junior running back, as a, as a rookie in the NFL. Do you think I recover better, I recover sooner?

• 14:50Speaker 02

  No, I'm gonna try that.

• 14:50Gary O'Reilly?

  I'll go plant-based.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Let me try it.

• 14:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, would you advise that for another?

• 14:53Speaker 02

  Nah, I wouldn't advise it. This is why I wouldn't advise it. Because in order to be plant-based, you have to have extreme control of your diet. And, and so I have, I have the resources in order to like, I want this for dinner and I go get that for dinner. I can have a chef cook it for me or my lady can cook it for me. And so like when you're. And you also have to make sure you're getting the right nutrients. Yeah. I mean, I, you have to supplement with B12. There's a lot of things that you have to be aware of, but as. B12 is a meat-based vitamin, yeah. Um, and so when a kid is coming up, you're, you're, you have for dinner, whatever your mom and dad, I mean, if, unless.

• 15:24Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, it's social economics.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  How I grew up.

• 15:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Like your Justin Bieber.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know what I'm saying? How I grew up was that whatever was for dinner was for dinner.

• 15:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, sure, I get you.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  So, so for a kid coming up and he sees somebody goes plant-based, like, he might be intrigued. Put it, put it in your file folder and then experiment with it later, but for now, get your nutrients how you need to.

• 15:44Gary O'Reilly?

  No, that's, that's interesting, because I, I just thought maybe if there was, particularly as running backs, contact, i- i- it is, it is a contact sport. A bordering on collision sport.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  I would say collision sport.

• 15:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, so, you know, anything that aids recovery has to be something that you've, you've got to open your mind to, otherwise you're going to be struggling to play fit every single game.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  I'd be interested, like, i- it being studied.

• 16:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, I'm with that.

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got to take a quick break, but more StarTalk Sports Edition, we return. Welcome back to StarTalk Sports Edition. Today, we have former NFL running back, Arian Foster, in studio.

• 16:50Chuck Nice?

  All right, so we're all over the place here, because we don't have a lot of time with you. I need to know, who is your favorite running back, uh, taking snaps right now?

• 16:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Favorite running back who's not in jail?

• 16:59Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 17:01Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man.

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn, that cut down the list of, no, sorry.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Uh, right now?

• 17:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right now.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Right now. Uh, I don't watch a lot, but from what I've seen, uh, probably it's a cat by the name of, uh, Alvin Kamara.

• 17:18Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like, I like his game.

• 17:21Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Growing up, running back hero. Growing up. I got two.

• 17:25Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  I got three, I got three.

• 17:26Chuck Nice?

  Three heroes. Three's good.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, uh, Eric Dickerson.

• 17:29Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Uh, Walter Payton.

• 17:31Chuck Nice?

  Of course. Yes.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  And Barry Sanders.

• 17:33Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. Yes. Sweet. It's hard to get better than those three.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  No, it doesn't get better than those three.

• 17:37Chuck Nice?

  It's hard to get better than those three, I mean, seriously, yeah. And of, of the three, I gotta say, the most exciting.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  And leadanium thomson, I had to, I'm sorry.

• 17:44Chuck Nice?

  What's that?

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Leadanium thomson.

• 17:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh, leadanium is great, yeah. But I gotta say, like, uh...

• 17:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, what you did was... That's like a new element on the periodic table.

• 17:51Chuck Nice?

  What's that?

• 17:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leadanium?

• 17:52Chuck Nice?

  It does. Leadanium. I think it's leadanium. It's leadanium.

• 17:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, leadanium.

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  But leadanium is a great element.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A very good element.

• 17:58Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry.

• 17:59Chuck Nice?

  If only we could find the elusive leadanium.

• 18:03Chuck Nice?

  We may be able to make this bomb.

• 18:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Actually, it's in Avengers Endgame.

• 18:12Chuck Nice?

  All right, so now I gotta just, uh, yo, so Arian, I gotta, I, so, of course, I always, um, read everybody's Twitter feed before they come on the show.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm sorry you did that.

