Welcome back to all the smoke. Man. We got someone.
I'm really excited about this because I grew up a forty nine Er fan. My dad grew up a Ram fan, and this was the guy on the Rams. They had the same hair too, Jack, and they both bald, and they both and they both bald now Jackson, I don't know if that, if that has anything to do, but six time Pro bowler, five time first team All Pro, theyre of the Year in eighty six offensive rookie and eighty three single season record holder for twenty one hundred and five yards, and he was a big back. Jack
six three two twenty real one. Welcome to the show, the legendary Eric Dickerson. Man, I'm decided I had a time. I don't really tell my dad too much. If he catches the show, he catches the show. But Mike Tyson and Eric Dickerson are his two favorite people. So I told him, and he couldn't believe it. But so shout out to Pops and again, man, thank you for being here.
I tell you hello.
Definitely, how's life? I know you play a lot of golf. What's going on with you these days?
Look good man? Man, I'm trying to maintain b it's tulping. You get old. I tell you, y'all find out one day on the way it's good. I mean, I just I just came over here from a thing I do for the Rams with some kids, a little football camp. I do a radio show during the football season, work for the team. But you know, life is good. I mean, especially still living in LA after all these years.
Last season sakwon Barkley, you had made some comments. Some people say, hey, it's just a competitor and you some people took it a different way. He was on the heels of the rushing record, and you had some thoughts on it.
As you kind of sit.
Here today, remove from the situation, how do you look back on that experience.
It's funny people making these assumptions and saying things I didn't say. So Shady McCoy said something I did not say. Pac Man Jones said something I did not say. Matter of fact, I kind of you know, I don't I don't get on social media a lot, but I made a comment about it, and I saw Shady at the Super Bowl and I said, man, let me explain something to you. First, of all records or records and I don't think anybody wants their record broke.
Say I.
I would never hate on another running back. That's just not me. I mean, I broke the record in nineteen eighty four. Oh J did in seventy three. He did in fourteen games. I did in fifteen games, one extra game. And I've always said that I always give him that acknowledgement because he's my favorite player. That's why I played the position running back. And I said, if you break the record, he breaks it, do I want to break it?
No? I mean, I'm not excuse me, I'm not no bitch.
I'm not why. I love the guy that's gonna go like, oh yeah, we're gonna be doing Chile. Don't break the record.
I said.
I've always said this, if somebody breaks my record, I want to be my son. That's it, right, And if somebody breaks it, I ain't gonna lose no sleepover. I mean, I mean I said it was like it was like petty stuff, like I'm hating on him. Like I'm not hating I'm pulling for him because when he got to the Giants, never got to the Giants. And I kept saying, this boy never reached his potential there, and when he went to Philly, I say, finally he'll get a chance to show what he can really do. So I was
happy for him. So see, that's just that's the misconception of social media and people saying Steph, they really don't know anything about because anybody know me. No, I'm gonna tell you what I think. My dad said the truth and popular something, but it's the truth, and that's just the truth.
I love that. I'm glad you get a chance to speak your truth. You mentioned O J.
Simpson arguably be one of the greatest running backs of all time. Did you ever get a chance to meet him? Did he ever mentor you in any kind of way?
Did I meet? That's my guy? Yeah, man, matter face.
After I first met OJ, when I came to California, I got recruited by usc IF. I'm from the smartest first time I have on the plane coming my recruiting right a small town. Two thousand people came on my visits and me and some other kids on the field and we saw Oja standing over there because he was playing in the Rose Boy They're playing Michigan. I was like, man, I want to say something. OJ said, I try to get the guy. And I said, man, I gotta go
say something. And I was shot, but I had to and I walked he I say, I'm missus Simpson and say how you doing. I said, my name is so what you to ask her? Dickerson? I'm from Texas, seely Texas, I said the recruiting I said, yes, sir, what position?
I say, running back? You're my favorite player.
Tell them I had two thoush and yards twice in high school and so yeah, I said, yeah, I said, the one day I like to break your record. It's a good level. Yeah, good leuvel day, young man. And you know, he didn't remember we talked about it. But you know, one of my favorite people, OJ, you know, I'm not with the other other stuff. And I saw him about two three months before he passed away. I was in Las Vegas. We played golf together when i'd
go to Vegas. But you know, the OJ that I knew, you know, was a really good, funny guy.
The other stuff, you know, yeah, I'm not.
You played against a lotted a lot of loaded boxes. Some people say you didn't play with the you know, never got a chance to play with an elite quarterback. Or even offense, and that sort when you look back on your career and see what you were able to achieve without really a passing game around you, knowing that they were keying on you every single game, what are your thoughts?
Well, you're right, I played against a lot of eight and nine nine in fronts. I mean, it was no fun, let me tell you that. But six K block eight, you know, six K black nine, it's impossible, and it comes to the point you have to make people miss and I just can't.
You can't make up that excuse.
I mean, I was a big back, I was fast, I was you know, I was a track guy. But that's just the hand I was dealt.
You know.
People said, oh, he didn't want a Super Bowl and I didn't have that kind of team. I mean when I when I left the Colts and men left the Rams, I want to go to the Redskins because my cousin dectmentally was that, Okay, that's where I wanted to go. And he called me said, man, okay, sit man, I heard we're trying to get you, like I know, he said, I know, he said, Man, they didn't let that happen. That's too much like right, and they want a super Bowl that year. They didn't let it happen.
Said that Doug Walliams back there, Yeah, Doug was that. That was a quarterback that was quote, what do your thoughts on?
