Jill Montgomery

how's it going? Man? Going good? You got a big smile on your face, and I think I know why? Why is that? We are overdue for good old episode of big dummy hit there from one with Tom b Oh no you big, you gotta set you gotta set the stage for this one. I have to Yeah, you got you sent me the video. Okay, which one are we doing? Because there are several dummies in the world right now, let's talk about the one from the San

Diego Zoo. Here we go. So alright, people you know usually pay your money post pri whatever pandemic party you want to be on. But it's pretty standard. You pay your money go to the zoo. Now, most people but every so off the song, dumb person decides they want to test entomos. Have you ever thought about testing the animals? That would be a big no for me. Now. Pretty much when it says do not feed the animals, do not enter whatever, I pretty much follow those rules. Why

first off, is because my mama told me to. So that's kind of that's pretty much the you know what I live by. Not everybody listened to their mama, but continue maybe for you, but for me, I just kind of I just kind of learned those rules were like, hey, if if that says do not touch, do not feed, I mean, I just don't push those kind of boundaries. I really can't. In this particular story where a man was arrested at the San Diego Zoo, he took his two year old um girl past the fence past where

it says do not didn't take it past. He climbed into the exhibit, went beyond, went beyond the boundaries of the elephant exhibit with live I think it was Asian and African elephants. Yeah, Asian and African elephants, um endangering his two year old daughter. So bypassing multiple barriers, including an electric fence, police told the station. Kg TV police told the station the man allegedly wanted to take a photo with the Asian and freaking elephants. He took a

selfie holding his child. Afterwards. A witness told ABC ten that she was grateful to see the man and the girl is successfully escaped without any injuries. But the man appeared to drop his child as he attempted to get away from the elephant after the elephants started charging at the both of them because he was hitting up the deuces holding his baby, so he wanted to get a selfie, and of all the things that you dropped at that moment, he dropped the child. Well, he kind of saw the video.

He dropped the child trying to get through the electrical fence so he doesn't get shocked and dropped her butt off. Be an apologist for this behavior, I'm not. I'm just setting it up, Like I'm just really just setting up I'm just watched the video several times, and you know the sad part was is I was I didn't find it funny or met all. Yeah, what's sad is like we're at the place where we want to get inside of the cage to take a picture for what likes comments,

and and those boundaries are there for a reason. And I get what kind of in a day and age where people people people people push boundaries, right, people people don't always follow rules. And while I may not agree, I see it. But in this situation, these barriers are there, I don't know for a reason. If there's a barrier preceded by an electric fence, you may not want to go past said fence, especially not with your child. Exactly the one one uh tweet this show and it reads

this dumbass baby daddy takes picture with elephant. But what's crazy, though, is we're starting to see this more and more where people are willing to just get the like and willing to risk themselves and their child. What's crazy? And then he gets arrested rightfully so, yeah, rightfully so, but I just don't get it. I don't understand. Like, but here's the worst part though, the worst part is that this father is growing up raising his child, who now this

is an example of protection. Yes, so as a whack As example, I saw that, I was like, oh man, and like they had to tell him, like, hey, there's the elephant, and that's more than anything you had to do. Like it wasn't just all right, I'm just gonna hop this little wire fence. So I'm just gonna I'll just go mosy through this gate, like you had to go past the gate, then pass the electrical fence, then you drop the child, Like, man, how dunk can you be?

You n cole, bloody dummy, super dumb. But they just keep rolling in. Every time I see something like this, I'm like, how much more stupid can people get? And then there's yet another video. I'm not can you you're a big dumber? There's always in a sad and and and and not to make fun of it, but you also it's more just kind of really saying like how stupid people are and where we're at right now that people want to get that stuff on video on picture.

So sad Indictmond, sad Indictmond. But congratulations because bigger dum dumbing. That's that's pretty good. Yeah, that's a good one. So, hey, who we got coming up on the cut to a podcast? We've got Joe Montgomery, a current broadcast with ESPN. She's also the CEO of Four Leaf Productions and a former USA Track and Field star. Joe Montgomery on the cut to a podcast. M you hear that's my Black Irish

walkout music. Also that's that's not like it should be a wwe like Black Irish, the Black irishman's name els right, or the three studies right. That's that's that's gonna get as kids three two we have I want to say fan favorite, but it's really a personal friend of mine and also someone who only the very few people who walk this earth who are allowed to talk to me in the way that she talks to me, like my mentor. And also um, good friend Jill Montgomery. J Jill, welcome

