S3 Episode 5: The Mental Game

Kellen Mond. Amen. About to see him a night, man, tell him off man, about to see him a night in the draft man. And now yeah, yeah, that's Kellen Mond getting his haircut on the day of the draft. Over the last four years, a few players have been as closely associated with their college program as Kellen has

been with Texas A and m uh Texas. Now, yeah, college stations that one year and Kellen has been the face of Texas A and M football for better and for worse since the legendary seven overtime game against l s U his sophomore year. That's the game they're talking about in the barbershop right now. Everyone wants to talk about this one L s U game, which they wont

Let's just clutch sports agent Kelton Crenshaw. You know, when you're not really on, you're not going to try to throw yourself back into a game, which a lot of times can cause necessary turnovers and you can create momentum shifts and things that a nature. So to me, that's a sign of maturity and that that shows that you know, you know what you're doing out there. I mean, sometimes you gotta you know everything's not gonna be clicking. You gotta go out there and just kind of manage the

game and come away with the victory. Kellen received a lot of criticism for doing just that. Critics say he only managed the game despite winning seventy four to seventy two and what became the highest scoring game ever and throwing six touchdowns with no interceptions. Now two and a half years later, everyone from strangers in a barbershop to his cousin the barber, to draft analysts and NFL scouts all continue to talk about that game, even mere hours

before the start of the NFL Draft. Uh seven a night, Yeah, oh, let what I thought? It was a six? Boy? You get me a whole not out man. Now it's at six tomorrow, we're gonna get Kellen and his parents are hosting the huge draft party tonight, even though most experts say he could go anywhere from the first round of Night one to the third or fourth rounds on Day two or three, and that draft range is exactly what his cousin asked him about between the buzz of the

clippers on his headline. It's probably like the back half of the first to the top of the second, because I usually like, if a team called me, like they're like, hey, we're gonna select you, then it's gonna get out somewhere. And then that's they're gonna be like, oh shoot, we we ought to take in with He's gonna be taken in the second, so then it's gonna be a little easier to quarterback. Yeah, so all the quarterback said have been taking him, be like, okay, well they need a

quarterback then exactly. Kellen's draft range is unusually broad because teams see very different things when they look at his body of work, which is extensive and features some dramatic peaks and valleys. In fact, he's been under of the football microscope ever since his senior year of high school, when he transferred to IMG Academy in Florida. I AMG recruits top players from all over the country and many call it a football factory as much as an academy.

How I am going up, I think they're still good. They totally changed, like the rules whenever I was there, like they would have probably like recruited guys and it was basically a scholarship, but they called it a financial benefit. But now supposedly they have to have sixty to eighty guys on the team who pay. But like obviously the top recruster not going there and paying seventy dollars a year. Kellen had to decide whether or not to move away and attend IMG Academy for his senior year, and his

decision had little to do with leaving San Antonio. He explains, you know, when you're at your regular high school, guys who you play with football at times can be just a hobby and so they're they're grind necessarily, it's in the same ground that you have. You know, what's different from i MG is everyone is trying to, you know, one be a great college player, but also make it to the NFL. Whenever I moved out to i MG, which is destroy competition and just the work ethic was able.

I was able to elevate my game to a whole another level. Kellen's desire to play tougher competition and surround himself with hyper focused teammates occurred at least in part because of his dad, who also doubled as his coach. Inn episode two, we heard how Alex Leatherwood's life changed when he got a new coach who saw potential in him for the first time. This coach, Charlie Ward, encouraged him to take football seriously and view it as a

path to a different life. Alex might not have ever gotten to the NFL if it wasn't for that lucky break with his new coach. Maybe DeVante Smith wouldn't have become the tenth overall pick if he didn't have his mentor Vincent Sanders in his life either. That's the difference one person can make, and Kellen Mon's dad, Kevin, never wanted to leave any part of Kellen's trajectory up to fate or luck. Here's Kellen's dad and coach, Kevin. I started grooming him at the early age to play quarterback.

Everything we did was football in this house. So at the age of two, I had him doing things like getting on his knees and throwing nerve balls and and teaching body tork and things like that. And I'm six ft five, so I figured if he had any thing close to my size and high, he would probably turn into maybe a good athlete. And Kellen took to it right away. Wanted to be somebody special. And then when all the athletic talents started taking over, I realized that

he had a chance to be somebody. Kevin was laying the foundation for Kellen's career long before he was even born. Kellen's mom, Leticia, explains how football became ingrained in the family DNA from the very beginning. One of our first dates was like Friday night football. Okay, I mean, that's just the way it is. Even before we had kids, I had been to like every single state championship game.