Kind of like because you were obviously a superstar of your time and but in today's game, stuper tars can kind of dictate what the money is where they want to go. Back then, you guys didn't really have that voice or put the stand on.
It was stuck. Stuck, I mean stuck. Yeah, I understand. When I came out, I was I was the second pick. John was the first pick.
Uh.
I had a six hundred thousand dollars signing bonus. My Saturday was one fifth d and I think John was making up a million dollars. But the funny thing was when I got traded, I had to give my signing bones back to the Rams. Everybody still that when they say that, Yeah, so I never really got.
A signing box from them, and we had to pay that money that I get back to them.
It was supposed to be a forgivable balloon. That's what they played, called up forgivable belong. They didn't forgive it when I got traded and I probably could have fought.
It, but I was sold. But they traded you, they traded me, and you had to give them money and I had I read I never heard no shit.
Like that, So I gave I had to give their money back to them, and it was. It was a bad deal with the before the contract that it was. The Rams were one of the cheapest team in the league. I mean, but did I left playing for him?
Yeah?
Because I had a lot of guys on the team. We were close knit football team. We had the offensive line, uh that was second to one of the Redskins. We didn't have a great quarterback, but we had to run a game. And the thing was that we were gonna pounce you with the running game. You know, if you couldn't stop it, you couldn't stop it.
And a January twenty twenty two interview with The New York Times, you discover us possibly suffering from CTE.
Where are you at with that? Is that something that's Oh?
Yeah, man, of course, I mean I'm not the same guy. I wasn't, like, you know, even after I retired, you know, you don't know, I mean, like right now, I got I got the own sense of Parkinson's. I gotta take
a medication for Parkinson's. I'm gonna tell you this. The sad thing about this whole deal is that with the NFL, and look, I love playing I just love playing football, and the NFL makes you hate the NFL where they treat the players, especially black players, like a lot of you probably never heard you ever heard of race on me?
Yeah, is that they said that they raced on the black rationed on us. Break that down though, because I remember reading about that.
So what they'll do. What they'll say is, Okay, we take the black player and white player. The white player was already smart. The black player was not smart already, so if he comes down, the white players should get paid by the black players shouldn't get because he was already dumb.
Basically, he was already kind of dumb. And this wasn't even that long ago though.
Oh, this was only this was like five years ago. And they they said, the OI won't do it again. I mean, it's like when when we get hurt, you know, it's it's it's like like right now, you know, it's in the case with them, for for for the Parkinson's and c t E. And we all get get so many s that get denied. Give a great example, my
friend Christian a choir, we're just playing. I was teasing by it the other day because he got that accent and so he's going for a ct E case and and the race Norman thing came in saying that, well he's Nigerian, so maybe he couldn't speak good any he don't understand. I was teaching, I said, I was teaving. I said, maybe they're right, but but then that's just some of the stuff.
Man.
It's great game, but it's the way they treat the black players. Man, it's horrible. I just got to say it. Man, it's it's a it's a bad look. And not not everybody, but it's just a bad look. It really is.
I mean, to this day to think that's still the I mean, I've to see, we can see what the world is going through.
But to see that kind.
Of thinking in that thought in twenty twenty and beyond is insane.
Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you this question. I can ask a question. Yes, okay, y'all have health care, Yes, the life, the life, life and family family too, family kids to twenty five capsire, our kids and yeah, y'all got a good pension and everything. Okay, let me just give you an example. Let me give an example for football. Okay, Deacon Jones. Deacon Jones passed about ten years ago something like that. So I would to see d wait before he was in the hospital
for it was sick. And if he med and him talk, You said, what's your pension? I said, Man, I don't know. I say, you could probably be what fifteen hundred a month? He said, you know what I get, Eric, I played fifteen years. I get two hundred fifty dollars a month. That's what I get. Two hundred fifty dollars, say I taket so they can have it. We have no health care like players like me. I pay for my own health care. You have to lead you pay for your
own healthcare. Now the players have health care five years, that's it.
While they're in the league of post career.
Post career like say, say you retired thirty, You got this ship for five years.
That's it. And it is not your family or nobody else. How many years you got to play.
To good Pincher, you got to play four years and three games is five. Yeah, but the Pincher that it's better. It's better for the players now. But it's horrible. When I say horrible for us, oh man, it's it's seven hundred dollars guys who played like fourteen years right now and played in my air, like the nineties, eighties and nineties, you know, thousand dollars a month.
Chris Pon Cowrie did a great job. They they went back and did it with all the older guys that's still alive. But they did it for the older guys. They all getting on sure the same assurance we got all get the older guys getting in now.
Man, they switched it up because.
It is really really sad they're all getting say this, and I'm not trying to, you know, make it bad like talk about the NFL like it. It's some good things they've done, some bad things they've done. I did an interview with the white with this white reporter and and he says, Eric, you said you probably know I'm white, so I can tell you white. Yeah, I'm talking on the phone with him. He said, let me tell you. This is tell I'm gonna tell you what that not what I but I don't know what I've heard and
what I know as a reporter. I said, okay. He said, what's the NFL eighty percent black? I say seven to eighty percent black. He said, now let me say this. I said, okay. He said, if the NFL was eighty percent of white, y'all have great insurance. I would have great healthcare.
I'm like, wow, I know that. No secret.
That's just sad to say, though. And he said, he said, and that's what he said. He said, isn't that's sad I have to say it like that. I said, yeah, but it's sad to say it.
It's the truth.
I got a question in your time, was it more the league or was it more of the good old boys club of the owners.
It's still a good old boys club. Man.