to the cut to the podcast. Thank you so much. I've been waiting for this day. MM. We've never had someone who anticipated the participate not all the time. Oh no, one never verbalized it. So let's go sta keep you on your toes man, Jill. Our first segment is called get iced Up. You may have heard of it if you listen to our podcasts. It is our version of Icebreakers their random questions Smitty has selected might be a follow up? Might not? Who knows Smitty go ahead and

give her the person. Well, Jill on this podcast in my world, I can ask you a double barrel question. So I don't want to everybody what why you said that? Though? So a double barrel question is in um in journalism is when you ask more than one question, and the question, which my coach and mentor tells me, when you asked two questions, or some people ask three questions in one, they never answered either one. Sometimes they never because you forget the first question by the second one, and you

forget the second one at the third one. Double barrel because this is this is your show. This is this isn't a session with me where we're making you better on the NFL network. This is all This is no holds barred, You do what you want. I'm game, yeah, but I do have fun with it. However, I still am practicing all of my notes that I still have.

I love that. All right, let's go. I don't have to ask te yes you okay, We're gonna have to ask t F you all right, which she tells me, Steve, shut them and let us and as f W, I say, and that's your down person, answer the question. Don't be super excited. So that's why, all right, here we go. Are you ready, Jill? I am ready? Okay, here we go, what do you want to leave? Everything? Taking anything, nothing, not your bank account, not your safe He's just let me.

I'll keep my bank account. But I want to leave. I want to leave the negativity, the the the division, the people becoming puppets and sheep. I want to leave all of that in. I want people to reinvent and find faith in one. I want I want all the negativity and everything that that encompassed to stay. The hell there, oh here. I love that answer. I like that answer too.

All right. If you had to ride amusement park ride twenty times in a row, let's say Disney World, Space Mountain, Small World, or the Teapot ride is a row, you're gonna I would do the Teapot twenty times in a row. I'm gonna. I'm gonna throw this back on you. As you know, I may have dabbled in professional athletics in my life. I cannot go on a Merry Go round, any carnival rides, the zipper, the you know whatever and anything that spins and turns and what and all My

friends could and I never could. And I didn't understand why I would get sick, violently sick, throwing up like gravy eyes out my nose sick, asked my doctor once. I said, why can't I ride carnival rides? And he said professional athletes. Some of them have such insane hand eye coordination that their body processes every move and it throws their equilibrium off. That is correct. I've been since I was a little boy. When I spin around, we used to have this wooden lean leanable, the wooden chairs

that lean spin around. When I was a kid, we used to spend and spent me too much, and I have been Mr Queasy ever since. I cannot do anything. You've got them bad guts. He doesn't have bad guys. It's because you have ridiculous hand eye coordination. Okay, okay, so so which one? So you so you are eliminating the teapot ride? Correct? I would. That's when I would ride twenty times in a row. Don't they go around and around? Yeah, there's it's the little kid one, right.

It's just like I've been there multiple times. I don't never get on that. I think that was like the worst one. I mean, the kids say, oh Dad, you're scared. Yeah, yeah, okay, I can't. Here's why I can't do space Mountain though, because I'm not the tallest dude. But you can see the bars in there and it's pretty scary. Yeah, but I can't do small world times in a row. I'll give you two your late night go to snack ramen noodles out of the pan, not even putting it in

a bowl underneath the towel. Raman chicken flavored ramen noodles. I'm judging. Are you judging? Why are you judging it now? Just because I eat it so much as a kid that I just I can't do it. But back in the day, like you do the stove top ramen noodles, you put the pack and then sometimes you get the

risk of chicken. And that's what I'm saying, is that the old school just the regular classic chicken rama noodles, not the crazy ones they have now, but the old school ones where you had to boil them in the water and then add the packet sauce in it. And I always drained most of the water out and and ate it that way. I didn't make mine as a soup, do you know what? I do love them cup of noodles the same thing. What what do you mean you're gonna judge me on my ramen. It was just just

easy because just add the hot water to it. I think it tastes better shrill like the shrip was always wagged though it was chickens. My mouth likes it. Wow dry On a second, why are you judging me because my showing I can is my time to get back at you? I not. I just love to just say it because it just felt good. Jill, all right, yeah, no, I'm not really it was I didn't know what you're

gonna say. It was just fun to It was just fun to have you all here and and and rash you a little bit because of how much you give me such a hard to know where is the thing. Let me clarify something. You hard time. I have to start your ego. No, when I say she gives me a hard time, what our first couple of sessions, Like if I didn't have the confidence that I had in myself, she would have crushed me. Don't scare people, I mean