We traveled all throughout Texas. It was literally just part of were part of our relationship, and then obviously it was part of the kids, you know. Thank god. Once Kellen was to Kellen started going to the football game, so I no longer had to go to all of the Friday night football games. But it was literally a family affair. And you know that's how things are in Texas, right, it is really all about football. As Kellen got older, they enrolled him in youth leagues and camps and all

the other possible football related outlets. Like his mom, Letitia said, it was all about football. And eventually this led Kellen to the Texas State playoffs his junior year in high school. Here's Kellen's dad, Kevin Mond. Again. He had played a playoff game here at Reagan High. We were ranked like eighth in the state of Texas. We were undefeated Tenno, we lost the game opening round of the playoffs. Who want our arrivals from off the highway about twenty minutes

from here. And from that point on I knew there were some things that I saw in Kellen where he had to get better. I wasn't the type of dad to sit back and rest on my laurels or us as a family to say, Okay, Kellumn is the best player in San Antonio. That's good enough. No, it's not about that. It's about being the best player you can be. And a lot of this to me as as a dad and a former coach has to do with development. Um, it's not always about winning games. A lot of this

is still development. Kellen's decision to move away his senior year of high school and attend I AMG Academy in Florida seemed obvious against this backdrop, so he joins IMG Academy and thrives, becoming a five star recruit. He's named the top dual threat quarterback and the entire recruiting class, and ultimately accepts a scholarship to play for coach Kevin Sumlin at Texas A and M. Kellen describes his early

arrival on the college station campus. So, I early in road, went through spring ball and going through fall camp, and I actually thought that I was going to be the starter, and a lot of people thought that I was going to be the starter, at least should be the starter. But at the time they were saying the other quarterback, he's gonna start, but you know, you're gonna play a little bit. So you know, I was still kind of

kind of piste off that I wasn't starting. So first game against u C. L A, the starter ended up breaking his foot, I think in the third quarter, and so I ended up coming in and we're you know, three fourth scores, and that's when, you know, Josh Rosen led the Rose Bowl come back and came back and beat us Kellen get up a thirty or four point lead the current NFL quarterback Josh Rosen and the U

c l A Bruins. Rosen became the tenth overall pick, and Callen quickly develops a stigma as a run first quarterback who can't throw after he only completes three passes in the game. I mean, this is my first game, I'm eighteen, you a, and fans already can can be pretty brutal, so just adding on to you know, me being a quarterback and being a true freshman, it was pretty brutal after that, and you know, I got death threats, you know, people calling me the N word like it was.

It was pretty bad. And then so going into week two, I ended up starting that game, went down, we threw a touchdown in the first drive, and then we kind of stalled for the rest of the game and ended up getting benched that game. And so the backup at the time we ended up coming in, he was an older guy, so crowd loved him gave him kind of like the standing ovation. So for me, it was kind of like a slap in the face at the time. And that guy who ended up playing, he ended up

getting hurt. So it was just kind of me by myself, and so I ended up playing pretty well throughout the season. We beat you know, South Carolina in the fourth quarter comeback. We went played at Florida and let a fourth quarter comeback, but ended up getting benched against Auburn whenever the true starter Week one ended up getting back and so that

was pretty much my freshman year. This all began to take a mental toll on Kellen and for his parents, watching it unfold in the stands felt almost as upsetting as experiencing it on the field. Here's Kevin Mond again and what it was like for him to see Kelln struggle his freshman year. Yeah, he was booed. Uh, that's tough as a parent, you know, when you're sitting at a game. A little over a quarter into the Auburn game and he got benched, but during the game getting booed,

and as a parent, you know, it's tough. That is your kid, you know, and these people when they go to college, you know, these are eighteen year old. The team struggles continued to be blamed on their young quarterback throughout that season, and somehow labeled Kellen has the new permanent scapegoat. I probably didn't have much respect, you know as an eighteen year old guy, you know, first game ever, who gave up a huge lead. So I mean since

my first game in college, it's it's been rough. So it's always been kind of hard to gain that respect back, even just from ain and fans um, from just even the media too. So it's just always seemed like in my career, everything that I've in, if it was you know, if it was good, then it just wasn't good enough. But I mean I got death threads honesty for multiple years. But but you know, my freshman year for sure, stophomore year, junior year, and like I've been booed in my my