They didn't have no black owners. They're not having no no no. Like I think magic owns. They're not having you no black owned. Yeah, I am, you're not having it. I got it. I think a couple of you guys on football team. Another guy that was trying to buy a football team, and he was talking to me about I said, let me tell you something. I said, you want to me, I said, don't go in there, say you're trying to help the players. He said, I said that. I said, you screwed up. He said I could tell.
He said, I could tell I screwed I said, you don't say that. You're trying to have to play. It's not about the players. It's about the money they can make. That's insane.
They'll give a couple of athletes and rappers like a little percentage of the teams.
Yeah, you can point take pictures zero zero yeah, zero zero one. No full ownership? What nah?
The good thing to me and I don't wish that. I know when that the good old boys, if your generation, those guys are passing on.
Yep, but it's still going. But they passed, they passed on their kids, and it's really good that mentality.
Don't leave. It's still it's still a good old boys situation.
Silly Texas, seventy miles western Houston. What was football like? You know, I'm a lot younger, and you know the football was always big? Was I growing up in Texas? You know that Friday night life that's really big? Was it like that when you was coming up?
Oh?
Yeah, man, you know football in my little hometown. You talking about the town of it was fifty people that my graduating class. Shut the whole town down, Shut the whole time down. Let's just one to eight. It was two, Yeah, it was two. A football we won once stayed. My senior year, we played Wiley, the wily Wildcats up at Baylor Stadium. Matter of fact, Uh, they had won the year before and they were all white and we were black and white opposedly black, and so I won't forget.
We were trying to get a place for us to play, and they said, we can't blame these black families up that far. So we played in wild and I forget the first Cup places the conus the N word out there, you know, and I laugh, I'm like, these little white boys the hell out of them. Yeah, I think forty two to twenty with the final score. I still remember, don't know how, but we be But man football it's big, that's still and that's you know, you know, you know Texas football.
It's no joke. You go to Texas and there's these these high school stadiums up ninety million. That's crazy.
You spoke on something that that I had a lot of trouble with in my upbringing, racism, And obviously, you know, there are the times now where you could smile and laugh at it. But in the in the moment, you faced a lot of racism. Uh, can you talk to.
Us about it? And what what were the some of the depths of racism you've seen? Oh? Man, it's it's deep.
I mean I think about what I've dealt with, but I think about like people like Jim Brown and those guys that played in that era, the night Train Lane and you know, in the baseball Jackie Robinson. That was you know, way more, you know than what I dealt with. But it was bad, It really was. I mean, you'd get the you'd get the letters and the mail. You know, you you you you niggas, y'all need to just play for free, you know. Yeah, but a bunch of monkeys. Anyway,
I got them kind of letters. I don't forgive. When I went to when I went to Indiana, I got a bunch of hate mail from every sins of California, you know, because I left, and I didn't want to leave, but I you know, money, So anyway, I got a lot of hate mail. But the thing I think that really put me out with Indianapolis and I didn't want to go to indian I'm gonna tell how I tell you that I didn't want to go to India. That was not my choice. My head coach was there. I
liked Ron Meyer and he always told me. He said, you know, I'll get you paid. I'll make you a million that one day when I was in college, you said that to me. So I get to Indy. And that's by my last year that they fired him. It was a bad situation. Ersay was not a good person. Jim irsay, I'm not Jimmy was a good person. It's old man bobur say. What they did was never forget it. And this is where I'm like, I'm done with this place. You know, you hang a banner over the state, like
you know, over the rail. They hung a banner over the rail with a picture of a black baby and any sitting position with twenty nine with money on one side, stack of water melons on the other, fleeting fried chicken, and let that stay up there till almost half time after halftime. And I never forget the girl I was dating, a sister girl and we still were best friends to day, named Holly, and I met, you know, after you know the game, you meet your girl come down.
She was crying. Every said, how could you eat? And that's your home stadium, that's my home state, that's my home state.
So I could you even play with that? I said, you know, you just got to kind of deal with it. And I tell the first time I saw a clan rally was in Indianapolis, you know, and look.
They still have it every the dude and the Grand Marshall still lives in Indiana really right everywhere.
And all that.
That's where they happened. I mean, it was a trip to me. I mean, it's just that's a whole different world out there. I mean it maybe it changed some, but I know what I saw. And you know, the thing is funny. It's funny how they want us to get over it.
You know, you're the bigger person. Get to get over get over it. I mean, you gotta understand me. I was.
I was a di was legally adopted by my great great art. She was born in nineteen oh four, and she did not want me dating no white girls back then.
They said.
She said, I'm gonna tell you their Eric said two things don't live along in this world. Say on't mother, And she was fun I said, what I just see it like she said that. She said, dollarsy chase cars and niggas rolls and chase white they don't live along in this world. She said, I've seen the evil things white men do. She said, I've seen it. I see them trying father, I see them cutting's private off, sticking.
That's South.
You know when you think when you were a kid, I'm like that that couldn't happen, you know, and I'm like, I didn't say I didn't believe it, but it was just hard to fathom that. But she had saw those kind of things, and you know, the racism thing to be just it's just ignorant.
Did you come across a plug guy named June James when he was in.
For the coach June James. His name was like baby June James. I can't remember.
So he died in a car accident when he was playing for the Coats around the time. One of my first cousins, uh me and Marcus Bill's first cousin. He was our first family member of the player to make professional sports. But he was y'all was on the same team, was it?
Yeah?
He was on your team? I know we had we had a couple players that diamond. One player got shot. Yeah he died in a car accident. Really yeah yeah, Man.
Speak about the booster coach in Texas and all the pressure that Clarence Share put on you to go to Texas.
And I ain't know about Clarence. She got the smartest people around. Oh man. Uh yeah.
