00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, folk bitten and in my case, underwear lessening podcast. You can't predict anything. Okay, we're joined by a very special guest, Bo Jackson. You're okay to hang out for a men while we talked about some other stuff. Got sixty seconds, you can you can weigh in on it. Um, that's want to talk well one, I want to talk about this that I feel so ashamed. I feel so ashamed by something that just happened that I want. I want the whole. I want everyone to know. I'm sitting here, I'm in my home state, and as a guy who's not from my home state, named guy named guy who was was a once my time expert turkey hunter. Yeah, um, retired expert turkey hunter guy is telling me about a fish that he knows about right in like Michigan or in one of the lakes, a fish he knows about. And I went so far as to say, there is not a fish here that I don't know about, and was adamant that the fish you were describing is a fictitious fish, a legend. But it turns out I was as u Arthur Fonds rally says that was rude, rue wrong, and the fish does exist. And so I've wanted I want to publicly apologize to you guys, public apology taking the spotted guar, the spotted guard, which is like people know a long nose guards, shorten nose gar, alligator gar. I said, the only guar that's here is the long nose guar. But there is a guard. It's way less guard looking called guard, which you've heard folks describe as a guardpike yard pike does exist. You were right. I was wrong. Not technically I was wrong. I was just as wrong as you were. Yeah, because you were arguing about it too, and then you learned the truth. Then I got proved raw ra and there I was, um quick news story from Alaska's really interesting. It's just happened. So three dudes, three mugs go out to Kodiak Island hunt bears. Did I you tell you about this story? They go out to Kodiak out. No, it's not. This doesn't go where you think it's gonna go. The minute I see that, I'm like, oh, someone got killed by bear on Kodiak on but not. Three mugs go hunting on Kodiak island and it rains, it is windy the whole time. It's just this just happened. May. It's uh, raining and windy. You know what they were hunting? Bears just happened. What else did he be hunting? Hmmm? I don't know if they had other seasons open this time of year, like what other than gris Give me an example. I don't know what else would they have opening. I guess black bear, But they don't have any black bears on Kodiac do you they know? And we still haven't talked about bears. I just said bears SONO good suny grouse. Okay, they could have been hunt I don't know if they could have be hunting suity grouse. Uh. One of them has a miserable time the whole time he's in the tent, doesn't want to leave the tent and all he does complain about the wind and the rain, and he wants to leave a week early, and they called a float plane to come pick him up with the plane can't come because the weather, So they're waiting, waiting and waiting. Eventually he gets in the huff and storms, grabs a rifle and storms out of the tent and says, I'm going home, so as he so like the guy, his buddy is hunting buddy explains how this has happened before and he'll just all of a sudden get mad and get up and leave. And they don't take much of it, and they take him hunting again. Yeah, they took him hunting again. Apparently they don't think much of it. Eventually, the plane comes to pick him up and there's just two of the three now. They tell the pilot, well, he wandered off. Um, no one's heard from him. So one of the hunting buddies decides to go home after all. He goes back home, and one of the guys decides, well, now I'm gonna stay and look for my body. And he spends six days have gone by. He even walks to a nearby village to ask if they've seen the buddy. They haven't seen him, and turns out that eventually finds the guy dead a mile from the tent. They still haven't done an autopsy on him. He's only a mile away, mile away. Dead. He had he was young, though, they're like postulating maybe he had a heart attack or his body. Points out that this guy had a habit of eating things he found to see if they were edible. And in his pocket is a chunk or root where he had carved off the outer layer of the root in order to gnaw on it. But they don't know yet, and he says his body. Of of the deceased says some stuff I don't know and I won't put in my mouth, and he'll caught a piece off and try it. That's what he says of his body. What kind of root was? It doesn't say yet. It's breaking news man with the tune back in later. Any bear not not attacked, not mauled, laying right next to his rifle, So it's one of the two, heart attack or whatever. Who knows they're gonna do an autopsy on the guy. That's a cautionary tale, hunting cautionary tale. Moving on, U Bo Jackson. You you've had all kinds of documentaries made about you. Yes, I think I was watching one of these documentaries and it was saying that when you were growing up you developed an uh some proficiency with slingshots. Yeah, slingshot hunting, is that true? Sling shot in homemade bow narrows? What was your interest there? Something there? Keep busy yeah, stay in trouble was this was this a rural where you did? You go up in a rural location would income area and you had like a bowload of siblings. I have four brothers and five sisters and you guys grew up We grew up the woods. No, we were in a neighborhood similar to where we are now, but it's a low income neighborhood. My mom worked too too odd jobs. She she raised all ten kids by herself, God bless hers, sol Um and um. The younger kids we had to find something to do to occupy our time during the day. And the older kids, my if I'm not mistaken, my two oldest brothers one going off to the military. My oldest sister was married next to the oldest brother was in Chicago. So they're about seven kids around the house at the time, and me being one of the youngest, the eighth of ten. Um. The only thing we had with a TV with three channels. There was no internet, no anything, so we had to make our own fun. So we go get them in or tube from a tire from a car tire, cut it up, get some nyline cord and make sling shots. Are we go out and there woods. Finding a limb, skin it, bend it, puts some knoyline cord around it, make a bow and arrow. Yeah, you tell me how you were talking about how you made those arrows? Were talking about that from ment? Well, my cousin and I Jason, we were known in the neighborhood as Frank and Jesse James Goes. We always stayed in trouble Born the same year. We're about two months apart. And um, we would go out and make these ball and arrows. And we go out in the weeds and find these little twigs that's about the size of a pencil, and we would get them. We have to find the straight ones and we get them. And we take bottle caps from off of a Coca Cola. We had to with the bottle opener, and we would take that, get the hammer and bend that bottle cap around the tip of that like folded over around and fold it over because once you fold old fold that bottle cap up over, you have a point on it. And we take a chicken feather, split that twig down the back, stick that chicken feather down, get thread and just wrap it and tie it off and make arrows and we would hunt my uncle's chickens. Esiually we got the crap beat out of us. But my uncle had this one chicken that had about tin feathers on it, a rooster named Red Skeleton, and we couldn't kill that chicken. The chicken was named Red Skeleton. We named the Red Skeleton. And this chicken would get in this old rush pile that was bob wire and old mattress springs and car tires and a big jump pile, and he'd get in that jump pile and we couldn't get him out. So we chased him every Saturday, and he would beat us to that jump pile. And we don't know whatever happened to Red Skeleton, but one day he disappeared. Were you guys like when you were when I when I was a kid, if you went out and made a bowl, you might and this, you know at the time, you would say that you're going out to play Indians or you're gonna have to play Daniel Boone. But what was like, what were you guys? Um? Sort of were you doing a thing because it was in reference to some you know, like reference to some bygone lifestyle, Like what was your motivation? No, our motivation was to kill ship period. That's all. We kill straight cats in the neighborhood. Seriously. People would drive through the neighborhood drop off straight cats, straight dogs, and you know, but we wouldn't kill the dogs. We we chased a cat out. I almost cut my foot off one day from chasing a cat because we because we were going to torture it. Yeah, and um, well we were just being young kids. We didn't know anybody. What was the uh, what was the wh were you drawing from? You know what I mean, like if you didn't know people that hunted, well, let's just get to this, because that was a big show on back there should be like playing outside. We would be playing outside. We go across the street, climb up in the tree and we got a big kudzuvian at the bottom of the at the base of the tree, and we get and dive out of that tree and that cut in act like a big spring, hit the kudzu, climb back up the tree and jump off again. We made our own trampoline out of kudzuvian. So we we literally made our own fund, big big. Because everybody in the neighborhood was very low income, probably made less than minimum ways and the money that your parents made from working. You had to keep the lights on, keep what food get by right on the table, and keep a roof overhead. Period. Yeah, you talk about your mother a lot like being my mother is the uh. My mother is a backbone of not only me but all my siblings. And we lost her too early at the age of sixty. So um, Yes, whenever I talked, percent of the time, it's gonna be about my mom. All my strength, all my courage, all my knowledge come from her. But she was a hard lady. She was a hard lady. And