own stadium multiple times. So um, yeah, it's been it's been pretty brutal. We'll be right back. Kellen's freshman year becomes a dark string of getting benched, booed, and threatened, and the season ends with even more drama. Texas A and M fires their head coach, The school brings in former Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher as the new head coach, and suddenly Kellen is starting over for the third time in three years. Here's Kevin Mond on those challenging days

for his son. I always look back. I think that made him stronger, made him want to go to work and not make some of the mistakes he made, and I think that has to do with his development going forward. And nothing's ever gonna come easy. You're gonna have your ups and down. His own life and the bounce back plan for him was to just go to work. Okay, I'm not as good as I need to be, I gotta go to work. Kellen would be in the film room eleven o'clock at night, go home, and be right

back at six am in the morning. And that was on a routine, regular basis. That kid is around the A and M campus. If not studying doing work, he's in the film room where he's at practice almost eighteen hours a day, go home, sleep six hours, and then back at it. Kellen was prepared to work as hard as he could, and he knew of coach Fisher's reputation as a quarterback google. However, he was recruited by and signed with the coach who was let go coach someone.

So this change wasn't exactly what he signed up for, going from coach someone who was more of a laid back person um to where coach Fisher was, you know, super hands on with these quarterbacks. You know a lot of people know about all the yelling that he does, you know, in practice and with the quarterbacks and in the game. So it was a total one eight for me. Here's coach Jimbo Fisher on what he saw when he first met and began working with the raw sophomore quarterback.

I said, you know, I don't care what's happened in the past, your slatest straight with me, and you trust me. I'm gonna put you in a position to have success. I'm gonna let me figure you out. I'm not thinking that's one of the things. I don't ever judge somebody that way, because you know how guy has been coached, or what he's been told, or what's going on with the guy. It's very hard to ever judge. And I said, but the big thing you gotta do is be consistent

and give me everything you got. And I'm gonna tell you what it was like he started a coach, I'm gonna do this every day and if I told him something, he did it. But he was I work a holic every day and he bought into everything. And I also give him a lot of input on I said, where do you feel here? What do you feel? How do you do? How do you like this play? How do you like what we're doing here? And if we worked and tweaked and it we just and actually he did it from day one. He did it from day one.

The new coach and the sophomore quarterback did a dance. During these first weeks of practice, Coach Fisher would get on killing about mistakes and Kellen would try to adjust and improve, and Coach Fisher would yell a lot. Kellen's dad, Kevin, watched as this all took place. He recalls one specific afternoon when Kellen walked off looking flustered during one of the first practices when Coach Fisher got to Texas a and l he came over to me after practice said, man,

Coach Fisher is hard. He's always yelling at cursing at me and staff and was one of the first few practices and I said, son, remember when you used to tell me when you were young, Dad, why are you so hard on me? And Kellen said yes, I said, Callen, I was just trying to prepare you for the real world. I said, remember, Jim Ball can yell at you, but he'll never be as hard as your dad is. And from that moment on he laughed and the reality kicked in.

That's right. My dad was always harder than anybody, So anything that anybody else dishes out, I can take it. In some ways, Kellen did spend his childhood playing for coach Kevin on and off the field. He was super strict and sometimes I think sometimes or people would kind of label it overprotective. But you know now that I'm at an older age and you kind of look back and you realize that my dad's thinks. Whatever he was teaching me and the way he was acting, it wasn't

too crazy. But you know, sometimes as a young kid, you just want to be free and outlandish and um. But you know, I've known a person who had never done drugs or never did anything because I was scared of what my dad would do. Kellen wasn't only shaped by kevin strict parenting and disciplined life. The mons have a long storied military tradition in the family on both sides, and beyond that, everyone in the Mond family is always playing to win. Here's Kellen's mom, Leticia, with her husband

again Kellyn. Yes, he lives and breathes football, but all of us we cannot stand. We are the worst losers as a family. And so sitting around and playing like a game of backgammon or whatever, checkers, whatever it is, that stuff does not happen in our household because only one person can win, you know, and that's just not going to happen in our house. So, yeah, that's not

such a good thing. But it's true. I played chess every night, like twelve midnight, one o'clock in the morning on the computer, and I don't go to bed until I win a game. If the computer beats me two times in a role, I play until I beat the computer. True story, true story. I go to bed one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning until I beat the computer.