the session, would you? Well? I told she was like, well, I want you to write stuff down, and I'm like, I am, I was writing it down. Is what she tells me is it's unbelievable. Makes me think right, because I didn't go to school to be to do communications. I didn't go to school for I didn't even think i'd be doing it today, right. And so there are some technical things that if you have not been schooled on it, you don't know. Now you learned them, but

you you were starting from scratch. I was from scratch, like box and milk or or water, that's how scratch. It was like literally just baby steps. She went in like a true athlete and just went in full go. And it took me back a little bit because I wasn't expecting, you know, a. I was expecting her to be to be honest, a little bit gentler, and she wasn't. We go up and she turns on the film. So we're skyping, and the whole time I'm like, I was skyping this person and and my agent, Hey, I think

you really like this. She's really good, and I'm coming because I had someone before and we were doing some stuff and I'm like, you can't wait. You're trying to be too just coach me, And so it didn't really work because they were the way they were doing things, that was their style. I picked up some things that I can use and this, some other things whatever. Well with Jail the first session, she was just so on me and then she so we skype and she's playing

back my film. And as she's playing it back, what are you thinking on this, Steve? And I'm kind of like, oh, yeah, here's what I wanted to say. I don't remember what I was thinking in two months ago. Hell I really remember. I mean, unless I write it down, I'm not going well. Last Thursday I had tuna, and a week before that I had I don't know, my belly knows. What we had wasn't healthy or unhealthy. So she's winding it, rewinding it. What were you thinking on this? What were you trying

to spit out? Spit it out? Man like? She just hit me and wow, I don't really think that those were my words. That's how I felt. You were saying it right, And here's why, here's why you're an athlete, and when you played, what was the easiest way for you to go see what you were doing right or wrong on the field? You had to go sit in in film? Right? Yes, and so what I have to do with somebody like you, who is a huge personality on TV works for a huge network, but has that

athlete mentality. Is I now have to adjust and say, all right, how can I break this down frame by frame for him so that not only that he gets it, he gets it and takes it back to the field and goes and does it better. Ye, but I get it. It just wasn't I appreciate you today and then at the moment a little back because first of all, you weren't expecting probably that from It had nothing to do with your sport that you did or didn't play, and had nothing to do with your sex. I haven't played

the sport, but it's like I'm coming at you. You listen, there's nobody knows a game of football more than you. You are the expert. You know hands down so much about the game that what my job is is to get it out of you. And I had to establish in that very first session how it was going to be so that you trusted me. So what did you see in Steve as an endless from the from the very initial session, I think he can actually be one

of the best ever on television. And I told his agent that, I said, he has all of the tools to be literally not just another NFL guy going to the bow right. We we've seen that a million that that song has been played million times. But hands down the personality, the intelligence, the knowledge on the game, but also how he encompasses his everyday life and what he does in preparation with his families, his charities, his things. When you have that more of a soulful approach to

everyday life, you can put that into your work. And when I met him, I mean I knew it was I knew who he was. I knew just the peripheral. But when in that first session, when we started talking and I started to get right off the bat kind of what he was made of, I was like, oh, man, I can I can make this guy a star. Not that he wasn't already, but if I was like I could, if he listens any trusts, I can make him so much better on TV that people are gonna want him

and and and we're doing that. I think clearly the proofs in the pudding. But yeah, I know he I think he can be one of the best ever on time with me. So that my duty. But she was hard on you. Thank you, Jill. We have to take a break and the morning thing, we gotta pay some bill. You got checks. I love cut to It, and I love it even more when you download us and subscribe, and you can follow us on social media too, Smithie, where where at? That's at? Cut to It on Instagram?

What about Twitter? At? Cut to It? Facebook? Cut to It featuring Steve Smith singr? What about online? And you can follow us at cut to It podcast dot com where you can buy merch and you can subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts. I got all my answers questions. Um, yeah, I got all my questions answered. That's what I'm here for, a brother, cut to a

Podcast dot Com. You know, I have to give you credit there is there were some things inside of me that I didn't know it was there, and so why wow, I continue to work with you. It is the improve on camera presence, but more it has allowed me to be okay with the uniqueness of how I think. And that's why is why this podcast is where it is today is because of the great team I have around me, but also people like you, like KBS in my life that has said hey, you can be you, you know,

just harness it a different way. This is the opportunity to do that is dive deeper into who people are. Um, what they what? What are they made of? Right? And so, uh, that's what we want to know about you, Jill. And who's your childhood sports team growing up? My childhood sports team growing up were the Celtics and Notre Dame. M hmmm. Uh why Irish family. I grew up in an Irish Catholic family, you know, blue color, working class montana. Um. You know, we grew up. We didn't grow up with