when I say hard lady, she could whoop your butt worse than any man could. So and being the eighth of ten kids, I got more, not spankings, not but whippings. I got ass whippings with an extension cord, a mining belt, whatever she could get her hands on. And this was on a good week. I would only get about four whippings. That was a good week for me. Well, now that you have kids, do you feel that you were getting whippings over things that weren't warranted? No, it was warranted. Every time a window got broken in the neighborhood. I did it every time a kid got hit in the head with a brick, I did it. Wind shield in the car. I did it. No, I did it, that's just it. I did it. We would have crab apple battles. And I'm not joking you when I say this. It would be six kids against me, and we go steal apples from my neighbor's tree. And these are a little green, hard apples. They weren't ripe yet. They were green and hard about beside the golf balls. And I get twenty apples put in and put put them in my shirt, and those guys get apples, and they would always run out of apples because I got six guys on apples at me, so I could pick up their apples and throw them back at them, and I would eventually run them all home. And the guys thought that they were safe once they got on their porch and got inside the house. Well, once the screen door closed, two apples shot through the screen door in the house, and they called my mom. She get my brothers and sisters. She would tell my older brothers and sisters, if you don't catch him and bring him home, you're gonna take his butt whipping. And have you ever seen on the TV show The Wild Dogs on in Africa, where how they chase animals, the wild Dogs, how they chase them in like and where there would be twenty wild dogs and they'll send three out to chase his animal. Then when those dogs get tired, three more fresh ones get on them and they run that animal to death and then they catch him in Well, that's that's how my brothers and sisters did me. They would send two siblings at me and they chased me around the bottom, and when I passed back by the house, they would peel off and two fresh siblings would chase me and they dragged me home, and my mom would beat the crap out of me in the yard. They most all them track stars. At one point time we were the neighborhood baseball and softball team, and then the seriously we were we were, Hey, do be a favorite? Give um, what's the quickest way to like everybody knows who you are, but what's the quickest way to like sort of some up your athletic career? God give him, no, no no, no, give me like the you know what happened? You want to playing professional football? Like in baseball. At the same time, that whole thing, just kid, We got a lot of younger. Well, put it to you like this. I was blessed to be able to run like a spook deer and could throw a rock like somebody shot it out of a cannon. And I grew up doing that. And my mother wouldn't let me play sports in junior high school because she said I didn't make the grades. So I was a knuckle head, wouldn't make the grades, wouldn't do anything in junior high She wouldn't let you play. I didn't I. I did not play football until I was in the ninth grade. And I didn't play baseball. I think I was in the eighth grade. So let me play baseball. And from from their own the rest is history. But she told me, if you don't make the grades, you can't do nothing at the school. You're gonna bring your butt home and work. You have to bring your butt home and do this and do that. And I stopped hanging with the crowd that I hung out with. And because yeah, the grades you were getting, Like how bad can people's grades in seventh and eighth grade? Put it to you like this, If I gotta see, that's like winning a lottery that's what's when I was being bad. But most of my grades were these because I just wouldn't put forth the effort. Not that I didn't know, I just wouldn't put forth the effort, just being just being a knucklehead. I wanted to be one of one of the cool kids, hang out with the cool kids, and not do my homework, not do this, flunk all my quizzes, and just do enough to get by, just just to do enough to where I wouldn't have an F on my report card. That was going too far. Yeah, that was overextending myself. I had to save that energy for mischievous stuff on the weekends. So my mom said, no, you can't play period. She said until you improve your grades, then I'll think about letting you play. And that's what I did. And she's using all those for ten kids. Ten kids out of ten kids. Nobody ever got sent to jail. Nobody got in any serious trouble. We had neighborhood fights with with with neighbors and relatives, but no nobody got The first person that got in trouble serious enough was You're one in on you. At thirteen, me and my gang, Me and my gang of about twelve, We were gonna walk across the mountain to swim in an old strip pit mining pit because they were mind based to mine iron ore around our town and they had old pits full of water and we didn't know what was in the bottle bottom. And tell people where he grew up real quick, that's summer Alabama. That's between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. Because you still haven't done a thing. You need to do. Layout like like layout your your professional career just super fast. You want the highest trophy, one of the highestman trophy in called college. Um got drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first round and I told him to go themselves because they screwed me out of my senior baseball year. Because at that time I was touted to be the first college player picked in the baseball draft and the first player picked in the football draft. So um, I got drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after I told him, don't draft me in the first round in eighties six and I turned them down and I had to sit out that year in which the Kansas City Roles drafted me in the supplementary baseball draft and they took me, and they took me in the sixth round only because my college coach was a picture for the Roles and the general manager and the head scout who was him alive today he is the oldest scout in the country names Art Stewart lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who who scouted me and they draft. He drafted me for the Roles and I ended up with the Royals the year after that. After my time inspired with the Tampa Bay Bucks, the Raiders came calling. So start to play baseball during the summer, football after baseball whenever baseball season was over. That was the agreement I had with the l A Raiders at that time. The Raiders were was in Los Angeles at the time, and I did both for four years and until I until I dislocated my hip my fourth year with the Raiders and UH retired from that. Recovered from hip replacement surgery well enough to where I came back and played baseball and my first at bad I hit a home run. This was I got trade it from the Rolls to the White Sox. So hence that's where I live now, you know it. I've been there for almost thirty years. When you when you broke your hipper, had your hip injury, Did you know that second to it? No? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, it wasn't all of this and now this I looked at that. I I'd say for about the first four to forty eight hours. Yes, I was upset because I got injured. Um. Then I got to the point where I was afraid, not for me, but I was afraid that I couldn't live the type of life that I wanted with my kids because they were young and I wanted to do things with my kids and so forth. And so fortunate enough for me, the man upstairs allowed me to rehab well enough to where I could live a normal life with my kids and my family and also come back and play baseball. So I did that. I had played baseball on an articles you here for about four years with the King to see the roles in the California Angels. No, with the Chicago White Sox and the California Angels. So my injury, everybody sit up and say, man, I wish that you had never gotten hurt. You could have been the best at this, best this. I never got into professional sports to be the best at anything. I never got in professional sports to make it to the Hall of Fame. I was good enough to make an All Star team. And Um, I never said I got goals of being in the Hall of Fame. Somebody just wanted to and the reason I played sports. Somebody wanted to give me a truckload of money to do something that I've been doing since I was a kid, which just made it easy for me. Um, baseball football was never the center of my universe. It was always family business, then probably sports somewhere down the road. So for me to to to end that chapter, to close that book on sports was easy. So because I always had something to fall back on. My four years at college, I I got the best out of the four years, meaning I had a full ride, first in my family to ever go to Division one college or just college superiod on a full scholarship. So I said, I'm gonna take advantage of this because I've heard too many horror stories about athletes going to college and in four years they come out and they could barely spell their name. But they're all star football players, all star baseball players, and this and that, and they can't read on the fifth grade level. And I didn't want to be one of those, as they say, dumb jocks. UM and my roommate and I we made a pack that we're gonna get our assets up and go to class. If I don't feel like going to class, you gotta make me get up and go to class. If you don't feel like going to class, I'm gonna make you get up and go to class. The only reason that we're not in class medical reasons. And we did that, and and I did graduate in four years. When I left Auburn after my senior year, I had six classes to compete to complete after lettering in three sports in college. And I put it off because this baseball football thing. And when I went back was right before my mother