They wanted me to go to Texas, A and M in the see the Aga town, I mess Aga Town and never forget you know, they recruited me heavily, real hard, and I committed to them one time. Man, but I didn't want to go to an M. I mean I didn't. And the reason I didn't want to go to that I was a good, good school. My cousin went there and played foot bottom and I told them I should go there because I liked them at this point. But you know, they had them yeale leaders. They had no cheerleaders.
It was a lot of girls there. I'm like, man, I don't want to be on no damn year leaders.
I want some cheerleaders. So but they made I forget that.
They came to mind, not him, but they some boosters came to my house, never forget it. And my mother, my real mom, and my lady who died my great aunt. They were in the in the house and said, come in, let me talk to you. I said, yes, ma'am. She said, let me tell you something. She said, them white folks got a briefcase and they were fifty thousand dollars in it. So I never seen that much money in my whole life. She said, but you don't want to go to this school.
Don't tell me any taking these people's money. And I wasn't just I don't think I want to go there. She said, we ain't taking any money, because I mean, I got to say my mother she was, She was the one who been Tegrian and she really was. And I couldn't do that. I just I didn't want to go down and.
Them off of this offer.
You stepped down the house in west View the white party of the white part of Stiling and a few had a few head of cattle.
Guy.
They giving away Cattley want your now, nobody giving away cattle now money.
That's the money right now. I ain't given them, ain't no count. I really want you to do that.
Man, you originally committed to texting them, didn't committed. Story goes They kept the whip. Is it true, you didn't go to them because of the school with seven per cent. Guys, that's absolutely true. Right, that's absolutely true. Okay, that's absolutely true.
That's the truth. I mean I think that, I mean that was the right choice. Who would do that? Who would do that? All them?
Boyd that phield slipped the other way. I just would have went to school. Fuck the pros straight up. Seventy thirty seventy So you kept the whip that and them? Are you gonna pass that again?
Transam? The trans am? Well, let me tell even the trains got it? No, I've seen pictures there. It is right there, Yes, sir, little hair we're walking out of a restaurant there and see what you call the hair back then?
Yeah, you know smoking the bandit yeah, t top T top t T top.
No. I don't have that car any more. Matter of fact.
When I my uh, I think going into my senior year, I got a I got a car Vette, and then I gave my best friend in that car and ended up getting stolen. But how the car did it? You know the story? The car came about? So the car came about. I used to go down to Houston see this car place called Leo Johnigan's it's like looking look at the cars and look at that car. Go down there like every couple of weeks just to look at it. Look look at it was on the showroom floor, showroom floor.
I know what that feels like, just to look at it. And you know, and then they heard, you know, they told money my step I'll tell my mother. You know, they told my mother that I liked the car. So I remember one I think it was like a Friday, said Eric. She said, we're gonna drive down to Houston with me, your grandmother, them down there to look at that car. At that the I mean transnd like, okay, so go down.
What are you seventeen eighteen at this point.
Seventeen seventeen seventeen. So go down look at it. And it's like three white men. My real mother, my adopted mother, my grandmother was there, and my grandfather was there. So they said take the car and take it for a drive. I took the car. I take it for a drive to come back and I go to kend of Key's basically I'll keep it.
It's yours, oh ship, really, I'm like, it's my it's yours. Man. I was excited color color.
Gold, the gold transit. Yeah, so what happened is so matter of fact, but check it.
It was. It was. It was such big news.
Let me see that would say a Friday, Monday morning, the n C Double A was.
At my high school. Guy came to my class. I was in. I was in. I was in a lab class and never forget it. Let me get them keys.
I came in like that, knock on the door, and the teacher said to him till he said, Eric, this guy want to speak to you out here. It's different here and people walk on campus. And I said, I walked out. He said, yeah, Sam, I'm so and so from the n Clack my brother n C Double A, and I want to talk to you about your trans am. You got, I said, okay, I said, well. He talked to my mom. I said, uh, And she told me somebody come in by to call you about to call you.
Tell him call me. So sure enough, I said, They got to my address. He said, God, how to go to the house.
She let him.
I had to go to the office and I talked to my mother him come to the house. When I got home, they were there. He was he was there talking to my mother about the car, and he talked, talked, talk, Make a long story short. I saw this man every day for about I almost say, almost two months, two or three months. Every day even sometime it was he came to the house so much that he would eat with us. He said, I to eat with us and then find out and see him. One day, I said, Mama,
what happened? He said, I'm gonna see he said, Your grandmother say she want to see my grandmother grandfather too. Your grandmother told that man, if I see you, well, if I see anybody from the n C double A again at my house or Eric's mom's house, we're gonna sue you at the n C double man.
That was so I'm again, Yeah.
So I can tell you what happened when I because I didn't find this out to later.
How the car got paid for?
Uh?
I asked my mom?
I said, Mom said the car and I was in the pros. How they caught that car come up? She didn't know how the car? I said, no, She say, what happened is? She said, your grandmother and them they have the money for the car. She rode the check row the check and and them gave her the cash for it, and they can't go back and say, hey, I bought that car.
You know he got that car. She said, that's how the car came about it. Yep. So they were smart.
They knew what they was doing the art of being a big back. You talk about how oh J we had a big influence on you, but you had any other influences when you talk about big running backs.