a lot. I mean it was, you know, a contrary to popular belief. I wasn't born with the whole set of silver flatware in my mouth. Um. But we we just grounded out. And and when you're growing up and you don't have a lot of money, you you appreciate the things that you you can watch or that you can see. And being able to watch those teams on TV it was a treat. You know. Now we have so much, there's just so much access to everything. It's just overload. But when I was a kid, it's like, man,

we could watch the Old Lake or Celtics series. Come on it. To me, it just doesn't get any better than that. And I, you know, I'm an Irish kid, and you you learn to really appreciate and live your roots. And so it was the Celtics and Notre Dame football. Um, and the fact that I didn't go to Notre Dame broke my mother's heart. But Notre Dame's track and field team, no, no disrespect to them, that it's an incredible institution. But I I the PACT ten at the time was the

best track and field conference out there. So I didn't go to Notre Dame. You said you didn't grow up with a lot. Yeah, but but not a lot at all? What is Jtgomery journey or definition of a lot? Because there are people listening and there are people in studio who not a lot varies. Yeah, yeah, um, I'll be And that's a that's a great point. It's a great question. Um. You know, we grew up in and I grew up

in low income housing. My parents my parents were divorced. Um, we'd spend the school years with my mom, summers with my ad um. But my mom was a nurse raising three kids, and and we lived on what what most people called, at least in Montana, you know, the wrong side of the tracks. It was low income housing. Um, there wasn't there wasn't a lot of extra There wasn't you know, cars at fifteen and and you know, new

school clothes every year and stuff like that. It was you know, my mom would work and we would come home from school and make a snack, which would have been maybe a bowl of cereal or something, and then she come home and we'd have a very simple dinner. And there was times when birthday parties didn't have cake, birthday parties didn't have anything but my sisters in a birthday card. Um. And you really learned to appreciate the things around you, you know, going outside and we played

in irrigation ditches, we played in fields, we played in trees. Um. There was you know, there's just there wasn't brand new bikes at Christmas and things like that that kids had. But that I think a lot of people take for granted,

but that was my definition of not a lot. Growing up in low income housing and you have your neighbor kids that you play with and your sisters and you know, my mom worked her ass off and my dad was retired military, um and and growing up that way, I gotta tell you, looking back, I wouldn't have done anything

different because man didn't make me tough. It made me a survivor, and it made me learn how to no matter how many times stuff didn't go my way, or I got knocked down and I was an athlete and I would lose, or I wanted to be the best. I just came back with just relentless pursuit. And and it's because I grew up that way. I think if I would have grown up in a you know, both parents married, both parents working cars at fifteen, you know what,

what what would be equivalent to WiFi nowadays? Back then, I wouldn't have had the path that I had. You know, I think our tids and I'm saying my kids, but I think our kids, especially in this pandemic. There are kids who are looking at this pandemic as the worst thing in knowing the mankind, and it is pretty bad. They're also a generation to this day, right now that they can stand up ten years from now and say,

we are the generation that came through a pandemic. We are a generation that we have succeeded and been through a lot, and we come up out of this better and stronger. But instead, suicide rate is alcoholism, is domestic violences. There's a ton of things that are up. But you know, it isn't up our ability to check in with each other, right, to have conversations, have conversations, Have conversations not be transactional.

And we're still operating in the Instagram transaction and the TikTok likes, the the snapchat stuff, and and this generation is all about exposing, all about tablettelling, but none of it, it's really about bill, none of its leaving the spaghetti the leftovers, right, Spaghetti and chili are so much better days after and next day. Yes, but the generations want

they wanted hot, spicy right now. But you gotta let you gotta let that those seasons get up in there and sitting chilling, going room temperature out of room temperature, freezing, all that stuff. But these kids don't want that they wanted today right now. And that's what I think growing up in the generation that we grew up in without the technology that we have. And technology has been a huge part of this, But the access for me is nobody needs the amount of access that we have right now.

And and and Steve you know this just as well as I do, and Fellows you probably do too. You can't go on anywhere where someone's not going to have a camera on you, and you can't go and hang out with your boys in a bar, shoot the ship and be talking about what you want to talk about in the manner that you want to talk about it with, not somebody having a cell phone camera and you catching it and then it ends up on Sports Center or

Twitter or something going viral. The access that we have to everything, I think has made our children nowadays they have no social braces, They have no idea how to communicate.