passed. She asked me, was I going to go back to college? And I said, how old was I? How old was I at the time where I got my hip? Um? I think I was. I think I was twenty No, no, no, Um, I lost my mother. I think I was twenty eight. So you went back to college, you were, like, I went back to I came out of college in five I went back to college and finished so tas everybody else, sitting in class like everybody else doing my homework. Um was it was it hard for people to be to focus on that because here's this dude like Boos, right, I mean famous dude. There you are sitting in class. Not really because everybody knew me and and I never did anything to bring attention to myself. Um um, I lived right there off of campus, and U, I just go to class. Did you have to move down with my family and everything? No, being from the state, I had a house there that was my house during the off season. So um so yes, I went back to school and I finished because I promised my mother that I would. And then she asked me, was I gonna go back and play baseball? And I said, if I do the first hit I get, it is gonna be for you. And my first hit was a home run, and I got that ball mounted in a case of acrylic bolted to her addresser at home. Till this date, that ball, that ball is on her. Yes, And um, I lost my mother three weeks after I had hit replacement surgery and ninety two April of ninety two, and then uh, you went back and were invited back to give the commencement address at Auburn. I was if I'm not mistaken that second none um non faculty in the history of the school to get the commencement at Allburg. So I take probably more pride than that than my sports. It's listed as one of the When I was looking it up before, I wasn't aware of it is. Uh, when I was looking up reading about it before talking to you, how it's listened as sort of one of the great it's one of the great commencement speeches of all time. Well, a lot of people, a lot of my friends said, and these are just buddies talking like you sit around with your buddy, And they said, how on the hill you get up there and you do a commencement speech and you started worse than mail Tillers because I heard it starting from my father, I and two sisters. And uh. In college, I would not do an interview after football game because I started, I get stuck on a word, and uh, my sports information director said, Bo, you're gonna have to start talking to the media because if you don't, it doesn't matter if you run for five yards on Saturday and they will praise you in the paper on Sunday, But if you don't do interviews with them, they are going to look at you in a different light and think that you're cocky, and think that your butthole and that's in that And on Monday they can cut you down solo with their pin that you have to stand on a step ladder to scratch a snake's belly. Because that I don't want to talk and and yes, so what I did was, um, I interviewed myself every morning in the mirror around six o'clock with my toothbrush and piss my roommate off because he tried to get some sleep. And I'm in the bathroom and I'm interviewing myself. I'm talking loud and and I'm stuttering, and I'm stammering, and I'm trying to get to the point where I'm relaxing enough to talk in front of the media. And one thing that I learned with stutters, I have been asked to during the during the during the Stutters Association Board, be chairman of the Stutters Association Board. I have a lot of things going on. I would love to do something with them, but right now, I got too much on my plate. But the thing that I learned is that stuttering is like swimming. When you're go in the water, you have to hold your breath, and before you hold your breath, you gotta feel your lung stull of air. It's the same with talking. A lot of people don't know it because they it's natural. Before we speak, we always inhale get along full of air. And people that stutter don't know how to exhale while they're talking. They exhale all that air at wants, and that's how they get stuck on the word. I have had people, older people in my community, to say, if you want to stop stuttering, get a dime and put on your tongue. Hell I swallow that dime because I'm just so hyper. That didn't work. It was too poor to get a speech therapist, so forth and soon so I figured it out on my own. And that's across the board. Most stuttering is just because of that reason. People don't know how to breathe properly when they started talking and they get excited, and when they get excited, the excel all the air and they still try to get that last word out and they got no air left and get stuck on it. And what I say, before you speak, think of your think of yourself. You're about them go on the water, swim the length of the pool, feel your lungs full of bear, and just let the words flow off your mouth and ex hell slightly as you're talking. And when your lungs are half depleted in hell again, continue to talk. Well you you seem to. I mean you've got licked now. Yeah, practice my ass out in the mirror with that toothbrush paid off, So you had. I'm just making assumption because you said you're like growing up in and I want to get back to whatever happened in this quarry. We gotta remember the court, but make an assumption that that you grew up a bunch of siblings mom dirt, poor dirt, poor, low income area. You had to um do you do you feel that you had to like self develop a lot of like a lot of the discipline you talk about. What's sort of like a commitment to go to school, you know, like a commitment to overcome your starter and be able to do interviews? Or do you think something you carried something with you from the way you were brought up and the way your mom raised you to teach you to be like because I can only imagine the level of discipline it requires to play professional sports. Right. This is all. This is all the discipline from my mom. Period. And my mom told us said, look, you go out and get in trouble to where you go to jail, you will stay there. I'm not gonna take my heart earned money that i gotta keep my lights on, keep a roof over the head, keep foot on the table to pay to get your dumb ass out of jail. I'm not putting up your bail. And she said that to all of our kids. We never got in trouble, big coach. We knew my mom was serious. Her word was golden. If she told you that she was going to do something, she did it, period. Period. That's just how it is. And I'm the type of person that once I went to college and when I was a young kid, everybody looked at me as the community's worst nightmare because I was a terror and people wouldn't let me come over their house to play with their kids. And I was labeled by the time I was twenty one to either be in prison or in the cemetery. That was just me, and I knew that I knew people thought that way of me. So when I got the scholarship to go to college. I said, I'm gonna make something out of this. And the last thing that I wanted to do was disappointed my mom to where she got to go to church and have the people in church there she is, did you hear about her son getting kicked out of college or got put in jail or so forth and to on. I didn't want to bring that type of shame ridicule, not only to my mom, but to my family, to my friends and so forth, and so so I walked that straight now a plan, and I was determined to make something out of myself. I had a I had a I had a thing when I was a kid. I said, once I grew up, I'm gonna never move back home, even even though it's home, it's where my heart is. I'm never gonna move back home. I'm going to continue to go forward. And I said, I'm gonna get out of this neighborhood either by going to the military to learn how to flight jets because I'm an airplane fanatic, or I'm gonna go to college. Well, the military thing didn't work out, but I had somebody wanted to pay for me to go to college, and in change, they wanted me to run up and down the football field for him. So I helped them feel the stands. I used them to get an education. And getting back to this the strip pit thing that swimming. Yes, crew had a big crew and we and we were going swimming. Well, we had to pass this. We had to pass this pick pit on our way. We're board hot as hell during the summer. Picked up a rock and through at the pigs and it was fun. And the next day we did the same thing, and it got worse and worse. In about two weeks we had killed about we killed about thirteen thousand dollars worth of this This guy's he didn't live in the neighborhood. He lived with rocks, with sticks, with everything. The pigs is killing him. We we we murdered this man's pigs because that's what we did. I had my my gang, and if my gang didn't do what I did, they got beat up. So if I threw rocks, they had to drow. I picked up a stick and whack the hog. They had to pick up a stick and white the hall and the barber, the neighborhood barber, the man that cut my hair from the time I was one year old, until I left to go to college. His house was about a block from that pig pen, and he heard the pig squill it and he came down and we were whacking on this big pig, and he came down and yelled hey, and shot in the air. He didn't shoot at us, but he shot in the air to scare us, because the minister asked him to watch, oh, because somebody was killing his pigs. And he came down and shot in the air, and everybody looked and scattered, and out of thirteen kids, guess who he recognized? The kid who is Harry's been cutting me? And I jumped the fence and I'm running down. The day before it rained like the Dickens. That's why we were going swimming, because we knew the strip pit was full of water. And I jumped the fence of the pig pen and I'm running and I know that there's a ditch big that's about ten feet down, and across the ditch is about twenty I ran and cleared the ditch, laying on the opposite bank, and we have red clay down south and the bank was still soft, and I sunk up to my calves in the red