Not really, you know. I liked Earl Camel. Earl was he was man, he was, he was a beast. I liked writing an Earl play. But my guy, and I still say to me the greatest backwards OJ. I just love watching him play. That is why I played the position running back. I mean I never wanted to wear anyone else's number. I didn't I want to make my own number. I was like, you know, I didn't want to be OJ like that, But as a player, he was a guy that I loved watching play. And I
think I like Jim Brown. I didn't see I didn't see Jim. I just saw old highlights. Yeah, yeah, washing I saw OJ live. What's your philosophy as a rush? Are you do a type of Russia that IM go off instinct? Are you playing ahead before you get the ball. You know what you're gonna do before. I don't think any if a player says that they playing certain things, you can plan ahead. But it's hard football because it's
there's so many moving parts. I mean that game you get out there like basketball, man, I mean, I can tell you this basketball. I felt I could play basketball. I know when I'm playing no pro basketball. When I watch y'all guys play, it's amazing how fast it is. And you know, like a donkey like boom, I'm like, damn, I said, go way up there. People think the same thing about football. I was what it happens fast like for me, Like I said, I'm gonna say, I can
kind of look through a play all right. So if I'm running, were running talks they tossed right. You start watching the defense. And my thing was I was fast, so if I could get the defensive linemen and linebackers to do this to think started turn their hips, I knew my guys to get on them, and I could have a lane stretch it cut back. That's about the only time because stuff is all instant. It happens when you see a guy coming. You make you make a movie.
You don't think about the move. It's like people if somebody asked me they about say Corn Barkley jumping over the guy back and said, that's an instinct that he playing. I'm gonna jumper. No, it's just it's a reaction. It's like if I go up to a punch that you you're gonna do that automatically.
It's just all instinct.
Talking about the DNA of Texas running backs, say a couple of names. Adrian Peterson, Jamal Charles is from my hometown, pulled out the sex side of Jamal La Damien Thomas, and Earl Campbell is just in the water out there.
It's in the water in the ap man about ap when I was you know, I was, I was in the pro. I was out of retired. But I'd hear about this kid, ap s man. This guy run just like you, Eric, you know, run just like you. And I saw him. I like Dann He's a big back. And I got to tell you he went to my second favorite school. Oh you I was. That's why I wanted to go to college. Ou so I gotta say it my second fractuse. I went to SMU and uh man, I just like ap Ap is he was a great
football player. I like all the guys just named the Danian. I mean even though he went to TCU. You know, he didn't recruit him, so I don't blame him for that. M stayed in Texas. Mab stayed in Texas. Yeah, man, we just we just have a lot of great backs out of the state of Texas.
For young kids that don't know the story of the Pony Express, you, Craig James, what would you tell them about that that team?
I would tell him, First, look up the thirty for thirty incredible success, look at Pony Excess, FIRSUS, and then but you know, we had some great football teams. I was just talking to one of my my teammates that lives here, my best friend, he was my full back. I think people look at us, you know, the Pony Express, that was part of a man. I'm gonna tell what we had. Man, we had a hell of a defense. I mean nasty defense. I mean they were dirty, they
were big, they were fast. We had a lot of guys with prom Michael Carter, Russell, Carter, Harvey Armstrong, Blaine Smith, Wes Hopkins. We had a hell of a defense. I said, that's one thing that people don't realize about. I think semb Mustang, but the Pony Express. It came about me and Craig James. Both of us got highly recruited, he from Stratford Seeley. I didn't think it would work. I didn't think it would work. I mean, and Craig was a good back.
He really was.
And that's one of my best friends still to this day. I just talked to him a couple of days ago. But it worked out fine. I think it saved my career because I didn't, you know, have all the carries, you know, as a as a college player like a lot of these kids, and you know and say and it saved him too.
So it say any truth that you took a little pay cut man, please going uhtle pennies.
They were giving us no you know back and then that wasn't getting no real Let we gets about it.
So what do you think about obviously the success you had in high school and college, what do you think what kind of damage could Eric Dickerson have done with n I l you already had the transam, it would have.
Been no transamb ituro have been Billy, thank you, Ben.
You know, because you're a kids. You want to you want to fast what they're doing.
Now you've seen somebod these recruits, the kids up and it's just all thorns laid.
Out of I'm like, come on, man, I can't.
It's with farriris and stuff. Man, it's been because I think about it. I mean, and I forget this. I was the number one recruit in the nation coming out of this little time. Oh i'd have been cleaning up.
I got a question though, because I feel like and and I put a lot of thought. I feel like this generation gets everything we had to work so hard for. To me at a young age, you're naturally going to take your foot off the gas at some point as far as desire, dedication, focus is it you feel the same.
Feel the same way. I feel exact same way.
The thing is is I think about myself when I was in c I didn't know how, but I said, this is my My daddy passed away when I was my junior year. I always said that I wanted my mom to have a house like the white people had. I want to have cars like the white people had. I didn't know how I was going to get that, but you know, playing sports was my avenue and I didn't know it, you know, really I didn't see it
like that. But it worked out. And then right, a lot of these kids stuff it's given to them so early. They don't have. They don't have. They don't know what adversity is. They don't know what it's like to not have. You know, they got us. They got a room full of tennis shoes where I had a pair of school shoes, a pair of tennis shoes and the past shoes go to church, you know, and that's what you had.
I want to get out.
I hid my church shoes one time because I didn't want to go to church, and my mom we look for us. I put them tennis shoes on, yeah, and found them.
Take your school shoes off, right, take your school shoes off, buy your fresh pass shoes.
You went them to school and playing again in the games, and you only had one path.
But you couldn't wear them outside when you got home though I know we couldn't. You can wear them easy, barefoot or some other shit. Right after you left left SMU, the NCAA sanctioned them with the death penalty for legal payment to players, effectively shutting down the program for two years. How did that make you feel? Obviously it's so prevalent now and really a lot of other schools were doing it.