I mean when we grew up, we were My father was in the military and he the manners, the table manners are huge in our family, and we were we didn't have a lot, but what we did have were manners, morals, and boy, you lived by the Golden rule and you treated every single person that you came across the way that you wanted to be treated, and if you didn't, you got your ass looked and and you get a

community one too. It wasn't just the cousins. Yes, Pauline could give me a weapon like you got free reign like it really was. I think what we're all saying is it was a village. I don't feel there's mentality anymore. Like remember back in the day, if you want to go play with your boy, you want to go play with your best friend or your girlfriend, you have to go and not on the door. On the door for

me here you can don't come out and play. You get so much about your upbringing and growing up in Montana. How did that shape your perspective on how you see the world today. It has shaped my perspective on how I see the world as the limits for me as a person don't exist. Um, I can do anything. I

can help anybody do anything. And I want other people to have that perspective of cut out the media, cut out you know the technology that the things we see on the news, the things were being fed and go into what you have in your heart and your soul in your mind, and you can go and you can achieve anything. Some my parents and they called it a Gillism. If they wanted me to do something, they would tell

me I couldn't do it. They're like, yeah, I bet you can't do that because they knew that once I got challenged, like you're not gonna tell me what I can and can't do, and and that so so growing up in Montana and having that very kind of salt to the earth and the people that are there as salt of the earth, Montana is amazing. And you you you look at it as Wow, there's no ceiling on what I can do. And I just took that ball and ran with it. In every facet of my life,

I think we skipped over something. But you know, just kind of tell us, you know, where are you from in a place you call your hometown. So I it's a little town called Anaconda, Montana. Anaconda like the snake. Yes, I was born in a mining town called Butte, which

is twenty miles from Anaconda. I grew up in Anaconda through just like the first or second grade, and my parents had divorced, and then I moved to Billings, Montana, which is kind of on the kind of more central eastern side of the state, and lived the school years with my mother, and then I would go back and I'd lived the summers with my father in Anaconda. So when we when we grew up, Anaconda's home. When I go home, it's Anaconda. My my aunts and uncles, my

grandparents were there before they died. Um My childhood friends, the little neighbor kids, the Stirregars were always there. Um And so when I go home, I go there, and then also Missoula, because we spent a lot of time in Missoula. But you know, it was a mining town. It was a small, blue collar mining town. Now it's a retirement town, it's a ghost town. Um, but it was again, it was nothing but outdoor activities. Kicked the can. We'd go on hikes, and we'd played hot box. I

played softball. I always played with the boys. I mean, I had a couple of female friends, but I was one of the boys growing up. And and I was you know, I was a little I was a rat. What sports did you fall in love with other than hot box? I grew up playing softball, and I grew up playing basketball, and then I ran track. Okay, but I actually was. I was better in basketball than I was running track. But I didn't go to school on a basketball scholarship. I chose track instead. What was so

intriguing for you? And track? I could go a lot further? I felt, Um, you know, the w n b A wasn't super huge back in my day. Um And and I had some very nice scholarship offers to some very big schools for basketball. UM, but I knew that track, being a little more all year round, in the different areas and platforms I could go compete at at even at my age, I know I could compete at a higher level. UM, and I could go further. So I

chose track, all right, finished finished this sentence. There being a female college athlete in the late nineties was ah, wow, that's a nice Uh, that's a nice little statement. Was life shaping. It allowed me to unlock other avenues of exposure for myself too, journey into other fields of not just athletics, but learning how to relationship build um, cultivate those relationships into business relationships, which I still use to this day. UM. And it just gave me a springboard

into the next level of my life. Hm. Why do you think sports has that effect on individuals? We just had a conversation about this last week. Uh, how sports can shape you way past just how you perform on the field on the track. How much it builds life you you dance around it. Let's just cut to the chase. I said that you can tell you can you you know who's an athlete, who is it m based on how they deal with criticism or you know, controversy or

just uh evaluation. Like in the business world, you could tell who is or isn't an athlete that played beyond the seventh or eighth grade. And that's because you have a you have a layer of skin on you that cannot be penetrated. You have thick skin that that it's like and you can't talk to athletes the way we were talked to back in the day now because everybody gets offended and everybody has this you have to you

have to you know, coddle and do this stuff. It we were we were brought up in an era that you did your job no matter what it was, at all costs, and how you got better was to grit

it out. There was no shortcomings. And the relationships that you built with your teammates when you're going through the trenches with somebody and and you know they're hurting and and and experiencing success and doubts and all the things that we go through as athletes and second guessing and questioning if we're we should be there or shouldn't be there, or how good we possibly are and oh my god, do I deserve this and not being able to handle prosperity.