clay. When I landed on the other bank, pulled my feet out. My shoe was stuck in there. Refounding, got my shoe, put it on there, hauled as home. Got home, went on the side of the house, rents off my shoes and everything. When it went upstairs, changed clothes, took my money clothes and hit them in the hamster under the underneath the regular dirty clothes. So forth. It's on like that's gonna save me. And I'm sitting there and watching mone off. And I'm sitting on my bed at home, and I hear a car pulled up, and I look out the window and I see the barber in his truck and the sheriff's car behind him. And I'm like, oh, because my mom said, and I'm thinking, if you get in trouble, you're going to jail, I promise you. And they walk in the door and I hear my mom and she called me vinca fancer. Get down here. She said, if I have to come up there and get you, I'm gonna throw you down the stairs. The sheriff was sitting, the sheriff titting tuning up there, and uh came in there, and I'm like looking and she said, Mr McGruder said you, Mr McGruder, Mr McGruder, Mr McGruder, and UH said, you and your friends killing this man's pigs and me. When I lie, I started and all the male tillers came out big time, and I couldn't even get two or three words out. And she said, well off, off, She said, well, officer, if he did it, if Mr McGruder said that he saw him because he has been cutting his hair since he was one year old, and if he said he and he said, boy, don't you know I know your face? He said, when I shot that pistol up in there, all of your turned around and looked at me. He said, what happened to the to the short pants that you were wearing, your little cut off jeans that you were wearing. Where's your sneakers? I bet they're full of mud because I went down and look where you jumped over the fence and over the ditch, and I saw where you landed on the other side, and your feet you have to sink in the mud. And my sister win and found my shoes. Now I rent the mud off of the side, whether red clay was underneath, and the gruise madam and my mom to incriminating evidence, and I started crying and I squealed on everybody. I turned the dime on everybody that was with me, And luckily the owner of those pigs were a minister across down and he said, I'm not gonna send them all. He said about what I am gonna allow. They all gonna have to pay me back. They're all gonna have to get a job. You can't play summer baseball. You gotta get a job. And my mother mom said, you're better get that lawnmore running on the side of house, because that's the only way you're gonna make money this summer. You better fix your bicycle and get that lawn more running. And you're gonna cut grass. You're gonna cut grass five to eating Saturday and Sunday, and you will not go on that playground and play baseball. So I missed a whole summer of baseball because that to payback, I think I have to pay back, like, oh, almost eight hundred dollars. I had to make eight hundred dollars before school started. What do you what do you think? Like? What was driver? You want to kill the pigs? Just boredom? Let's put it to you like this if you view because do you view like now? And at some point you told me about the first time you went deer hunt. Do you feel that it is hunting to you like now that you like the hunt that's hunting, do you feel different than what that did? Because I'm hunting to get away from being the celebrity that I've become. Um, back then, I did what I did out of boredom and just mischiefs were just like, were you angry? I wasn't angry, just bored. There was nothing to do. There was nothing to do with my dad. We sat and we had UM. We sat and we had UH. We we had UM free lunch center. We had a freelance center down on the thing and UM we had free lunchers. Then wants to lunch were over. We had nothing to do. We go on the rec center get free lunches, and right after that there was nothing that we could do. So we had to make our own fun and we did that by doing whatever we did, and we ended up killing the man's pigs. Was that the last big trouble you got into. That was the only trouble I got into. So once that was over. I knew because my mother sent my oldest brother to reform school when he was sixteen because he wouldn't go to school. She dressed him nice, he wouldn't go to school, so she got the judge to send him to reform school to make it. And he had to stay there til he was twenty one years old, and even when then when he got out at twenty one, but the judge told him, you're either gonna go and listen to the armed forces. Are we gonna send you to the big house? Take your pick. Your mother has instructed me to tell you you're either gonna oh to the armed forces to make something out of yourself or go to the big house. Take your pick. It doesn't matter to me. A week later he no, I said, about two and a half weeks later, he was in basic training. And uh, he was in basic training. I think in um forbid, in Georgia. And I knew that that she would have sent me there. She would have sent me there. Yet he stayed in service for yes, yes, yes, my oldest brother, and um, he told me the horror stories just from being the new kid in the reform school. And he was sixteen and he had to beat up the bully. He had to literally walk up to the bully and hit him as hard as he could and break his nose. And they put him in solitary for a week and sent the bully to the hospital get his nose fixed. And when he got out first day he got out. Leading up to that, the bully and his buddies for called weeks straight tried to sodomize him in prison in the in the reform school. And the guy was about twenty years old and he was sixteen, and and when he got out of his punishment for being a week, went to the cave, went to the cafeteria ate his lunch, when in dumped this trade, kept the trade, walk up to that bully and whack him again across the nose with that trade again to let that bully know that he isn't to be messed with ever again. And everybody respected him from that point on because they said that cat's crazy, don't mess with him. But they never tried to mess with him again. They never tried to mess with it again. So he had to break the bullies nose twice to let everybody know that he's not gonna be mess with so and I knew that my mom would have sent me there, and I didn't want no part of that, So straighten, No, I didn't want the lifestyle. So I straightened, period. And that's that. That was my scared straight moment at thirteen. And I've been been walking to straight narrow ever since then. And like I said, it's just because the last thing that I want to do is disappoint my mother. So tell me about how it came to be that you got you mentioned earlier, the first time you, um, we're invited to go deer hunting when you were freshman in school. Freshman in school, how did like, what was your interest and what were you drawn to? And how did the invitation come about? And then what was your sort of perception of what was going on? My freshman year, we lived in a football door and I punter named Louis Kolbert Louis Coba was out in the yard shooting his bowl. And I was fascinated with bows because should make mine. And I've never seen a compound bow. And he was shooting uh compound bow and he was shooting the style foam cup about twenty five yards away and he would shoot and I couldn't see the arrow, but I would see that cup where the arrow would hit it and stick in the ground, and I see that cup. Moment, damn, he hit that cup. I watched him again, and I watched him for fifteen minutes and he hit that cup. He go pull those six arrows out and go back and stand there standing on the picnic table and shoot that cup like and I'm like, wow, I like that. I went down and can you show me how to shoot that? And he did. He took me five minutes. Yeah, and uh well I wasn't at the time. So he showed me how to shoot that boat. And within five minutes, I was hitting that cup and I was fascinated with so I was looking So I was looking forward every Sunday evening because we played on Saturday. Every Sunday, after we watched film our, I was looking forward to getting with him to go shoot this bow watching watch we played on the football game. We would go and shoot this bowl. And I had to go home through a little town called alex Alexander City, Alabama called it alex City. There's a highway that goes from Auburn to Birmingham called two eighty and Alex City is on two eighty I stopped at a little sporting good store there in the first boat that I ever bought was a fred Bear both called sixty three dollars with the arrows. To this day, I still have that bow with the same string on it that I bought on it. I won't pull it back, but I still got that bow. It was about ten pounds. It's a compound bow. No um, I had sights on it because I couldn't shoot instincting, and I put because I shot his bowl and he showed me you look through this little peep hole here and you put that top pin on what you want to hit, and just you know, it's funny we were talking about you mentioned someone shooting instinctive with the compound. I kind of forgot about it. But the first year I shot, the first couple of year I ever, Yeah, first several year I ever shot with the bowl. That's how we were talking to shoot. We shot fingers, no releases, we shot fingers and no sites and just shot instinctive with the compound bowl with the flip arrest down. You remember flip arrest Yes, a little yeah, remembers I had a flip arrests on my boat. But the man that taught me how to hunt the first time I ever went hunting. His name was George man Um. He's probably one of the most famous bowl hunters from the state of Alabama. And he taught me. How How did he get how did he get interested in you? Though I got interested in him. I think through our team doctor, because our team doctor hunted on his property. He had a lot of property and right outside of Auburn, right outside the campus, no more than thirty minutes from the campus, and our