• 18:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah?

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Sorry you did that, man.

• 18:22Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God, I love it.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  I talk a lot of junk on that.

• 18:25Chuck Nice?

  No, your Twitter feed is awesome. By the way, it's, um, it's at Arian Foster and it's Fino is, you know, your Twitter handle. Um, and you have on here a video that I have to know if you made the video or did you just post this video? Because it's titled this. Um, this is how cannabis goes from a seed to harvest. And it is the whole, check this out, it's the whole video.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:53Chuck Nice?

  Of one.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  It's not my video. I wish it was my video.

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh, this isn't your video?

• 18:55Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 18:55Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay, you're just reposting it, all right?

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just retweeted it.

• 18:57Chuck Nice?

  All right, then, forget it. I thought you might have...

• 18:59Speaker 02

  I mean, it's an amazing video.

• 19:00Chuck Nice?

  It's an amazing video, but I only ask because I thought you might have some weed on you, but...

• 19:03Gary O'Reilly?

  So, okay, we've, we've, we've been through the NFL.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  I saw somebody in the city, man, we'll highlight you after.

• 19:07Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  After the show.

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hook you up after, we got, we got people.

• 19:10Gary O'Reilly?

  This is half a party special. So, uh, we've done NFL. We've zigged when others zagged. Where are you on your own particular journey right now? So what are you into?

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Um, that's a great question, man.

• 19:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you.

• 19:24Chuck Nice?

  Can I preface that by saying?

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He caught my attention early because he was talking like no other football player I had ever seen. He was thinking about science. Took his gum shoot out. He was, he was not, he was marching to a different drummer. Yeah. And that drummer had some overlap in my Venn diagram as a scientist. Nice. How his brain is wired. And in fact, you heard him say, when he was talking about his vegan experience, he prefaced it. He said, this is only anecdotal. This is anecdotal. I can tell you my experience. We didn't do the official experiment. We don't have empirical evidence. But here is my story. This is, you're talking sci- that is, that's how that works. That's how that works. Yeah. Plus you compose poetry, and so I'm just, I'm all in your camp. Go.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Man, great to hear that. We can end it right there.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  No, but um, my, my journey right now is, is I, I've been extremely fortunate to live a dream of mine, which was the NFL. So when I was seven years old and I was born in the circumstances I was born into, I had a dream to be.

• 20:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were born at age seven?

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. I just woke up at age seven.

• 20:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think so.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  It was an anomaly, man.

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just said that sentence the way that was composed.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  But uh, that's what, that's what I started.

• 20:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I was seven, I was born into a, okay.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  It was amazing. But uh, no, that's, that's when my dream in the NFL started. And uh, my dream was to get out. And when, uh, when, when I accomplished that goal.

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you were not even drafted.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  No, I wasn't drafted, but I had the perseverance to, to, to finish the, the goal. And I did that. And throughout the journey, what I learned was just that, that, that this is gonna sound super fortune cookie and I apologize, but it's like this, it's like success. Is it's a relative term and you have to define your success before you obtain it.

• 21:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Um, or else you're gonna be chasing the rainbow. And so, uh, I, I did that. But what I found out that it was a, it was a journey and it wasn't a destination. I know, it's really corny, but it's the truth. And so I found out on my journey that I was so. I had such tunnel vision focus on what I wanted to do that it blinded me to the things that I really am passionate about. And so as I'm living my dream in NFL, I realize I have access to all of these things that I wouldn't be privy to otherwise. And so I get to sit here and talk to you guys. And so I started to tap that well when I was in the NFL. And so I say all that to say, I am just enjoying the journey and everything and anything that interests me, I get into.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  And so I have an idea of what I want to do, but right now, it's podcast and it's music. And when I get to a certain age, I'm going back to school.

• 22:00Gary O'Reilly?

  That's a good place to be.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  So you got your own podcast? Yeah. What's it called? It's called Now What?

• 22:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Now What?

• 22:07Speaker 02

  Now What? Question mark. Yeah. All right, cool.