You learn how to harness all that, and you've got a crew around you that's going through the same stuff. Yeah, you bet your ash. You're gonna be tough and you can take a lot of criticism and you have I think discipline and responsibility moving forward in life that most people don't have. Preach, girl, preach. So I did a little bit of research track at Kansas State. It is the it's formerly the Big Eight, but now it's the

Big Ten. Well, I thought you're gonna come with a question, and if you knew this, I was gonna be really shocked. Oh well, what's the fun fact I didn't do his homework? Oh no, go ahead, finish your thought and then I'll tell you No, I'm okay now day that balloon just got deflated. What was so amazing about, uh, the Big Eight? Then that I think some mommy is not as challenging. There's one of two guys, But I mean they they were. Every team had had their their guy or girl. There

was no sense of entitlement um back then. And and that's the thing that I see now as a as a broadcaster. You know, call him the world's best track. Um is when we grew up in the Big eight and and my last year was the very last year of the Big eight. And that's what I thought. You had this nugget. I was actually the very last Big eight champion. Wow, well I did see that that you were and then went to the Big the Big twelve. But my we didn't have what our coach said goes.

There was no questioning him. There was no getting out of practice. There was no oh, well you know, I'm I'm having um, you know, issues with my boyfriend or I you know, I need to study for this. It was you get your you get all of your stuff done before you came to practice. And if you didn't have it done, we we had study table all that stuff. There was no sense of entitlement. You showed up, you did your work, and you competed your guts out. And now what I see is I had a conversation with

my coach the other night. I still talked to my college coach. I talked to that man probably twice a month. And yeah he is. He is one of the biggest members on what I call my board of directors in my life. I call him about everything and I was having a conversation with him about just you know, the thing is that how COVID affected last year and now the scholarships that are going to happen and all this stuff, and and the entitlement that athletes, collegiate athletes that I

see have that they just think it's automatic. It's like, Oh, I'm gonna go to school and everything's gonna be taken care of and I really don't have to do as much work to learn. And when I competed in college, there there was none of that there. There was absolutely none of it. So it made us just grittier. I think it made us tougher. Now the talent level is a lot higher now. The talent level is insane now at collegiate athletics. It's you don't have one superstar on

a team, You've got twenty. You look at teams now, especially in track and field, it's not like, oh, there's one two runner that's a stud. Every single event now is three and four deep with athletes that can run at the world level. So the talent level is so much higher now. However, that's been built over the last thirty years because of the access that younger athletes now had to better coaches, better nutrition, all the technology, all

of the recovery stuff. We didn't have that. I mean, Steve, you know when you go back to your You're playing days before the NFL and you got done off the practice field. You didn't have cryo therapy. You went at your ass in an ice tub that was thirty five degrees and it was steel and it sucked. That's what we had. When I go back to my college, now, these guys in nutrition and they have a whole facility where each individual player has his favorites movie. Yeah, mill

replace its movie. Now my problem is, I'm I'm paying alumni. Your ass can't catch thought, but you have right and so it's it's amazing at all the technology and all of things of advance. They have events, but it's still about the XS and oh right, at the end of the day, it's like, if you don't perform, none of that stuff matters. But again, going back to the same concept, the way I grew up, man, we grew up tough. We grew up having to be the person that made

the difference in our own lives. We didn't have a plea thoraw of team around us. That coddled us, cared for us, and they were like, rub some damn dirt on it and get your aft back out there. I think it's about that time. Just take a little breather. Good. Good, let's get down to do it. Good. Hey Gerard, why did you get that T shirt? You mean this thing? Oh? Yes, I got it from cut to a podcast dot com where we have exclusive merchandise. Shout out to our guys

at seven oh four shot. But yeah, you can go on buy you a T shirt subscribed to us wherever you listen to podcasts. How did you get into broadcasting? I knew I always wanted to be a sports broadcaster. But when I came out of college, um, I knew I was gonna compete post grad. Um. I ran for Nike for five years, and I stayed at Kansas State and trained with my collegiate coach. But when I left all of that and I retired as a professional athlete, I moved to l A because I I never had

a life. I was always representing somebody or some institution, right, So we didn't get to be jerks. We couldn't go to quarter beer and night on a Tuesday. We didn't get spring break. We didn't get any of that. I never had any of that growing up because I was always in athletics. And so I decided, all right, listen, I know I want to be a sports broadcaster, but let me go be as ratchet as I can before

I decided to settle down and go to work. Because I knew the second I decided I was going to go into broadcasting, I had to eat, sleep, and drink it. But I wanted to party, I wanted to travel. I wanted to So I moved to l A and I took a job as a personal trainer and parted my ass off and I and I didn't have to worry about getting into trouble. And and let me tell you something, my first couple of years in l A. I enjoyed them to the hilt. It was it was. It was

a lot of fun. And then I decided, at the age of thirty six, that it was time to start this career because in sports broadcasting is not a job. Steve, you know this, This isn't a job. This is a career. I had a lot of different what I considered jobs. I was I was an agent, I was a manager.