team doctor and he took me and and I set up in a tree stand with the rifle the first time, on about a one acre wheat field, and he said, you sit here. If you see a buck, take him. If you want to take him, take him and don't get out of the tree until I come and get you. Well, I'm thinking, well, buck walked out right before dark, dropped him right down the spot. And I'm sitting there in the stand. About twenty seconds later, after I shot that, dear, my knees started shaking and trim like, what the hill's wrong? I got buck fever, legs shaking, and once I got that under control, it got dark. So I'm thinking well, he's gonna come and get me. Six o'clock around. It gets dark at five thirty during the fall. Seven o'clock comes around, you know, George, come and get me. Eight thirty comes around, and you can't see nothing. You could hear stuff walking around the woods. And I've never been deer hunting before in my life. This is my first time. So I get down from the stand, and I got the rifle across my shoulder, and I'm getting down from the tree stand. I could hear stop walking in, don't stop, something walking stop, And I put one foot on the ground and a dear blue at me. I never and I didn't know what it was. And I went back up that day. I'm lad got back in that stand and I chambered around because I'm thinking, bigot, I'm thinking every monster in the world that you could think of at that time. It's waiting on me to come down these steps. And I went up there and I sat. I tried to go back down it again, and the same thing happened back up the damn tree stand. So he ended up coming get me. What he did? He sat and he dozed off in this rocking chair on the trump board. So he didn't end up coming get me till nine o'clock. But I didn't get out of that damn tree stand until I saw the lights of his truck coming through the woods. And when he came through the woods, the lights lit up the woods. They were dear everywhere. There were deer everywhere. We got down, got my deer, and the rest is history. I was. He taught me how to He taught me how to really shoot my bow, But my first deal was with the rifle. So did you then take off and start hunting all the time or did you have like sort of tend to your career and then come back to it later. No, But I hunted and fish. That was my way of getting off a campus. Like I said, that was my way back then, still getting away from being bo Jack's. I get with him and we talked hunting because he would make his own arrows, and he shot these big, these eastern arrows with the Have you ever seen the Simmons broadheads broadhead called Simmons, it's a one piece of it's a one piece steel broadhead that's about two grand. It's called a Simmons land shark, no big broadhead. And he fleshed his own arrows, and he shot these easterns. These were like seven teams. They look like your first grade pencil, that pencil, these were telephone posts. And he shoot extinctive and he has killed every animent that you could think of with that. And he taught me how to hunt. He taught me how to hunt, and so forth and so on, and uh. It was just one of the things that I do so till this day. All of my hunting skills, all of my hunting knowledge that I know, is a credit of George P. Man. He passed away about six years ago. He passed about six seven years ago. Yes, but he taught me how to hunt. When you were coming up through your professional career, did you did you speak openly about hunting or was it just not something that came up or you shot away from talking about it. I spoke openly about hunting to people that hunt that wanted to period. But no, I didn't go running brag about well I'm a big time hunter in anything like that. Now it's just whoever brought up hunting in a conversation, I openly talked about it. That was just like I say, that's my escape, that's one of my escapes from my professional life has taken on more relevancy now though later in life. With your kids or no. Um, my oldest son, he likes a pheasant hunt with me. He's a horrible shot, but he goes out with me, and and my other two don't have interest in it. My youngest son and my daughter. My oldest he goes sometimes with me. We uh, did you try to get him into it? And they didn't want to get into it. You know, one thing that I one thing that I've never done. I've never pushed my kids at anything, but but education. If you want to do it, you can do it. If you want to pursue something, you aren't going to pursue it for we and then give it up because just too hard. You will stick with them. So both of my sons they played junior high football, and everybody expected them them to be both Jackson, both Jackson type, which they weren't. And I never pushed them at it. And I just despised parents that sit up and push their kids and push their kids and push their kids, because in the end, when they get to be teenagers, they are gonna hate that sport and they are going to despise your parents for pushing them in that sport. You gotta let a kid make up his kids or her mind if they want to pursue that sport or not. Because that's kind of funny thing about the way you were describing your upbringing. This here you have. You know, you're someone who many people will site as the greatest athlete of all time. And your mom was holding you back from playing sports rather than putting you in all the traveling camps, and didn't have the means, didn't have the money too. We had a little league baseball team which was free. You signed up to play, and I did. At was eleven years old. Little league and nobody was every everybody was afraid to catch, to be the catcher, I said, I'll catch. One day, I caught. The next day I pitched. Next day I played short stop. Next day I caught. And the little league season was a month. We played four or five games. We played on Saturday and we played on Sunday. And the season lasts about a month a month and a half max. Then when that was over, I moved up and played Pony league team. I played with the I played let's say I played with them. I played with the third team to sixteen year olds. And when in the middle of the Pony League season, the catcher for the men semi pro baseball team wrecked on his motorcycle and broke his leg. I guess who was a catcher at eleven years old for the men, said my pros league. And I was throwing him out on my knees and I was getting hits at eleven years old. And when we get off the when we if we would go to the next town to play, we didn't have busses and every right down because we got on the back of the pickup trucks. So we ride in the bed of the pickup truck and go to the next town and play. And I get off and I put on the catcher's gear, and all the other team that, hey, you all are gonna get that kid hurt. You're gonna get that kid hurt. He don't need to be playing with us. And the coach said, y'a all, just wait, you all just wait. And I'm catching, and I'm calling signals and i'm and I'm catching like a major league catcher. I'm picking stuff out of the dirt, and their speed, sir for the other team got on base and tried to steal on me. I threw him out from my knees and they were like wow. And when the game was over, the coach from the other team say, hey, I tell what if you come play for my team next summer. I'll buy your brand new bicycle. I will buy you a brand new bixyle. I bought your brand new tents speak, I'll bout your brand new tens for you. But was it you've successfully raised kids down right, and they didn't you know, like you mentioned, people would say to you like, oh, they're gonna be just like you were, the next generation whatever. Um, So did you have something did you harbor any kind of like even if you didn't act on it? Did you have hopes about like Rich was asked about right, like whether you kids grew up like in a hunting fish as you did. And you're saying that you didn't have expectations there and didn't have a desire to push mean then in direction, is it just that you didn't act on it but you still hoped it or did you not even hope? No? No No, no, no, no no no. I wanted my kids to be successful at whatever the hard to desire. I'm not like I said. The only thing that I'm gonna push you at it's being a good student. You have to be a good student because your mom graduated college with a doctorate, your dad graduated college with the BS. And if we did it, you're gonna do it. What's your wife have a doctor? Then? Uh? Clinical psychology. I read somewhere that you I feel like I read somewhere that you said you wouldn't want your kid to play football. Not now what I know. It's just the game is violent. The game is violent, and and um, the game will use you up. NFL stands not for long, but you but you're talking about head injuries or just hit hip injuries, head head injuries. Yes, and more and more young kids now everybody want their kids to play tackle football and not in not realizing that a young child's brain it's not fully developed until he's in his twenties, and they still get brain damage. So you're constantly banging heads like that. The only animal that God has put on this earth that has a protective cushion around this brain is big horn sheet. Oh that's what I was gonna get. Um, come on, protective cushion around their heads, around their brain. A big horn can withstand the blow I'll take to crack your skull. But that's not A big horn can still have brain damage. Come on, five seconds, Come on you you all think of it, because Matt sitting there like a deer caught in the head like he don't he really don't. He's a little I don't know. You don't know. Come on, Matt, do you know? No, go back to sleep, all right? Come on, God, do you know? Do you know what it is? No? Man, I don't know. A woodpecker, man, woodpecker is the only animal God has made that has a protected cushion around his brain. Every everything else has liquid between his brain and Michelle, Oh, I didn't know that. You learn two things today? And since your kids want since your kids want woodpeckers, you