• 22:09Gary O'Reilly?

  You talk about the journey. Were you one of those athletes that come through high school and it was destined that you would be NFL? Or did you have that guy on your journey that said, "Son, ain't gonna make it"?

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I had a whole bunch of those guys. I was never like the kid in town where it was like, "Yo, that's, he's gonna be the one." I was never, that was never that. I was always, I had to fight, like I didn't, I had to fight to get playing time in high school, just on some politics stuff. So have you been back to the coaching? No, but I've heard stories that he don't, he don't really like me. So I had moved, so I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I moved to San Diego, California because it was just a bad situation. My father wasn't there and I was doing things I shouldn't have done. I have to interject. The name of the Albuquerque AAA baseball team? Albuquerque Dukes. Well, it's the isotopes now. Isotopes. The isotopes. That's where they detonated the first atomic bomb.

• 23:02Gary O'Reilly?

  You're never three steps away from a scientific reference.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  I just thought it was cool. Go on. It's all over our culture. Okay, go on.

• 23:11Chuck Nice?

  But how did, how did you overcome the people who said, "Yo, man, you're not gonna make it or you're not gonna do it"?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  It was, ignorance is bliss, right? So like looking back, I had no chance. The probability was very low and you just couldn't tell me anything different. I never knew anything different.

• 23:27Chuck Nice?

  You're the Road Runner.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  I didn't.

• 23:29Chuck Nice?

  Standing out on thin air.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  I'm positive that there's plenty of dudes out there who have had the same dream and it didn't work out and they're still trying to do it somehow, some way and it will never work out. Well, they believe the naysayers. Yeah. Well, not even, no, I think that a lot of them don't and, but they just don't have... The talent and it's not no disrespect, but

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Both will not get you that if you don't have the talent, no. If you have the talent, but don't have the drive and you believe naysayers, then you're not getting there either.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  I was it's a multi variable variable issue, but for

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just him talk that math.

• 24:03Gary O'Reilly?

  That is right, but no, it is because you know what the count? The counters are different and they they align, they don't align. Now go back to that part in Albuquerque where you were doing things you shouldn't have done. I'm not going to ask you what they were.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  I am. Yeah, I have an interesting story. So, and I

• 24:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Please tell.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  And you can you can chime in on this. I had an early experience with psilocybin. And I I I don't know, we should preface it with you should always be safe with any kind of drug use or any alcohol or anything. But um I had an early like I was doing. I I experimented early, I didn't have a lot of

• 24:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Alright.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Guidance earlier, I had a lot of freedom, we'll put it like that. And I had early experience with psilocybin and I fundamentally believe that kind of changed the way I looked at the world. And it's why I look at things so analytically now and it's why I don't see surface level things. I think it had a part to do, I can't say a hundred percent. But I I the more I researched about that actual. Uh.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Trip.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, not necessarily a trip, just the the chemical like. Everybody, not everybody, a lot of people have a lot of the same experiences.

• 25:10Gary O'Reilly?

  It's funny, there was there was a show on HBO.

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or you can take a class in physics, alright.

• 25:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, I'm I'm going.

• 25:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And and land in exactly the same spot. Okay, I'm just saying, you get analytical after physics or drugs, I don't know which which.

• 25:23Chuck Nice?

  And when you say early, you don't, I mean, it's not like super early, like you're not like four years old, like drinking mushroom tea going. I tripped my face off like.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  No, I don't have that early, okay.

• 25:31Gary O'Reilly?

  It's funny, there was this, there was an HBO show with LeBron and Anthony Davis. And LeBron was saying, out of the 11 guys you used to hang around with in high school, five were dead.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Hmm hmm.

• 25:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Killed.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 25:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Now, and I'm watching that and it kind of resonated with my own upbringing, not that anyone died, but by the time half of the guys I hang around with in high school, five of them had been in jail.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 25:54Gary O'Reilly?

