Getting Open with John Randle

all things mental health. The series has been going on for a while now and we have been able to talk to general manager Rick Spielman, Chief operating officer Andrew Miller, several players including Eric Hendricks and Adam Feelin and others as well that are connected to the organization who have personal or maybe indirect stories around mental health journeys, possibly how their foundations focus on the area, how it's affected

their lives or their families in some way. Really, our mission is just to break down the stigma around mental health and normalize this conversation. Today, I'm really excited to sit down with none other than Vikings legend John Randall. Now I really don't think he probably he needs much of an introduction. I'm sure that most listeners know that John is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was a seven time Pro Bowl participant and was named

First Team All Pro six different times. He was the NFL SAX leader in nineteen ninety seven, and he was named to the NFL nineteen nineties All Decade Team as well. But what you may not know about John is that currently in his life post football, he actually serves as one of five directors within the NFL Legends community, and he is really passionate about working with other former players who are kind of transitioning into this next area of their life, and mental health plays a big part of that.

So it's a very important topic to him. So I'm excited for you to hear what he has to say around this issue. So John, super super pumped to have you here today. Throughout this Getting Open series, we've talked to some current players, we've talked general manager Rick Spielman, but you are the first Vikings legend to be on this series, and I think that's going to be a great conversation. We'll start it out kind of generally, I guess, why do you think that mental health is an important

topic to cover, especially within the NFL. Probably one of the biggest reasons for about mental health. I think it is for most guys's minds, especially during the season, because I know myself personally, I was it was a very stressful game and I've had this conversation in different manners with current players and former players. And I remember Jerry Rice telling me that he wanted to grade out from a game. He wanted a hundred, and he said he

could never get a hundred. And he was talking about all the pressure he put he put up on himself up trying to get that grade of a hundred. And I know as a former player that the things you go through through that week of practice, coaches are coming up to you and tell you they're depending on you to do this, They're depending on you to do that. Then you got your family meeting you to do certain things we got mean for their family or for you

to do as a husband a significant other. Then you got guys dealing with say they've got may have a car payment, they may be taking care of the parents, they may be having this thing. So there's a lot of pressure on you as a player and you trying as your own expectations are to have a great season because your contract may depend on it. And there's a lot of stress on a current player, and sometimes that

can get to guys. And I know back when we were playing, we used to do from the NFL players association.

They would come in and do the role reenactments of a player dealing with his family, coming in and say that a player and a significant other or having issues, and how would he perform on the field knowing that his personal life wasn't all straight And so, you know, I remember going through things like that and having guys come in and all of a sudden a coach telling them, hey, you know what, you're not starting this week, or you know what we're potentially looking at, maybe putting you in

a backup role, and just being around guys. I knew about the pressure. I dealt with it, and some guys just don't know how to deal with it. And you know, in high school and college, you're just you're playing a game, and you get to the professional level and it's more of a business and you know, your contract depends on it, or you say, your your pay depends on it, and there's so many different meritives that can change it. So for me, I see, it's a lot of fresh on

those guys. I love that you brought that up, John, because I think sometimes people kind of don't understand all of these stressors that do affect professional athletes, right. They tend to think about the money that you get for the sport or kind of the fame, but they don't think about those additional stressors and things that really weigh

on athletes, you know, from week to week. And so let's talk a little bit about You mentioned that when you were playing, you mentioned some of those scenarios and things that that you would go through. How have you seen the topic of mental health be brought more to the forefront in the days since your playing career. Well, I think one of the ways that it's became more of a focus point is impact that mental health has become and it's not necessarily just the guys, but the families.

Um My god. I was thinking about when, uh, when Agan Peterson got kept from the Vikings and he went to Arizona and from Arizona to New Orleans, and I was just sitting there talking with some guys and they were just like, oh, man, he's moving around. He's he's going from this team to that team. And I'm like, yeah, but are you thinking about his family now? He's got

to move and and and and change around. And I think I mean things like that, as you know, having to move from Minnesota to Arizona, and Arizona to New Orleans. I think the NFL and the NFL Players Social Association now feed how stressful it can be for the guys. And and now it's twenty twenty one, and the guys deal with so much. And one of the things, or one of the ways that guys do then is by going on social media. And we've got several guys that

come out there. You know, they just just or let's say react, They just instantly want to post it what they're going through or talking about it. And you know, then our fans see it, and it affects our fans, and then it gets back to our teams. And so to me, mental health it's a focal point because it affects our players, it affects us as fans, and it affects the team. And so it's it's so many ways.