didn't want him, don't want him in football? Know what you know? Don't know? No? Does it feel funny for you to say that? Do you feel like you're No, you don't feel like you're being like a trader? No, not at all. I love my kids. I want my kids to grow up to have a normal life. I want my kids to have a normal life. I know the do you know what will make you see the light. Go watch the movie Concussion watching them short. Watch that movie and get in touch with me after after you watch it and see because most of the guys that they talked about in the movie, I either played with or played against, and I knew them and I didn't know that they were dead until I saw the movie. Until I saw the movie. And I know players right now, famous players, Hall of Fame players that has twenty four hour helpers because if they leave the house, they don't know how to get back. Did you have any concussions? I think I had one. I know I had one playing against the Raiders, and I don't know who we were playing, but I just I think we're I think we're playing I think we're playing Denver. I'm not mistaken because this is my second year with the Raiders. The first year, we ran a play that was designed. It was a It was a tall sweep to the right to where the whole team swept right there because we know that the defense don't want me to get on the corner because if I beat you to the corner, I'm gonna beat everybody to the goal line. So when we ran the talk, we had a play that's called the reverse sweep. So we he pits the ball to me, running right, I take two steps, stop and pivot because everybody is sprinting to the side line, and beat everybody back to this sideline. Well, the cornerback stayed home, who was a guy named Mike Harton whose friend of mine. He stayed home for Denver, and I only had him to get pass to get the goal line. I swelled back, beat everybody around this side, and he lined up on me and I fake right or left and ran right over, broke his collar bone and score. The next year we ran the same play. And after that season that I ran over my card and he got traded to the Raiders, so he was now my teammate, and um, we ran that same play. The same thing happened really verse ran over the cornerback and as I'm running over him after I hit him, he didn't necessarily as part of the plan that you run over the cornerback. Well, I either, well, I couldn't run around him because he was right on the sideline and I had pursued coming this way. So it just goes straight. Go north, no eastern west, here, go north, and I run the guy over I can't think of who it was. And I'm stepping on him, trying to get past him, and somebody comes up behind me and it hits me right behind the ear. Their helmet hit my helmet right behind the ear, and it's like somebody somebody just turned, not put but short circuited me. And I just went numb and left and the ball fell out. But I fell on the ball and I had enough still here to say, get the ball back, get the ball back. And then one time realized that I had the ball all that I didn't lose it in a fumble. I'm telling myself, get up. You can't let these m mel know that you hurt. Get up, get up, get to the sideline and just rest. Just get up and get to the saline. So I get up, and in my ears, I you got eighty thousand people just in the stands. I can't hear nothing but the in my ear. And I get up and like, just get to the sideline. I'm undoing my chin strap and I walked through and I worked my way through the crowd, through my teammates, and I go and I go to sit on the bench. Now used a profanity word here, but but I worked my way through the crowd and I go to sit on the bench and as soon as my butt touches the bench, somebody grasps my arm and yanked up and said, you on the other side, motherfucker. I used serious swear to God, and they pushed me out on the field. And I'm walking across the field and I looked down and my feet are my feet not touching the ground. I'm levitating off the ground. And I see both trainers running across the field. You know how you and that love story to where you see both couples on the beach running towards each other. And they're running towards me and slow motion like that, and I'm just looking at him smiles and ere. They come and get me, take me to the bench, and I don't know Jack. They said, sit him on the bench and asked him questions until he gets annoyed that they asked me. And they asked me simple questions that I should have known. They asked me, was that married? I didn't know. They asked me how many kids I had? I said one, I had three. They asked me who were we playing? So I figured that I cheat and look out on the field and I saw red and white, but it was orange and blue. I thought we were I said Buffalo. They said, hell, no, we're playing Differ. He said what's the score? I said, I don't know if they said you scored the first two touchdowns. Food score was seven. I didn't know that. They asked me a litting your questions, and Steve Burline was the backup quarterback, so he sat beside me, and I sat between Steve Burline and my fullback, Steve Smith, and they were asking me questions and I didn't know anything. And they said, dude, you know your wife name? I am I married? I'm serious. I was just that gone. And the thing that brought me back after they asked me about fifty questions, Steve Burline said, wins pay Day said Monday. I knew, didn't paid, And I said it just like that Monday. And when I said that, because we are also trying to watch the police running the stadium, because the Raider fans fight. If you come to come to come to the coliseum and pull for the other team or anything bad about the Raiders, the fans fight, So the cops are running trying to break up fights. So we're watched watching the cops running as they're asking me questions, and a gunshot goes on bow and I duck, I crens and everybody starts running, and I'm like, where is everybody? And Steve Smith calling Smitty. I said, Smitty, where the hell is is everybody going? I said, somebody shoot? He says, halftime full? So I said, where is everybody going to the locker room? I said, which, where is the locker room? He said, grabbed on to my jersey and just hold on, like grabbed on to his jersey and followed them to the locker room. My concussion. I had one concussion and that was it. I remember it like it was yesterday. And the day after that. Everybody that got the injured gotta go and get treatment on Monday, and I'm driving that home. I lived in Pla del Rey at the time, upside the mountain where you can overlook the beach and everything, not too far from the oil refineries that's behind l a X Airport, And I had to go down Lincoln Boulevard to go home, and there's a supermarket right there. I think it's Albertson's right there, and I knew that I was sold to turn at that Albertson's. But I didn't know. I forgot how to get to my house. And this is when they had the big block phones, that big phone that was about five pounds, that was like a military walkie talking. I had that phone, called my wife. I looked at my wallet and got my wife's number. I called her and I said, I don't know how to get home. She said, stop playing. I said, I'm serious. I said, I'm at the corner of so and so, and I forgot how to get back to the house that we were renting, and we have been there for a month and a half. I totally forgot. And she got in her car, came up and brought the sitter with her. Sitter draw my car and got in the car with my wife and she took me home. And that was the only concussion that I had, So yes, and we have in there are players that have had a dozen concussions. One was enough for me and and um, I didn't know it at the time, but I went back and played the third quarter of the game. Not trying to say anything negative about the sport, but at the time that was something that was pushed under the rug and they didn't come out. Nobody talked about it. Doctors didn't talk about it, but they knew, and um, so when they asked me, and I watched them the little Friday Night tykes, the football games that they have on National TV Night between the little level leagues. And in that movie Concussions, they show these weekend warrior coaches coaching these little kids and they get them twenty yards apart and let them run head on with each other. This is how the movie ends. These two kids but heads like ram and they knock each other out. You had the same wife the whole time. M I think, what's your how long you've been married? How long I've been married? It'll be thirty two years this September. What's your what's your best piece of marriage advice? What's your best piece of marriage advice? Yes, dear, that's what you run with. You just run, you just roll over. Yes, really, yes, honey, give me an example, Give me an example. Get an example. Um, um, you want to go to movies with me to watch chick Flick. Yes, dear, it's a good example. Yes, and you've been doing that for all all those years. Often yes, often on yes, m hm, we have a friend UM named Randy who I think that I don't know if he made it up, but his thing was for his marriage. Advice is uh, you might know. I'm got named Brandy Newberg. He has a hunting show. He he goes by um peace before justice, which when I apply it works really well. But it's very, very difficult for me to not pursue justice as well as peace, meaning you are going to pay for what you did, and it's hard to not It's really really difficult for me to bury the justice part. To make a long story short, I wish I could tell you what the old man told me, but I can't say it on the radio. I'll tell you quitting the shows over add something about bow Um. You've seen him in action. I've seen him in action. He's given me some good advice in the past about maintaining a happy marriage. One is uh, he is a very um organized person. He keeps a tight household. UM like a nice clean house. I think he is refurbishing in the living room right now. Very clean, very organized. And two is he cooks a lot for