Hayden Hurst | Renee All Dey

crop top for men. Thank you. Yes, by the way, what went into you know, figuring out that was gonna be a look that you could pull off. Not an easy look to do, but you do it with grace. Well, it started off as something pretty innocent. I just sweat a lot by nature. Okay, So my jersey and like training camp and stuff gets like soaked. So when I run, it hits my gloves and my gloves get all wet.

So rolled it up. But you know, I had to work my ass off in the weight room and get a six pack because I can't be can't be chunky out there. So listen, that's what I want to talk about, because it as a woman, it's near impossible to buy a shirt that's not a crop top, correct. I don't know that. I love the crop top for me. It's great for you, but I don't want to worry about six pack abs. I mean, it just depends on the person.

You gotta like sit up straight or like, if I know when to be out walking somewhere, I can do it. If I got to sit down, maybe crop tops not the choice. That's how I like in the stretch line, when I'm like hunched over and they're taking pictures, I'm like, let me, let me stand up a little bit. Um. Okay, So the crop top is prevalent everywhere. You're making it popular for men. What is a fashion look that you hate?

M I'm not a big fan of like the designer stuff that literally just has like name brand name all over the stuff. I think it just looks kind of corny and goofy to me. It's not my taste. But where do you stand on the high waisted pant? Hate it? You do? I knew it. Guys don't like the high waisted pants. It's women do because we're like great, I

don't have to worry about anything. But it just looks like there's weggies going on, just tough and now it's it provides a long butt cheek, right, which maybe we don't need it right, and it looks kind of a long but she gets kind of goofy. I know I'm riding it out because I do appreciate I've had a child, so I will take the high waisted pant. But I get the perspective of maybe not loving it so much. Um okay, so your energy on and off the field is infectious. How do you kind of keep on the

up and ups? That's just who I am. I know it. Maybe sometimes it seems like it's it might be you know, acted or something like that, but I don't know. I just when I get on the football field and I put my helmet on, I just flip a switch. I'd become a maniac. And I try to be that guy that people feed off of and go to for the

energy just because I love it. For me, It's like when I scrap on the pads and my last name is on the jersey, like I'm going to war, and you know, I'll take whoever wants to go with me. That's just my personality. You ever blow out your voice out there yelling. Actually last week. Last week I got home and was a little raspy, and my girlfriend was like, you, like, what does that? A little lemon in a tea or something?

Listen it up. You've spoken a lot about what it means for you to be here in Cincinnati, to be playing for the Bengals, to be here in this city. Talk to me a little bit about that. I mean, for a guy that has been in so many different cities, what is it about Cincinnati feels so special to you? Just this organization and how Zach kind of has you know, from the top down, how's it running? The culture is infectious, you know. Just you want to be a part of it.

You want to be a part of that locker room. There's great guys around here. Cultures like that, don't you know. There are a few and far between in the NFL. It's hard to find something like that. I love it here. I get to be myself. I'm happy. I'm a much happier person than I've been in the past. I'm hoping I can stick around for a little while because you know, me and my family love it here. Yeah, I know,

I mean people people love you. My family was very excited when I told them I was interviewing you today. They're like, oh, yes, that's our guy. Yeah, okay, so we talked before about you being a double professional athlete. Of course, being a drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, playing in the MLB, then making your way back to football into the NFL. To my civilian ass, I'm like, oh

my god, look at this guy. Go Like, as a kid, for you to imagine being able to achieve those things, and we'll get into, you know, the downside of what went into that as well, but just as a kid, like, imagine you'd have the opportunity to be an athlete and an excel at that level in two different sports. It's crazy. Yeah, when I was a kid, I mean I never really focused on much else but sports. You know, I just

sit in the back of my mind. I'm sure every kid when they're growing up, they're like, I want to be a professional this, this. But I just had like this belief in myself because I always knew that I was better. I was gonna make it work, just kind of how my brain's wired, Like if I have my mindset on something, I'm gonna make it happen. And I just knew. At the time, I thought I was gonna be baseball, but you know, life kind of made me