I don't go to bed. And when it comes to laying their son or daughters win at anything at a young age, never ever, ever, that would be cheating the system. Never ever. I think I actually probably did because I didn't want to have to deal with any of our kids, you know, falling out. So I think I would have I would have been the ones to say, it's okay, let's let him win. Ever, that's how you developed tough skin, and we didn't allow it to happen, whether we played

basketball in the backyard or whatever it was. You know, that's how you get them tough, and it gets them to learn how to compete at a high level and what it takes. What it takes is grit and thick skin and toughness. Unfortunately for Kellen, Kevin and latitious parenting equipped him with these skills, the exact tools he need to handle adversity on the field, harsh criticism off the field, and even with a new head coach who liked to yell.

Earlier in my career, there was such a stigma of me not being able to win big games and me being inaccurate and inconsistem which is a true stigma of a freshman Kellen Mond. But you know me three years later, it's been so hard for people, just because people naturally listen to media experts instead of actually doing their own research. Sometimes when those things stick to somebody's head. Then it's

it's kind of hard to reverse. H Kellen makes huge strides under coach Fisher during his sophomore year, including winning that epic seven overtime game against a supremely talented L s U team. It appears the long hours and tough criticism and new hands on coaching is working. Then his junior year he doesn't make the jump to the next

level that everyone was expecting. So after my sophomore year, I just had certain goals of myself from my team, and you know, going into a brutal schedule, we ended up playing three number one so Alabama when we played that much number one at the time, Clemson went to top team L s U and Joe Burrow. So all games, you know, going into where I thought that we would have a chance and we would go in and win that we end up losing all those obviously of phenomenal teams.

Kellen was battling some of the best teams in the country on a weekly basis, and he was also fighting against the fans who couldn't let go of the struggling underclassman Kellyn used to be, and he was competing against his own idea of himself some theoretical version of who Kellen Mond was supposed to become. Here's coach Fisher, who saw this all unfold. Throughout Kellen's junior season. We had a very tough schedule. We had some tough breaks in some situations didn't go our way. But I think he

puts some pressure on himself. I think we didn't play as well around him as we should have. I think we had a lot of drop balls and some big games and some big situations, and he missed him throw. He made some mistakes, and I thought, dealing with expectations, they never had to do it. Here, he never had to do it, you know what I mean? Dealing with all right, we're supposed to be good. That's a different level.

And it wasn't from not want to. It's from sometimes you put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect. You can't play this game per thing. You just gotta play the best you can and trust your instincts and play. The tough losses from his junior year, along with the

ever increasing pressure and expectations, finally got to Kellen. And so after my junior year, I was trying to overcome certain expectations of myself, um, and you know we're just never able to overcome them, and so um, you know, after all of that, and so me just going through that mental strain it wants to be perfect and practice and sometimes even see guys not take practice as serious as me and then go to the games and don't

see that certain things translate. By times, it was hard for me, and you know, like people necessarily don't understand, especially playing for coach Fisher, what type of mental strain that it takes to be a phenomenal player and to go out and have success. On Saturdays, Latitia watched her son's struggle and it became difficult for her personally. She

especially felt the weight of Kellen's inner conflict. Kellen had been like say, after you know that games, when allously the fans were on and whatever, I think that I'm I am similar in that I am also very hard on myself. So I'm gonna going to be more you know, reflective and try to you you're always trying to fix the issues instead of leaning on others to allow them to help you fix some of those issues. So I can see why he did it, but I do feel like he he took on way too much. Um that

he probably should have it. And sometimes you do wish that your kids were more you know, you see other other kids who they're like they're already off to thinking about the next party or thinking about something else, and Kelln has never been like that. He's always considering like, Okay, now, how am I going to make this better? How am I going to make this better? You know? I I messed up. I messed up. I'm going to figure out

how to improve. So, UM, I think it's actually it probably is a good trait, but it really is a lot of pressure. If it's a lot for um, for you know, a kid basically to have to deal with. We'll be right back. Kellen finishes his haircut at the barbershop with his cousin and starts driving back to his parents house when he gets a call on his cell phone. Hello,

you know what up? Ryan? This is Texas A and M sports psychologist Ryan pitt Singer, someone Kellen obviously leaned on throughout the ups and downs of the last four years. How are you doing good? Just driving around right now? Um in Santatino? Are just trying to keep clear? Now I'm driving home from how to get a haircut, So I'm just driving back to my house now, so no, I just I just want to check in on you and just kind of see how you're doing. Yeah, I'm honestly,

I've been been chilling lately. Even my dad was asking me, He's like, you know, what's going through your mind? I'm like, honestly, it's just a normal day. I just got a haircut today, I had to go to like the jewelry store and get like a couple of watches fixed. So it's really

just like a normal day for me. That's so awesome, dude. Thankfully, modern day athletes get support for their minds the same way they have trainers and strength coaches for their bodies, top programs across the country, all for the help of experts like Ryan. To these young players facing such intense pressure every week, you already kind of know how it's gonna play out, or you just like, yeah, I've done everything I can. Yeah, exactly, that's pretty much my mindset.