the family. I am the cooking house. He's the cooking house. That's an enormous advantage. Yeah, but I do THEE do that? That is I don't know if that really it hasn't helped you. Maybe you don't know how much it helps you. It has to help really. I mean they're cooking up a storm. Man. My stock price would just go through the roof if I could cook. So that that's an enormous part is Uh. I know his family. Uh. The other thing I would add about him is, um, he is very thoughtful around the details with his wife and just you know, remembering the important things. And he's always bringing stuff home, ETCETERA little over boy, more than you think. Yes, absolutely you have. You have to make it work. You have to make it work. Let me ask you about another thing I'm curious about, going from going from growing up dirt poor, as you said, so all of a sudden be coming through through professional sports contracts becoming like wealthy, that wealthy by anybody's standard financially. Was that was that hard having not seen like a model of how to manage that kind of stuff? Um? Was it hard to like visualize the money? You know? Something? I say it like this, you can't miss something that you never had. And um, my mother always told me when you get to the point where you start to look down your nose at your fellow man. It's gonna be the day or your downfall, the beginning of your downfall. And U SHO always show me to treat people like you want to be treated. So no, no, I have. My business manager is the same business manager that I had when I left over over thirty or five years ago. Same business manager, same financial people, the same attorney. You have a lot of loyalty to people, Well, well, if you do right, I'll put it to you like this. Once I let you in my little circle, it's up to you whether or not you stay in that circle or not. Period. And I've had some people that I had to exile from that circle, and so forth and so on and and and I don't look back. I don't look back from that because I'm I am the type of person that I will get out of my bed at three in the morning and drive a hundred miles to pick you up when your car breaks down on the road. That's just how I am. That's that's that's just me. Um m. If you need something, if I got it, you can have it. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. The man upstairs just I think he blessed me a little bit more than others, and I think him for it, that's all. Yeah, mhm, right now, we're on turkey this morning, on turkeys some morning, and you were hunting with a crossbowl, hung with the crossbow because you injured your or harbor an old injury. Yes, but I had shoulder replacement surgery. It'll be two two years. Shoulder replacement slash, rotatory rotator cuff reconstruction, same morning. Yeah, is that a residual effect of your That's not football, that's a baseball injury. I do better ball Dion Sander's head and dislocated my shoulder. This is a night the Kansas City Roles played the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium. And uh, this was after This was after my third bat. This was after my third consecutive home run. That night, I hit three home runs and had seven r b I s went to the outfield dove at a ball, Dion Sander said, which I got my butt above my head, which is a no no in baseball when you dive at the ball. But it was a low screamer. Don't get your butt above your head. Ye don't die at an angle down. You always die with your butt. Lord, than you're so your tor soo can hit first and you because when you die at the ground head first, this party is gonna hit the ground first. And that's what happened. This hit first. That's okay at this shoulder and I left the game deon. Sandra's got a triple out of it. How when you wake up with the morning with your hip shoulder, like, how much of the day is sort of a physical reminder of none really none, none period. I I like the quality of life that I get, so I'm so I am willing to put forth the effort to do that, as far as rehab, as far as therapy. I have a wonderful life and I'm not gonna have an artificial hip, artificial shoulder slow me down. Now some mornings I'll wake up. But I laugh when people look at me and say bowl you like you can still play football? In my saying that, man, I pulled a muscle lift in the toilet seat this morning. Anything about playing or a baseball or anything that I'm looking forward to, golf, fishing, driving my old cars, drive my motorcycle. If my wife led to me and and so looking to on. So that's what I look forward to. Last thing and then then whatever else you want to If you want anything else you want to get into. Tell people, but all the different sorts of businesses you're involved in. Though we're not just laying no, I'm I'm I still have that hyper active persona that I had when I was a kid. Um. If I'm idle, I'm usually getting in trouble. So UM. I have my marketing company which is called both Jackson Enterprises. I have both Jackson's signature Foods, which I have a line of I have my own line of steaks, my on line of burgers, my own line of seafood, and they're in retail in food service around the country. UM. I have my line of sports Complexes Complex and Lamont, Illinois called both Jackson Elite Sports and uh Lamont Illinois, another one in Hill. You're Ohio, right outside of Ohio state, right outside of Columbus, And I'm getting ready to break ground on my third facility and Displaines, Illinois, not too far from the O'Hara Airport. I got that going on. I'm on the national speaking tour. I've been on the national speaking speaking tour for about a little over twenty six years. Um, go around the country speaking touring. And I got my hand in about four or five different other business interests right now, that's on the that's on the burner. So I keep myself pretty busy. Yeah, And this is only the second podcast that I've done in my life. Which one was better? Which one was better? I don't know. I gotta wait till this is over. Good answer. You know, I would add something because I know bow Uh from the food side of his business. Um. You know, very well respected, very ethical businessman. Um. You talked about loyalty. Um, he has a lot of partners that he's had for a long time. He also, it should be noted that he has a very big charitable Yeah. I forgot to mention. Yeah, that is something that is very near and dear to his heart. So maybe you could take a second to talk about that. Yes, I'm glad you, thank you, Matt for a moment. I have a couple of charities that that that I have that I have taken on. The first one that I did was after two thousand eleven when the big tornadoes went through the state of Alabama and the loss of life was almost four people across the state. The Tornado state on the ground from the Mississippi Alabama border to the Alabama Georgia state line. So um um, I think it was a category for Tornado state on the ground uh F four tornado F five, which is the strongest that they can get. And when it was over the aftermath, it left over three d and seven seven Alabamians dead from that and um. During the Super Bowl of that year, I called the governor at halftime and we talked the whole halftime because I told him that I wanted to do something to help give back to my state. I said I, I said, I need to do something. I said, I just don't feel right unless I do something, and I need your help. And the governor got on board with it, and I did a charity bike ride, bicycle ride colch to state and I called people like Trek Bicycles, who is one of the leading bicycle manufacturers in the world, and the owner he came on board. I called the owner of Nike, he came on board. I called the executives of Coca Cola, they came on board. I called owners of different come and these big, big Communications out of Birmingham Track Travel, which is a team that put on all of the stuff for the professional riders for a track, bicycles for the Tour de France and all their big rides. So I got all these people and companies involved. In the first year in two thousand and twelve, we rode across the state in five days and every day we covered from anywhere from fifty to seventy per day and everyone I wrote every day and we had everybody. We had a ton of celebrities come in. We had Ken Griffi Jr. Scottie Pippen, Lance Armstrong, you name it. We had a Peek a Boo Street, We had celebrities, We had paraplegic um athlete, Formula one race car drivers to come in to ride with us. We have a couple that have come in for the past two or three years from England to ride in the ride because they saw it on online. That was the first year we did five days and now we've gotten it down to one day. It's on a Saturday on the campus of Auburn. We have two rides that morning. One starts at six am, which is a sixty mile ride, and we have a lot in itself out every year and the second ride starts at ten am and it's a twenty mile ride because we have riders from five years old to eight five years old. How much month do you guys raised that first year we raised a little over three dollars and within eight years but we raised a couple of million dollars and all of that money goes to build community tornado shelters across the state and to put tornado warning systems in rural areas where there aren't any. And um we've helped establish at least at least seventy to eighty community tornado shelters around the world around the state. And those are for like this rural community here, attorney comes to here. Everybody that lives within a two or three mile radios can get in the storm shelter and get out of the way of that storm. I'd say I have a model is that Mother Nature is undefeated. She's undefeated. You can't fight her. The only thing you can do is get the hell out of her way. And by constructing these shelter staffs what we do, and we've been very successful at it UM. I have another charity for the alumni of my university where we raise money for different charities of the university that