  And you said you got into the bad stuff and you came out of that environment. Do you think that was the moment your NFL career could have possibly begun? Taking yourself out of, because you could have been one of those guys on the other side of the line.

• 26:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's plenty of instances where I could have. My life could have taken another turn.

• 26:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  But luckily I had.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  A little voice in the back of my head sometimes. Yeah. He would kick in every now and then.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  I'm just saying.

• 26:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Voices in the head.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  I'm just saying.

• 26:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Another voice is okay, when it becomes multiple.

• 26:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Multiple voices, yeah, one voice is fine.

• 26:35Gary O'Reilly?

  So, okay, you were an NFL player, but you were never drafted.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were not drafted.

• 26:40Gary O'Reilly?

  True.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you rose up and just were a star and with set records.

• 26:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is, how many of you are out there that are being completely overlooked during the draft? What formula are they using so that you're not noticed and other players are?

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Is it the right formula?

• 27:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, do they just have a better highlight reel person? Or what's going on at our college?

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Well, I think what it is, is a, it's a bell curve, right? That life is basically a bell curve. But it's a bell curve. You have guys that are quote unquote the cream of the crop. And you have guys who are viewed as not really that talented. And it's basically the eye of the observer. So it's the talent scouts for the organizations that are picking the guys. And it is of my opinion that they don't 100% know what they're doing.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 27:38Gary O'Reilly?

  But, no, no, go, go, go. No, no, let him finish.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  I don't want to disrespect their craft. Right. But.

• 27:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But they're clueless.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  I mean, I used to watch guys get drafted and I'm like, why? Like, I'm looking at him, why would you even think he's talented? But it's, it's, it's a multifaceted issue. And there's so many variables involved. And a lot of the times, there's business decisions involved in it too. Right. That come into play. So I think anytime you have like business and entertainment, it just becomes. It gets muddled and it's never gonna be what it's supposed to be.

• 28:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Could it be they're only looking at the highlight reel? Of what someone has accomplished and they're not looking at the ambition reel of what someone will accomplish.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  Well, that's the thing, you never, you, he could be the most talented dude in the world and then you give him 20 million dollars and that ambition dies.

• 28:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Right, but then there's.

• 28:31Chuck Nice?

  Cause that's what he wanted.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  And you never know, so you can never, there's always saying in football.

• 28:36Chuck Nice?

  You're literally taking away the hunger.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it's, it's a variable, it's possible, so there's always saying in the NFL that says you can't, um, like there's no drill to measure heart.

• 28:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  So, no, there's no algorithm either.

• 28:48Chuck Nice?

  Right. And by the way, you give me 20 million dollars, I quit everything.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  No more podcast, dog.

• 28:56Chuck Nice?

  So is that, is there a magic? It's all done, I quit everything. What you doing? I quit, bitch. That's what I'm doing.

• 29:03Gary O'Reilly?

  You don't have 20 million, so sit yourself still.

• 29:07Chuck Nice?

  My wife, I'm telling her right now, I quit.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  I quit.

• 29:09Gary O'Reilly?

  He doesn't mean it.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  She gonna get hair.

• 29:11Gary O'Reilly?

  She gonna be washing up when he gets home. So is there a, is there a perfect set of stats for a running back? Is there a, this is what, this is what it should be?

• 29:21Chuck Nice?

  Stats?

• 29:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, is there, is there a, he's gotta be this tall, this heavy, this quick, gotta be able to do this, this, this, is there a?

• 29:27Chuck Nice?

  Is there a prototypical running back?

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Well, actually, I, to that point, I feel like LeDanian Thompson was one, Marshall Faulk was another.

• 29:39Chuck Nice?

  Marshall Faulk.

• 29:40Speaker 02

  We were all kind of early adapters of the new NFL. The new NFL is you have to be a three down running back, which means you have to be able to pass protect.

• 29:48Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  You have to be able to catch the ball out of the backfield, you have to be able to run routes. And so I was, I was one of the early adapters in that, in the transition to this generation of football now, and so.