They came down really hard on you guys. But looking back on that, what are your thoughts on that?
Funny you say, because you said they put it on. Everybody always says that I had something to do with me and Craig. We were gone, we were in the program. I'm glad you didn't say that we were out of college. I think it was wrong. First of all, when which first started back in nineteen seventy nine, when I got recruited by a senior. The problem was is that Estimate was a smaller school, and we had the best recruiting class in the nation that year. We had like we
call the blue chips. We had like twelve chips and went and people couldn't understand it. Even though my freshman year we struggled. We we I think with five and six, then with nine and three, ten and one and ten eleven oh one. So all of a sudden we start winning other like Texas and then they were pissed. You know, you ain't supposed to beat us. You're supposed to beat us, and that's what brought the attention to us. We won't forget. We beat Texas my sophomore year, we beat them twenty
to six in Austin. They beat it the hell out of us. In my freshman year, beat us thirty six. The next year they were number two in the nation. We were six and oh there we were six and oh but you know that freshman year we got a chance to grow. We're going to beat them in Austin. Monday morning, the n C double is at school. Ain't no way, yep, ain't no way, no way. We had to take a soft probation. The next some kind of probation we had to. We won the conference, but we
had to. We couldn't be on television that year. The next year we wanted the conference again. And it just brought it brought all this attention to a smaller school. And that's just how it was back in those days. I mean, man, and it was everybody was doing it. I mean, we knew whatever the other We know what they were getting it. At the end, we knew what they were getting in Texas. But it was different because
it was smaller, smaller school. They don't want the smaller school, just like now, they don't want the smaller schools in the championship game.
School big question, maybe the biggest question don't don't was your curl wet or.
Look at that thing right there I signed, is glistening? I know you had the head band. No, that was Walter with the head band. You don't neck roll glasses and goggles in the day. It was it wet or dry? It was was it was when I played, it was driving the goggles by or tryfocals.
Bro No, it was just regular glass. Okay, when I took them glasses off. One time I tried to prescription what description? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I tried to play not without them. I tried to play with contacts in one game. I said, we gonna try to contact and I said, we're gonna put that. We have the goggles on the sideline. First hit popped out out. I had to go to the side and get the god goes back.
Yeah. I couldn't play without him. But the wet curl, that was the thing back then. Jerry was like, I said, if you have a sweet curl, though curls for the girl walk around with a tiler.
That's how Yeah, that's where my dad ship was he used to walk around with the tailer around his neck, wouldn't get on his work shirt.
What was the story behind the neck row.
The neck ro? You know what the neck row was. It was just a look, you know what, it's part of my swag. I gotta get I gotta get my boy Craig James cred for this. He wore a neckro in college. I'm like, I mean high school, Like.
I like that neckro make you look bigger to you was already big too.
I tried it, you know, they had it. I'm like, I can't this thing off tighten up. So I had pulled it out, had drilled hole through my past. I get tied down, tied down the back, cut my jerrys down the middle.
I'm like, this looks That's how I went. I went in the neck ro. Did it? Did it help with the collisions and all that? It was strictly.
We talked a lot about the NBA, how it was in the eighties, and we know about how it was drugs and a lot of stuff going on when they was trying to find their foot and what was the thing like in the eighties in the.
NFL steroids, how the guy's six steroids. I mean, I didn't take no steroid, didn't need no steroids. But and the thing is, let me tell you something, Man, when you hit one of them guys the steroids, I won't forget. I hit the guy I can't think his name for this New Orleans Saints. I hit him in the thigh and it was like hitting this marble table. I hit him and I slid down.
I'm like, I'm like damn.
I'm like, I'm thinking I'm tripping really like, man, this man is hard. Then I tried to block him. He can rush, he's a defense. He got knocked my hands passed the quarter. I'm like, oh, this is unnatural. Some of the players, I said, you know the Jews, I'm like what juice is because you know, I didn't even know what steroids was back. I didn't think about steroids. Like, I'm like, I'm like red, I said, man, she hard as a rock. Yeah, it was, it was. It was
really prevalent. They would do that. You see, guys had the on some of my teammates.
They had the locker locker because it wasn't legal at that point.
Right, it was, it was, It wasn't They weren't checking for wasn't checking for it. This one guy on the coast, I won't say his name, I know and you know he was. We played in the Pro Bowl and he was offensive lineman. Brother, he's on the juice, but he was Reggie White wasn't on the juice. Now, Reggie was strong. Never forget it. We ran a draw play, but I sat behind the quarterback. Reggie hit this guard hit him, picked him up in the air and threw him into me.
I'm like, damn, I said, the juice ain't helping.
Him with.
Can you elaborate on Reggie White? Obviously, rest in peace? One of the greatest of all times. We just don't hear enough about his greatness.
And Reggie White was a great first he's a great human being, such a nice guy. But he was a he hits you, God, bless you, God bless you. I mean, he was. He was a beast man. He was you know, her mind kind of reminds me of Reggie White. Was Aaron Donald, but Reggie was bigger. Reggie was big. Gray had long arms. You know why, nothing on his arms, played every down. Was nothing fancy about him. Just a tough,
real football player. If I tell these young kids. You want to look at a defensive lineman, look at Reggie White and look at Aaron Donald them too, man, I mean Aaron Donald's like a Reggie White type.
Number two pick in the draft. Talked to us about the signing bonus situation.
My sign and bonus was six hundred thousand dollars. I got a six hundred thousand dollars signed bonus. I was behind John that way, but it was supposed to be a forgivable loan.
That's how it set up.
So did they let you know up front with that small writing, did you.