I had my own fitness company. But I knew that sports broadcasting was what I wanted to be long term and be the best at I just I did all the other stuff to build up to this, and and so I decided that thirty six, um, that it was time and I was gonna eat, sleep, and drink it, because that athlete mentality, you're gonna do it, You've got to do it that way. And I hired a talent development coach. I hired a me Now, I mean his

name was Lou Riggs. God rest his soul. He was a broadcaster way back in the day, and he taught us sports broadcasting class at Santa Monica College, and um, he actually developed quite a few people that are on TV still today. And I hired him, and the guy kicked my ass weekend and week out. I took the class one summer, and then when I decided to be a broadcaster, you know, we didn't There was no FaceTime, there was no there was no zoom, there was none

of this. And so I had to drive out to his house and seem Valley with my DVD that I cut myself in an editing bay, and he would rip me apart every week until I got my gig at ESPN, and then he just recorded my my games and and I'd still drive out there and sit in his living

room and he ripped me apart. Now I see how it came back full Sarka, She's teaching out of old wounds continued, I'll tell you, I would have never ever thought that I would have my company now and do what I'm doing, and knowing that it stemmed from that, but it was because people asked me. They're like, well, how did how so old when you started? And I was, I mean shif, I was thirty six, and people are like, wait, what, like, you're going to go be a broadcaster? Like you don't

Did you have broadcast journalism as a major? No? I didn't have any of that background nothing. I was as raw as they came. And they're like, you're too old, You're not gonna I'm like watch and and I went to him relentlessly, And I say this to this day. I'm going in my eleventh year at ESPN as a track and field analyst, and there is no way in hell I would be where I'm at had it not

been for mu Rigs. How is the broadcasting business? Forward's females whether there's young Um you said by your words and you are old MH. I was, But you're reporting about men or women performance. You don't have to be a certain age to just report the news. There's there's age ism in I'm sure not just this industry, but of many industries with agents. Let's look at what's on television right now, right you you see younger, more attractive

men and women than you see old, stodgy whatever. And that's what I'm saying is at the age of thirty six starting this, I was told it was going to be an uphill battle because I was thirty six, not twenty six. I did that information impact you? It fueled me because I was like, watch this, I'm going to prove you wrong. There was a guy at Fox that sat me in his office and told me that I was starting this so late in my life and that, um, I didn't have enough experience. And I did go to

broadcast journalism school. So I really had an uphill battle and I probably should rethink if I really wanted to do this. MHM already trying to talk you out of it, and and he and he was condescending about it. I'm not going to name who it is. What's so funny is that years later a member of his family was my runner on a network broadcast. He got up and had told me, uh, you know, year a couple of years after that, had said, oh, once I got hired by NBC to do all the track and everything, he

brought me. I went in because I wanted this. I wanted this specific job. And I went back a couple of years later to try to get it again. And he's like, oh, well, what you've accomplished in the last eighteen months is just an incredible feat. And it was just so missachanistic. And I looked right at him and I said, I told you I was going to be back here. I said, it's not an incredible feat. I said, it's exactly what I told you I was going to do.

And I and then years later a member of his family was my runner, and he came out onto the track and was in, you know, I was trying to work, and he was trying to talk to me, and I said, if you don't mind, I actually don't know how you got out here because you don't have a credential, and I'm gonna need you to leave mhm. And then you made his family member go get you coffee. No, I

just I know it was it was. It was very nice to the family member, but it was just funny how he treated me in the beginning and then once he lost his job and was no longer in that position, how he tried to act towards me on the back end. And this is something that I tell every single one of my clients. And you've heard this out of my mouth, Steve,

this I tell everybody. You'd be nice to everybody, every single person you work with, your A two, people that pull cable, people that do your makeup, people that bring you coffee, whatever it is. You'd be nice to every single person that you see on your way up because you're going to see him on the way down. Wow. That's great advice. I hold on to it. Yeah, now you do you you always do a great job with it. Not blowing smoke, but you respect every single person I'm

on set with all the time. Jee when you give when you give us an oh shit moment in your broadcasting career, Yes, I will never forget this. It was per due at Ohio State and track football, all men's basketball Perdue Perdue Ohio State Men's basketball Super Tuesday Prime Time. I'm on the broadcast with Dave O'Brien and Dick By tal I had. I had talked to the s I D that I was gonna take produce head coach Matt Paynter at half, and I said, what tunnel are you