I put on that East Lake Country Club. I have a charity in Chicago that's called both Jackson's Give Me a Chance Foundation where we um where the foundation it benefits inner city us. We want the inner city use to learn sports through education, which means and in order to be a part of our group, you gotta make the grades. In order to be a member at my sports complex, you gotta make the grades. First. You gotta carry yourself in a manner in which which is proper to be a part of my group. We have rap sessions. We have this We teach kids from the inside out not only to how to be an athlete, but also how to be a respectable teenager a young adult. And we've sent over thirty kids to college in the past ten years. So that's Those are some of the philanthropic things that I do. You any questions, what's your go to hunt every year? What's to hunt? Like? Is there a hunt you don't miss? Uh? I just love hunting. I can hunt anything. I can hunt anything. Um um, do you prefer like big game over small game? Big game? Small game? It doesn't matter right now, A buddy and I we are planning a trip to the Yukon or four to hunt moose and probably to hunt moose and bear or moose and caribou, whichever comes first. UM take a week and a half two weeks ago up to do that and um, but around around the continental United States. I'll hunt anything. So did your family like to eat wild game? If I don't tell him what it is, they don't ask. Well my oldest son, Well, my kids will try anything, but my wife no, No, my kids will eat anything. You got to trick your wife or what you got a trigger? I don't trigger. Yes, is that wild game? Yes? Here, she's not having it. But no, no, I cook the only the only the only thing that's from the wild that she would eat is fish. Is fish. Yes, So, but everything else I have actually I have actually cooked everything. I've actually cooked everything from raccoon to you name it. Um. I had a buddy that I played with for the Raiders that I played with with the Raiders. He was a receiver named Chris Woods. He came over for Christmas since my first year with the Raiders, and we invited him over for New Year's. He and his wife and his in his and his son. We invite him over to our little little house in Auburn for for New Year's and down south for New Year's. It's a custom in the black community, especially the older community. Um Um, you should you, but you cook or smoke a raccoon for New Year's and you have black eyed peas for good luck. And I learned that from my grandfather. And I went out week before harvested a raccoon down in my buddy's place, down at my coaches. My coaches are rants adds far harvest a raccoon and clean it up real nice. I got the little smoker that that I got to where you got the fire in the water and the grilled put all my put apple juice, water, put all my fruits and everything in there and let it and kept water in that pan and cooked. And I took that raccoon. I seasoned it but potatoes, sweet potatoes, and the cavity, put a bunch of basketbles in it, wrapped with nylon cord, and smoked that raccoon on that smoker for about six hours, and kept that and kept and kept liquid in that pan which moisturized at meat, which made it tender. And when I when I served it to my buddy, who was never eating wal game before in this life, he thought it was roastby. He thought it was roastby. And my wife looked at him bed because the first thing that he said, please tell me what I'm eating, because my wife was looking at him like, if you knew what you were eating, you would be eating. And he was sitting there eating that black eyed peas had colored greens and corn bread and stuffing and all of that, and he said, and my wife told him what he was eating. And he looked at me and said, you got me eating what? Because he's countries a corn bread sandwich. And he said it's good, and he ate more. And he and I sit there in the eight three quarters that racoon for New Year's so so so. And but people that that haven't tried something and they automatically dislike it, they shouldn't. They should try it first. I said, always try it before you always try it before. You say. You cook a lot of traditional Southern black dishes. I cook so food, I cook Italian food, I cook you name it, I cook it. Yeah, do you still keep that tradition? New Year's tradition now. Yeah, Actually I am at war with well, I used to be at war. I used to think of raccoon right out of mine, right out of my backyard because I have this show. Yeah in the gated community. Um um. I have a dought that have two fons behind my house every year, and during the winner, I kind of feel sorry for him. So I put corn out for and they come up and eat, But the raccoons come up and run them off, and they all eat five gallons of corn in one night. There's just that meaning, right coon. So I remedied that. So you did some control work, pa, mm hmm, I got I got another question for you, and then let you get back to your turkey hunt. Unless these boys got your fun. You can have any follow up thoughts too, Do you okay the um? Is it still fun? Or have you grown tired of bo knows? Is it still fun? That's a money maker, man talking about a money maker. Yeah, that's a money maker because we like, you know, we're like, oh, bodos turkeys boos. That's a money maker. Yeah. So it's still music to your money maker. Yeah. Yeah, it's when I was on my laptop there earlier before we start this I was luskin over uh contract with boos and it that's a money maker. You better recognize that's great Matt guy. You guys got your follow up thoughts. No, you know, everybody's got buddies that show up and they don't have boats or they forget their glow officer or whatever. You know, it's a pleasure hunting with bowling, hunting, fishing because he's always got the right gear, shows up, ready for ready for game time. So I think that's worth recognizing. We've done We've had a lot of adventures together and uh, he's a fun guy to spend time with. Thanks for coming. See the reason he is complimented me because I drove him up here and Dodge, so it was like a two hours. It was like driving this daisy. I'm Hope and he's Daisy and he's just talking and talking and talk. He Uh he mentioned that you, um at times drove a little aggressively. Oh yeah, he drives fast. That would have been the word. Yeah. Yeah, it's a brand This is a brand new Dodge, uh comings turbo diesel. I barely got fifteen hundred miles on it. Let's see what the thing can do. Before I put a new chip in it. Yeah, so I'm just breaking into the end before I put the new chip in the big rexhault On, it can breathe better. That's all I got. I got any questions. I just want to say it's been a pleasure hunting with you so far. Thank you. I'm gonna try to get my style back tonight. Right now, how the mighty phones? Right now? Guy is over, He is over. He swung to miss eight times this morning. I did scare the hell out every turkey we have on the phone. You gotta give me that one. Then you got, you got the concluders. Any final thoughts bout do you want to wedge in there? Do you haven't got a chance to wedge in anything? Man? Oh? What? Oh? No? Live life to the fullest, be happy, and I always your commencement address. Team, Step outside your comfort zone, step outside your compat zone. Do something that you would not orinary. I tell people, do something nice for a stranger, do something nice for somebody that you don't know. Period. I've seen him do that multiple times, even in Spain. So he practices what he preaches. What's what's an example that you do to like completely just random like that? You're in Spain and you pick out a stranger, tell the story about we were in Spain and where we on our way to Portano or we had come back. No, we were on our way there. I think you're right where we This was the night before and we went out and we were on our way there, and we went by the local McDonald's there, which is a whole lot different than our McDonald's here, and there was a that was an elderly lady singal there and for some reason, she reminded me of my mother and she and she was just sitting there, and she had coffee and she was just sipping on her coffee, and she was just sitting there. And I didn't know if she was homeless or what. So I didn't speak Spanish. But but Jose that was with the who was another McDonald's exact um. I was talking to him and I told him, but I said, there's something about that lady that's parting me. And I said, will you go over and ask her, um and just tell her and tell her that she reminds me of my mother and I would like to buy her her dinner for night. So he went over and told her, and she said, oh oh, and in a very sweet voice, she told him in Spanish that she was waiting for her daughter and her daughter was late. Her daughter was late, and she had been sitting there for about forty five minutes. And UM, I said, well, I will buy you dinner. I will buy you and your daughter dinner. And I said, we will stay here until your daughter comes to make sure that you get dinner. And I don't know, I think I think I gave her. I think I gave him a hundred dollars to give to her. So she and her daughter and by dinner. And it just reminded and I got emotional. I don't know if I'm in my old age, that I'm going through menopause or what, but I I'm serious. And and she reminded me a lot of my mother and this lady in Spain that that I'll probably never see you again, probably never meet again, older ladies like she was in her seventies. And I just I just bought her dinner, and she said thank you, and we got up in left with our daughter. Game. So it's it's just simple things. Some simple things you have to um if you have been blessed, it's only right for you to play it for play it forward to somebody. So that's life, thank you. That's the bubble that I live in. It's a big bubble. Now let's go harvest to Turkey guy. Thank you very much, Bo Jackson. By going on the show,

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