Man, you know, think about it? Didn't know? You know, you know, you know absolutely no. I just see them dollars. Yeah, see need that You say, you know one hundred thousand? What? Yeah?
So I just signed over six hundred thousand dollars signing bonus and I won't forget my agent he said, look, it's a it's a don'ta be a forgivable belong You ain't have to pay it back. And he said, he said, he said, from the next contract, they just you know, you don't have to worry about it.
What never happened like that?
So when I got traded to the Colts, and the coach gave me a five hundred thousand dollars time. So I went from making basically my base salary with the with the Rams all together, it was like two two fifty on the high. Coach gave me a signed the mostly five hundred. They gave me a base salary of one point four. Man, I was making some real money then.
So I took my signing bonus and gave it back to the Ram, getting my signing bonus back, which I probably shouldn't have, but I was so pissed at them, man, And I mean nothing like I said, I mean, I like to be a man of my word.
Yeah, I like I was just done with just done with it.
You had that multiple times due to disputes with the Rams management overpaid. At what point were you playing under the rookie deal while being the league's leading Russia? Right, I played on a rookie deal.
Let me see my first in my third year, I had I think I had one or two years left on my contract. I think maybe one year left. They didn't want to redo it. They don't want to redo it, and I held out. Then they gave me. Then they did redo it, and I made look you know. I kept saying, pay me like the quarterbacks. Keep me a million five, a million two, I said, even a million dollars. Now, I wouldn't would talk to the germ manager, John Shaw. I'll never get it. I went and met with him.
Think about this, How long would it take a start player to meet with the general manager football basketball team?
Like that? Took me weeks to meet with him. Take me weeks to meet with him.
Finally when I met with him, Uh, John, were cool today after you know, some years. I met with him and I said, John, I said, Man, I said, my contract is bad.
Man.
He said, Eric, you know you got a new deal. I said, but it ain't no good. I said, y'all know it's no good. I said, I'm doing most of the doing. Most I'm doing. I'm in the office. So and I didn't like to say it, Ja, but I did so. Matter of fact, this guy gave him the scenario. It's eighty six, I said, I let the league in Russian last ye. No you didn't, Walter Payton. He said, well, that says his boy. No you didn't, Walter, I said, no, I live to at eighteen twenty one. No, I said, yes,
I did. I left the league, goes get his book. I want to kick him in his ass. Oh you did, I said, yeah, you I led the league in Russian last year. So I said, this is what I do. I said, this is how much confidence I had in myself. I said, if I have fifteen hundred yards or more, you pay me the million five If I don't. If I go under that, then I just I said, I go year by year. You just got to goat to my old contract. He said, no, We're not gonna do
think about that. I bet on myself playing football. So that way, I just knew. I knew it was gonna be a bad.
Deal with him, Walter Payton.
I want to talk about his greatness, but also I want to talk about and is this something you got to share? Obviously everything is very public knowledge. What kind of money was he making?
Well, I can tell you when I was, but I was playing, I was like the thirty to forties.
Highest played player at the league thirty yef yeah.
Yeah, yeah, like the thirties I played player in the league. Watcher was probably making like eight seventy five nine hundred.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm gonta forget my friend Roy Green receiver for the Cardinals. Ro was a great player. And I called Russell. I said, man, we're talking about it. I said, man, so much money you make? What I said, idn't mean to be great case I make six, I say six seventy five, Like damn, man, I'm like, no, I don't mean it like that. I said, Man, I'm over here making two fucking fifty. Man, I said, this is ridiculous.
It was. It was horrible.
I mean it really was. But the thing was is that they builified me. They made me like, you know, it's always funny how we're the greedy athletes, especially the black athlete.
You know.
I hate to say it, and I just said, white guys, they don't have to hold out. If you ever heard of a white quarterback have a hold of that, it don't have no, it don't. It does not happen. The black quarterbacks have to hold lot. And I'm not making a race thing. It's just facts. It's all facts, you know, Brothers, we have to hold out. Make us look bad with especially back then because the media controlled everything. When at the Rams, the Rams made me look like I was
money hungry. I wasn't a team player. I didn't want to play hard, all that kind of stuff, which was all a bunch of bs. And it's funny how time goes on you meet people this Eric, man, you are nothing.
Like this said, I said, no, but it's a different day that.
I mean, there wasn't these type of platforms, right, So what they said was the gospel.
That was it, and people then people had this, but it's in the paper. It's got you got to be It's got to be true. You gotta be true because I used to say what Trump says. Now I said the fake news, I call it fight fake news.
They line.
Matter of fact, it was a guy named Rick Riley. Did you did an article in Sports Illustrated, came to my house, stayed in my house, travel with us for a week on the team, and Indianapolis wrote a crazy article about me, made me seem like I have was a psychopath. I I fed my dogs and I had ridwild, fed my dog's gun powder, you know, just crazy crazy stuff.
I called him man, I said, man, what the mm hmm? I thought it was good. I told him, man, I will whoop your ass. Man. I still like to whoop his ads right now. Like I said, what they used to be was the word. But back to sweetness. Man, Walter was a good guy. Man.
I won't forget we played them. We played them. I think it's my rookie season. And I was Walter Payton fans.
A little bit older than how many.
Was about four or five five years older than five five years old than me. So I'm a little bit older than that. But somewhere around there we playing the Bears, and I won't get John Robinson say, look during the defense we're in the team meeting. He said, if anybody, and this is John Robinson, rookie coach, I'm a rookie. He said, any defensive players hit Walter Playton, Peyton Lake, take a cheap shot.
We're gonna find you like what they're gonna find. I will play. You're gonna find them like okay, Like damn. I respect then, So I didn't.