It's it's can cause suicide, it can cause um from from from guys having wat problems, guys uh having fatigue. But they're there's so many different ways that mental health can affect us now and that we know about. So that's one of well some of the reasons why I believe it's so important and I'm glad that we're focusing and focusing in on it because it used to be where guys really didn't want to talk about it, and now we're making it, We're putting it out there, we're

telling people it's okay to talk about it. And I'm thrilled about that. I love that. And you mentioned that when you were playing and still today. But some people maybe I know you mentioned men, but I think everybody in society, some people can handle these things maybe a little bit easier than others, or they know kind of how to handle these feelings and these emotions. For you, how did you handle kind of the stressors of the NFL. I mean, you had such a long career, very successful,

but obviously there's always going to be ups and downs. Yeah, one of what that I did it was kind of unusual, but after the season, I would get in my car and drive from Minnesota two taxes and it's such a long drive, but it's a drive that kind of gave me a chance to just kind of relax and kind of get at ease about the season and say, fence, if we didn't have a good season like ninety eight, I would definitely drive and take my time getting home and go and see my mom and it would just

kind of relieve the stress as as I drove back home. But I also got to say that for the Vikings, you know, we had a Bible study which allows a lot of us to talk to the pastor. I think the name was Tom Lampeer who would who would allow guys to come in and talk about what was going on in their lives. And I gotta say maybe not a lot of other teams were able to do that, but being on the Vikings and having that Bible studies

really took a lot of stress off guys. Has that faith aspect kind of continued to play a part in your life, you know as you navigate post career stressors and different things that come up. Well, for me, I've got my family, my wife, I who was my best friend who I talked to about almost anything that I have going on besides golf. But she's a person that

I confide in. And a lot of guys who are playing, you know, they don't have that significant other, So I think sometimes they may find other resources, and it may not be good resources to put their problems into. It may be drinking or whatever. But you know, guys, some guys don't have that and it may lead to just wrong things. But for me, it's it's the religious part is still there, but having my wife who I can

talk to. But for me also, the transition was a little bit easier because for me from football to back to say being normal, playing fourteen years in the National Football League, I think I had the option of saying that I wanted to retire my own terms. Well, a lot of guys don't, and you know, sometimes that can lead to guys to some guy's mental health problems too. And I think that's a really great segue into my next question. You're currently working as a director for the

NFL Legends community. Can you just tell us a little bit about what that looks like, what that means. Actually, I'm wanting the director. We have five others directors. I'm the Central North, so I kind of handle the Midwest.

But what we try to do is engage our former players and what we actually where we started off was engaging them and trying to figure out if there's anything that we can help them with through the transition from football and that maybe getting into college coaching that maybe all of a sudden, say you want to go back to get your college degree or you you're thinking about

getting into radio or television. That's what we started out trying to do, but we've have say blossom into also being involved with the NFL combine, the NFL Draft, the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl. We also do the Senior Bowl. But we also find ourselves in our community trying to help our maybe our trans players, but our former players and anything that they have gone on. And like, for instance, for myself, I worked with Willie Howard when Willie Howard was trying to build a new weight room for his

high school. I was able to find him some connections to make that work out and actually we got Adam feeling involved in it well. He also donated to the completion of Willie Howard's weight room. And what has that been like for you to kind of transition into being on the quote other side of the game, I guess what way the most about this role? Oh my God.

For me, on a personal note, I love doing this because to me, being in the National Football League first of all, was an honor and a pleasure to play a game that so many people which they could have played, And for me to play this game I looked up to so many guys that came before us. That's the Randy White, the Howie Long, the Alan Page, the Jim Marshalls who made this game what it is today. So this allowed me to give back to other former players

who've done so much for this game. And so being around these guys, to me, it's like, I see it as twenty two thousand former players in a huddle and allow me to be in a huddle and to assist those guys to finding ways to make their transition of their second career better. And uh, you know, I get the chance to go to different parts of the country, to being involved with golf tournaments, to being involved with charities.