I know, like throughout this whole entire training and you know, pretty much the past years, like I've done everything that I can. So I was like, literally, you just wait till a team dast you and I'm just watching the draft as a fan and by just happened to be a person who's gonna get called at some point. So that's pretty much my presset. That's awesome. Man, Is there like alternative stuff going on in your house? Like do you have like like media there and stuff or now

there will be later they'll be like photographers there. But we're supposed to have a lot of like family and friends like all like at my house and so good thing and in Texas, I know a good thing in Texas, Like there's no restrictions anymore. So I'm able to I'm able to have you know, as many family, friends and everybody around. Yeah, there we go, man, I'm so happy for you, so excited. Yeah now you you you've burned it all, that's for sure. Man. Now it's just time

to relax and enjoy the process, no doubt. Well, hey, I know that I'm rooting for you, and uh, you know, you know anything at all sounds good. Yes, I appreciate it. I let it. But that was the Texas A and M sports psychologist Ryan pitt Singer man with me since two thousand seventeen at Texas A and M been a huge advocate, also a huge fan for me, been a huge helper mentor. It's kind of the fly on the

wall top of guy. You know, you never see him, you know, whenever you do certain things on the field or around the building, and then he'll just randomly come up to you and talk to you about, you know, certain things that you did, and you just like you don't know how you saw it. Um. Yeah, I've been with me since two thousand and seventeen, seeing me through all my adversity, seeing me through pretty much everything that data ups and downs. Ryan has been there for Kellen's

whole collegiate journey. He was especially involved after Kellyn's junior season when the mental health struggles, pressure, and stress became overwhelming. Kellen leaned on Ryan as much as he could at that time. When suddenly COVID arrived on you as Shores and like almost every college student, Kellen had to leave

campus and go home. I always tell people quarantine changed my life, and so I think just being able to go home for two months just be around family and not necessarily get away from football, but just get away from college station. Um, get away from your facility and just do things on your own and create your own schedule.

I think that's what was amazing for me. So I know so many other college football players who UM go through mental trauma and at times, if it wasn't for quarantine, like me, UM, certain guys they will never know that they're actually going through certain trauma just because they never got away from it. In some ways, the quarantine changed the whole family's perspective. Latitia shares her experience when Kellen

came home. When we're all going through COVID and Kellen was home, and everyone, I think had an opportunity to kind of really look inside of themselves and see themselves in different light because there everyone's environment changed. And I think that that really gave Kellen an accelerant, essentially to all of a sudden, he started looking inside a bit closer,

He started reading a lot more. Um. There are just a lot of ways that he was able to try to look at himself a little bit differently and to try to really look at where he was vulnerable and look at where his imperfections were and really try to focus on those and think about how to make himself a better person overall, not just football, just a better person. After five years of high pressure, high stakes football, Kellen finally had the time to step back and do some

serious introspection. I think, you know, that fear of failure and that perfection and just certain things that I was doing. It became a habit. So me getting away from the habit where I wasn't doing it every day. So times always talk about just even at quarterbacks, if you're trying to break a habit, you know, a throwing motion, sometimes you have to not do it for so long. So what you're basically got to read teach yourself. So I was able to kind of get away from that and

I started to focus a lot more on recovery. I started to do yoga and just really just really work on my mental I started to read, you know, a lot of books on just like holistic health and stuff like that. Fear of failure, struggles with perfection, intense pressure from fans. These have been forbidden or taboo topics for star athletes in the past, but that's all changing. This summer, U S gymnastics superstar Simone Biles dropped out of the

Olympics due to mental strain. Three time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers immediately came out publicly to support her and said he also has needed to work on his mental struggles this past off season. And so despite all the suffering from the pandemic, maybe some positives came out of the quarantine and distancing. It gave athletes like Kellen a chance to gain a new perspective on their own lives and to take stock of their health and what's truly important.