I went to meeting, but I want to wait after the game the meeting and that day I think I had one hundred and forty nine yards in two touchdowns, and uh, we beat him. And I walk up to him and I put my hand. I gotta I got a big picture of me and him in my office, and I said Eric Dickerson. He said, I know who you are, and I said, Man, I say I'm a fan. He said, he said I'm a fan too.
Wow. Yeah, Barry sunders, Oh, Man, can't nobody run like Bear? You can't he like Curly? You know, like man?
Nothing like him? I mean, I don't think you ever seen nobody like you. I mean people say, you know, I couldn't.
Run like Bear. I have everybody out the on stop. Nobody could run like Derek carry big bag? I like him. How big is he? Forty two fifty?
He sees about six four by two forty something like that. He's bigger than me, bigger than me because.
Think about that, but not by much though, yeah, not about much.
But yeah, he's a big bag man. I mean when I when I met him, like, damn you put them and say you put them pads on? You know, it takes it up up, you know, a couple of couple of levels. I mean, because we played the Lions when I was a rookie and I jogged on the field by some defensive backs. dB said, damn that like a defensive lineman, you know, And I was, I was, I was a big backback. Emmy Smith got all the got all the records. Man, I love him. Good guy, great guy,
great player. Imm It was not fast nothing in high in college. I never I mean because people say, I ain't gonna be that guy said man. I said, he runs tough. He a tough player. I kept saying, if he gets on the right team, he'd be able to do it right.
He got line and the quarterback god and weapons and ye.
I don't think people understand how important it is if you're a running back to have a line and a quarterback.
Oh Man, you don't. People don't. People don't really, they don't understand. I don't care how great you are. You could be the fastest, the biggest, but if you ain't got them guys up front, you might get away with it and have a quarterback. But if you ain't got the guys up front, you ain't going nowhere because you gotta stand them guys with that pros too. He had all Pro Bowls on the line. That's that that that
that is their job. And you said that people. People don't realize, you know how tough it is when you don't have office. When I got the Indie Brother, it was.
Emmit was good at waiting to them holes come yeah, find im gonna hit them hard too.
What running backs you like today? Most definitely Derrick Henry. Like Derrick Henry. I think he's my favoritecause it's a big back like me. I like sayque now and I'd liked it before. I just thought he never would be the guy that he could have been playing with the Giants. I love watching him play. He's exciting me think, you know, thinking about it, it's not a.
Lot of back like it was because Bell cow like, like I said, they've been doing it by committee.
Now called we're called called feature backs.
You know how feature back you gotta you gotta know you committed, got the rotation like Ava Kamara not to get back, you know. But you know it's just not it's not like you can say like you said in my area you said, Walter Payton, Marcus Sallam O J Anderson, I mean you could just go down the line and running back because the team need a running back. Now you got to sit down. Well, yeah, but they black committee. It's a different era also too.
Can you speak to the importance of the fullback because the fullback is almost not very important.
I don't see why don't let it know, I mean fullback blows open holes for the running back. It's very few teams. When I saw San Francisco do it, you know, last year and the year before. Man's important. That's that's important.
Quick hitters. First thing to come to mind. Let us know one album you can listen to with no skips. Oh man, I know my favorite. I just said this the other day. Man, I like him. Yeah, yeah, I see that when I had to get I had to get up. I can see that. But I can see that. Yes, I love the camera pants. What song would you play over your career mixtape?
Like?
What'll be the soundtrack to your mixtape? They call them highlights?
Oh man, let me think next. I saw I saw one that did. It's simply the best that was. They had a highlight of me with it.
I'm like, oh, that's sweet than anyone.
I'm gonna give you a fun one right here. One quarterback, one receiver, and one offensive line. And you wish an offensive line as a whole, you wish you could have played with during your career.
The Washington Redskins. Oh line line, I did love my offensive line, Washington Redskins. Joe Montana, You're not gonna believe my receiver. You probably won't.
He Henryeller, come on, man number eighty, and he had a long one too, right.
I heard Yeller yells, yeah, Henry Henry five dinner against that alive, Jesus.
I love my dad to be there in my mom can. I like some of them.
I likes some old like George Washington.
I like to see what they're thinking.
Yeah, wooden teeth. Actually they said it was slave teeth, slave teeth and book t Washington like that in your heyday because you had one of the best. Was there any curve you were envoul because this was I mean you Deon Sanders, who else, Dominique Wilkins, you guys, we got a chance to sit down with all.
You'll all y'all have a legendary the Lakers. Yeah, like a.
Bitch, don't call anymore like any curR your your a CS curl U my own curve. I'm saying you have one of the best effort.
I take my own. Yeah. Hell yeah, childhood crush. I metter too. I knew, I knew it. I said it with you. Jackie Crow, funniest teammate you ever had.
Kind of class. Were the team the coats. Yeah, on the Rams, it'd be Geary was Gary. Last thing funny is I don't know what. I can't think it's last night. It's the defensive back. Crazy funny, crazy funny. Yeah, Gary Green, Gary Green.
If you could see one guess on All the Smoke, who would it be? But you have to help us get your answer. I means you got to go on that that rolodex of yours. You know one guess that's call ya go bears.
Eric Man, we appreciate you again, huge fan in my household, and and and all the great things you did on the field. Man, We appreciate you sitting down with us and best of luck.
Appreciate you man, Eric.
You catch us on the All the Smoke YouTube and the Draft Kings Network. We'll see y'all next week, sir. Shout out to the Punk Brothers. We appreciate you guys for having us baby and the guests.
My guys,