Uh I do Joe Namath March of Dimes in New York or we raised a million dollars in one day. And so that's one of the things of being in the Legend community. It allows me to do it just to give back and to be part of things that were say the league office can't do, but on a personal we can do it myself for Chad Pimington, Leonard Wheeler, and it's it's it's a great role, it's a fun role, and it allows you be a part of NFL but just in a different capacity. Yeah, that's incredible. I mean

the impact sounds just fantastic. Those different things that you were mentioning. I want to go back to one thing that you mentioned a little bit earlier, and you were saying, how you know, there are different things that may be former players encounter, whether that's looking for a new career path, they might be struggling with some level of depression, they might turn to substance abuse. What are I guess some resources that are available within the Legends community to support

those men that may be facing those different things. Well, one of the things that we've started is we started an app for former players where they can go upon, which is the players dot NFL dot com where they can sign up and they basically get information of what's going on with the National Football League and also the NFL Players Association. But there's different things that you can

get that can give you information. We have info Lifeline or where you can go on there and if you're having mental health issues, a guy can get on there and as very private and talk to many other people who can help you through this mental health. But we've

got several people. We've got Kenyaka, who I talked to every year, me and other guys in the legismate where we sit with her for two hours and we've go through questioning and figuring out different ways of trying to figure out if we are going in the right direction, if we personally have any issues. But it's a great thing to talk to her because she's the vice president of Wellness and Clinical Services put the National Football League.

And one of the things that we've talked about a lot throughout this series is just how it seems like mental illness is something that impacts probably everybody's life at one point or another and in some way or another. And I know you've talked a little bit about your personal express already, so don't want to put you on the spot, but is there anything else that you'd like to add just about how this topic has affected your

life personally, either directly or indirectly. Directly, it really hasn't. But I know from talking to Kenyaka from the NFL office that mental health usually affects one out of five Americans, and so I think that's for me looking at those numbers, it's going to affect somebody that I know. And since I do talk to a lot of former players. I'm usually talking either talking to a guy who's either dealing with it or somebody in his family is dealing with

mental health. And so for me, if there's somebody who's played in National Football League that I can try to reach out to and try to make it better, then I'm gonna reach out to him, because, like I said, for me, the NFL isn't just a game. It's a family.

And if there's somebody's hurting and I want to reach out there, I'm want to try to do something for them because it's taking care of mean personally, I see it's taking care of our own and doing so much better because I always saw it as charity starts at home, and so for me, they don't follows home, and so I want to try to do as much as I can. That's awesome, And I think lastly, John just kind of

from a big picture perspective. As we continue this series, you know we've talked to guys like Eric Kendricks, Jalen Holmes. We did a segment with the Feelings here recently. Now we're talking to you, what kind of impact do you think this can have when you know these people who are well known athletes are well respected by people are willing to open up and talk about some of these difficult things. Oh man, that's you know, that's so easy.

I think it shows the rest of the world that they're human, that they have problems just like everybody else does. And I mean that's for every athletes who's played to play from sports. That's one of the questions I know I get asked all the time about is little things like, hey, how are you doing? Are you you know, I know you played in that shoal league, say you're doing this and that I'm like, no, you know what, I'm at home because my wife says I have to be here

at certain times. I have to do this. So I think for guys who can talk about it, that's to me that that puts those athletes on a higher pedestal because you can talk about your personal problem, you can talk about things you have going on. You can say that that you cry, you can say that you get emotional, you can say that that your day isn't perfect. And because that's one of the biggest things, they believe that athletes are perfect, and you know, for me, I'm not.

If I did, I would have a great golf game. But uh, I think that's that's what makes it true, is that guys are vulnerable, and especially when it's twenty twenty one, you you've got to let people know that you're normal. And uh, you know, mental health is so important. And like I said, it may not affect you are, but it affects someone that we know that we care about.

And if we could do something to help support our friends and families, why not why not be truthful and and and and tell them that you got something that either you got something going on what they do. I honestly don't think that there's a better way to wrap this up, John, But thank you so so much for for taking time out of your day, time out of

a possible golf day. I'm not sure for no. Any time I get a chance to talk to some some vikings who who love who love it to you as much as I do, then scold I can do golf another day. I love it. Thanks so much, John, You're welcome. Huge things to John for hanging out with us and just sharing some of his thoughts in his heart around this very important topic. I know for me it's really cool just to see kind of another side of him and how he's so passionate about working with the NFL

Legends community and around this area. Thank you guys as well for tuning in and listening to another episode of Getting Open. I invite you to keep an eye on Vikings digital platforms, as we do have another couple episodes coming up.