• 29:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You sound like an old man, the way he's talking. He ain't but 30.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean.

• 30:02Chuck Nice?

  I remember when we had those leather helmets.

• 30:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what he said.

• 30:06Chuck Nice?

  They were so hard.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  You know, I, I just haven't been around football in so long, I feel so disconnected to it. I 100% do, you're right. We did have leather helmets.

• 30:15Chuck Nice?

  I gotta tell you something, retired NFL player, you're in great shape.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  Thank you, man.

• 30:19Chuck Nice?

  Let me just tell you that, cause I know quite a few retired players and they are fat as hell.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  They balloon.

• 30:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so jujitsu. Now, you're sitting next to a former college wrestler.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  I am aware.

• 30:29Gary O'Reilly?

  And.

• 30:31Gary O'Reilly?

  How does, I mean, in this whole raft of things that you've in depth since acting, singing, now jujitsu, where does jujitsu fit into the realm? And how?

• 30:44Speaker 02

  I would be lying if I said it was something that I was meditating and I just my, you know, I met some, nah, it was my guy called me, he's like, yo, you trying to work out? And I was, I said, yeah. And so I met him at the place and he's like, it's jujitsu.

• 30:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a jujitsu friend of yours?

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Well, I was, I wanna say he's a jujitsu friend. He's a guy I used to play with that now does jujitsu. His, um, his kids have been going there for years. And I was looking for new workouts because I spent my life in the gym. And so I, I don't really wanna lift weights and stuff anymore.

• 31:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  So I'm always looking for a new innovative workout. So I was like, yeah, I'll give it a try. And when I did, I found out that it was a little more than a workout and I fell in love with it. It's amazing. It's an amazing sport.

• 31:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Cool. Does it work mentally as well as physically?

• 31:27Speaker 02

  That's what I liked about it was if I was telling, uh, the doctor over here, it's, it's like chess with the body. You're, you're fighting for positioning and, and you're trying to anticipate and, and you're trying to trick them. Like there's, there's ways you can trick them into thinking you're doing something. And it's, it's like chess with the body and it's a beautiful display of physicality. I like it.

• 31:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Cool. So give, give me jujitsu in science, please, doctor.

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I know less about jujitsu than about other martial arts.

• 31:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Obviously, there's a lot of physics, center of gravity.

• 31:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. So your hands are on someone, you're grabbing their D. And you are at every instant trying to feel where their center of mass is, where they could be tripped, where they can fall off balance. And then you wanna exploit that. This is the chess game he's talking about.

• 32:11Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 32:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You might move in a way, they respond to that move. You're just setting them up.

• 32:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 32:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's like a setup in a chess game. Let me lure them in and then I'll get the king or the queen. So I think all of these sports that is, that is hand to hand, it's all about the physics of your positioning, your center of mass. Is it lower? Is it higher? How long is your reach? Um, are you quick?

• 32:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could be both thinking of the same move, but I'm quicker than I got you. So all of this, and a football player would be. You'd think, especially a running back, would have very good coordination, balance, and the things necessary to make a good starter entry into jujitsu.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  I did okay.

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But not in that video I saw you post.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  A hundred percent. That was, that was one of the ones I did not do okay.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  The guy, there was a guy taking photos around, everybody doing, like, the whole class. And he just happened to snap a photo where I was getting tapped out and choked by this black belt. And I was, I was, I had the grimacing face and I'm like, yo, that's when you decided to press.

• 33:09Gary O'Reilly?

  You learn more from your defeats than you do from your victories.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  They hurt, though.

• 33:13Gary O'Reilly?

  That's the whole idea about learning. Right, that is our, that is our interview today with Arian Foster.

• 33:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, if you've never done it, go to YouTube and look at his highlight reel. He just leaves folks in the dust as he zigzags his way to the goal line. We gotta end it here, but you've been listening, possibly even watching, our first episode of StarTalk Sports Edition. And I want to thank my guest, Arian Foster, and my co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O'Reilly. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, and as always, I bid you to keep looking up.