Here's coach Fisher on how he saw the quarantine impact killing and his entire team. I think the quarantine made us all take a step back and really look at the things with how you know when you take things away that you really love it, but you took them for granted, and how lucky you were to have them

and be able to do the things you do. And we talked about as a team, we talked individually, we talked and everything and how where this and almost you know it wasn't a good thing because people lost their lives and things, But from a perspective of making you reboot like you say you would on a computer to get back to your values and and and you so many great things you had in your life, and you realize because he puts so much pressure on yourself sometimes

you don't realize how good you really got it, what you're able to do. I think that allowed that to happen for him. He learned to control what he could control, you know what I mean, and learn not to listen. I understand there's going to be a mistake, but minimize that mistake, maximize the other things and what you do well. And I think he learned to take advantage of that, and I think it give him a relaxation that and he hit that conpoint in his life and he took off.

After the quarantine, Kellen comes back to campus for a senior year. Suddenly he plays with a newfound sense of football's zen. He leads his team to nine wins and only one loss, finishing fourth in the country while throwing for nineteen touchdowns with a QB rating of one hundred and forty six, all without his top receivers who opted out for the season. He leaves Texas A and M as one of only three SEC quarterbacks to ever surpass

nine thousand yards passing and yards rushing. The other two players on that list Dallas Cowboys Pro Bowl quarterback Dak Prescott and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. It's hallowed company for a publicly maligned quarterback bowed in his own stadium only two seasons prior, and it's an entirely different Kellent, one who harnessed the challenges from the past four years and grew into an unquestionably better person and player, at

least according to his parents. No matter whether it's football, no matter whether it's friendships, no matter whether it's work, you always deal with adversity route and you have to figure out and it helps you grow as a person. That kid has had to deal with so much adversity, like she just mentioned, sometimes fairly and a lot of times unfairly, and he overcame it all. Coach Fisher also saw the transformation firsthand, the saying that most amazes me

about one of the things I respect the most. No matter whether he got booed with she did with that, but or whether he had success or he had failure, he's the same guy every day he came back to work, and I think he's had to grind for what he's had to do. He's had to put a chip on his shoulder. He had to say, well, you're not the prototypical of this. You're not the prototypical of that, and he learned to be the best Kellen Mond he can be, which is one heck of a football player, one heck

of a human being. And I think that's why it's going to translate, and I think that's why he translated into his last year. Over the past four years, Kellen completely remade himself and helped rebuild the Texas A and

M football program along the way. That's why it's a shock to many people that he's only the seventh third highest drank quarterback prospect in the draft, And with the draft about to start in a few short hours, one has to wonder do NFL teams still have that perception of the eighteen year old kid who struggled and gave

up the big leads. Have pro scouts erased the image of the sophomore QB holding on for dear life and the legendary seven overtime win against L s U Or can team executives look at Kellen's whole journey and transformation from a freshman getting benched to a senior leading the fourth ranked team in the country without his starting receivers and see the player, person, and leader he's become. I'm gonna tell you be honest with you, he's one of

the guys he probably jumped as much as anybody. He really has and his understanding of how to be successful and really learning how to be successful because some of the other guys I had we were at very successful programs, so it was a lot easier. It's a lot more people around him who knew and then where they could just do their job and invent. But Kellen had to be figure it out, then be the leader, and then

to teach everybody else. So that was a very challenging thing, and to me, it's one of the most remarkable things I've been a part of. Next Undrafted. My dad always talks about he had me thrown the ball at the age of two. Don't get lazy on me. Work, work those carbs, give me something. Hand and shoulders. Hand shoulder was coming down to you know, a couple of days, you know, when he's a baby, because Mama have him in a car seat and I have a football in

his hand. Everybody wants to go first round, but ultimately that first contract is not even close to what that second deal is gonna be. He's got a shot of making it because he's twice the athlete I ever could have done. He knew that there was a slim and no possible to him going in the first round. Things just didn't go well, you know, and it was just

a downward spiral. You love football this month, and you love money that much, and you got a chance to play a lot of football and make a lot of money. This is a once in a lifetime Like literally, this is never ever gonna happen again. Drafted is a production of tree Ford Media, Clutch Sports Group, and I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Kelly Gardner, Lisa Amerman, Eric's a Lot, Eric Winer, and Shawn to Tone. The series is produced

and written by Eric Winer. Garme Mamalu is our coordinating producer. Coral Silverberg is our associate producer. Tom Monahan is our senior audio engineer. The show is mixed, edited and hosted by Me Stephen Johnson. Additional production held from Tim Shower and Hailey Mandelberg. For transcripts of the show and more information Undrafted, go to tree for dot fm and for more podcasts. For my Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.