coming out of? And he pointed to this to the tunnel on one side. Well, where I was sitting. You go position yourself with like a minute left in the half, in the corner so you can grab the coaches he's coming off. It was the exact opposite corner of the arena. I am. I am diagonal across the court and I the horn goes off and they start walking just to the opposite tunnel. You see the wide shot if you can find this game, you see the wide shot of the court, and you see me in Stiletto's sprint kitty

corner across the entire court. And I grabbed coach Painter right as he's stepping off of the of the little cement thing. And he didn't know he was getting interviewed, So I don't know if the s I D dropped

the ball or not. And I got him and go coach right as Dave O'Brien's tossing to me, and he turned out and goes, damn it, Jill, you're gonna tell me you're gonna interview me and Dave bows and Jill's with coach Painter and I'm like, like, coach, and I thought I thought of a tight question, but I was so rattled and he screamed at me. Now the screen, he didn't scream at me. It wasn't on tape, but the timing of Dave tossing it to me and Matt yelling at me, I said, I was like, oh, but

I finished the interview. I conducted it. It was tight, it was clean, but it was it was That was a very big oh moment, Jela. Last segment is called the Deep Three, and they're just three questions where we allow our guests just go to a deeper level. So Smitty give her the first question. Jie you you you run track, gymnastics, basketball, You've been around football, track, feel you have covered everything. If I can give you a mulligan in your professional life, what would you read to up? Uh?

I would read to up my collegiate athletic career, and I wouldn't take it as serious as I did, I would have enjoyed it better. Instead of constantly criticizing myself, I just would have let up and not have taken it so serious. So that internal dialogue was was fierce. Mhm it was. I think it inhibited me from being

even more successful as an athlete. Um. However, on the flip side of it, because it did happen and I could reflect on it when I walked away from the sport, It's set me up to be more success full in life, in the in the adventures that came in front of me because I lightened up. Mm hmm. What's a milestone in your career that you'd like to achieve? I want to be the head of talent development at a network, So question to a what's a mouston in your personal

life you'd like to achieve? I? You know, I would like to be m looked at as somebody that has been a huge influence for others. I think that just when people talk about me, I think the milestone would be you know she, she really really was an influence in my life. She helped me she I think that would be a huge moles on for me, is just to be looked at as that type of a relevant figure.

That's awesome. What's your parents both of your parents have instilled in you what you guys dealt with obviously with the divorce and what in how they they spent their time parenting your your siblings, quality of life, that you are going to come up against people that have more money than you are, more successful than you are, more

famous than you have things that you don't have. And on the flip side of that, you're going to come up against people that don't have what you have and have struggles and need help and and no matter what, the quality of life is the golden rule, and you treat people the way that you want to be treated, regardless of what they have or they don't have. That everybody's quality of life and needs to be respect did that's aweso? Can I? Can I finish the question now? Okay?

So what's your parents have instilled in you on how they did it? What do you think they will say about Jill Montgomery today? Um, that I did it my way. They call it gillis ms. I never I always danced to the beat of my own drum. I never got married, I never had kids. I didn't do what my sisters did. I never did what the the norm did, and I think that they knew that I was always going to be different and no matter what I did, no matter what I said I was going to do, I did it.

My way has been honor and privileged, especially for me because Gerard has been We've been in an office and Gerard has heard I've had the close has heard, I've heard, I've heard a couple of you heard a couple of sesssions. And He's like, brush, she wouldn't line at all. All of this is authentic. He's like, who is talking to you? Like that? They have allowed me to sharpen my craft and really and really look at this as a craft appreciated girl by guys. Love y'all. Thank you so much.

You are a unique person. You are well worth it, You are competent, and most of all, your lovable. I'm Steve Smith singor I'm Gerard Little John and this is cut to It. Cut to It with Steve Smith Senior. That Is Me is a production of Cut to It LLC, Baltol Creative Media, The Black Effect, and I Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit I Heart Radio Apple Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your

favorite shows. From Cut to It, Executive producer Steve Smith, singer co host Gerard little John, talent in booking manager Joe Fusci, Social media team Wesley Robinson and John Show from Balto Creative Media. Cut to It is produced by Brian Balta Chevic and Meredith Carter, with production assistance by Alex Lebrec. Production Coordinator Taylor Robinson. Theme music by Alex Johnson, lyrics and vocals by Anthony Hamilton. You ain't heard am about it, then we're about to let you know. It's all