pivot a little bit and ended up being football. But I got blessed with athleticism, and you know, I wanted to make the most of it. So I was watching on your foundation's website the video that you guys have on there with your family and your You're talking about all the things that you guys went through. I lasered in. I was like, wait, did you only play football in

high school for one season? One season? Yeah? And I kind of got convinced to play because when I was in high school and I threw the ball like ninety six miles an hour. So I was like, you're going to pitch in the big leagues. Don't get hurt playing football. So I was like, okay, well I won't play football then. Yeah, And I think it was my junior year. My head baseball coach was like the wider or the quarterback coach for our high school team, and he was like, we're

thin at receiver. We need a lot of help because just come out and see if you like it. And I was like, okay, I can do that. And I played one year high school football, and I mean I got offers from like Tennessee, Florida, Florida State, Miami and stupid and me I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go play baseball. I have these like head coaches talking to me. Didn't play my senior year and then ended up coming full circle and walked on South Carolina. That's so crazy. What

an insane journey. Okay, So now to get into I know you've been very vocal about this stuff, and I applaud you for for being so vocal as a man, as an athlete to be able to let people know

things you've been through. But yeah, just kind of walk me through some of that stuff of you know, finding out, you know, baseball is not going to be the movement and all the things that went into that, I mean the physical aspects of things that were going down to that to how that you know, really affected you mentally as you were making the pivot to figure out what

life was even going to hold for you. Yeah. Like I said, when I was in high school, I mean I alternated, you know, it was baseball, football, baseball, football. Then I started specializing in baseball. I got drafted by the Pirates and I mean, baseball is always really easy. I just picked the ball up and through it past guys. Knew I was better when I got to I was down in Bradenton with the minor league team. My first

season was good. Then I came back for like fall instructional league, and I just started overthinking it was weird. I ended up getting what's called the yips. Yeah, like I couldn't even like feel the ball in my hand. I was erratic with my control, kind of like you like numbness in your hands. Yeah, I had like panic attacks on them. Now I'm just going to get away. It was awful. And then didn't really know how to deal with it because I was, you know, immature nineteen

year old. And then off the field just spiral, you know, because I was embarrassed. I mean, I was my family's golden ticket in my mind, and you know, I had baseball kind of ripped away from me. So you know, I unfortunately reached for a bottle, pills, whatever I could get my hands on. Ye kind of put myself in a downward spiral. But you know, in twenty fifteen, it was mature enough to make the decision that I need to kind of make a change what I was doing.

I walked away from baseball, walked on at South Carolina, and unfortunately that stuff follows you, and one night decided I tried to cut my wrists and went through all

that and tried to take my own life. And it was really I mean, obviously I would never wish that upon my worst enemy, but it was kind of the best thing that ever happened to me, because when I woke up in the hospital, you know, I was handcuffed to a gurney, you know, without a shirt on, you know, covered in my own blood, and it's kind of like sat there, I was by myself, and I was like, you're not going to be here much longer if you keep down this path, but like you need to make

a complete one eighty on what you're doing. So for me, I kind of made that promise to myself, you know, and in that room, I was like, we're not going to do this again. Yeah, And I really just poured myself into football. It just became a maniac. I worked out like two or three times a day. Yeah. You know, There's even some of my buddies at the time they're like, now we thought you were you know, a kiss ass just going in there. But for me it was just

a mental release. Yeah yeah, so again kind of the best of the worst thing that ever happened to me. What like, what was that build back like for you to go from being on that hospital gurney to like your mental state, your physical state to being like I got to snap out of this and physically get myself back mentally like what we're some of those steps that you had to take to to get to feeling good.

It was really hard, um because you know, not many people go through that that path in life that I unfortunately had to go through, UM, so you really have to almost reinvent yourself and fall in love with yourself again. So I think it was hard because I felt, you know, like it was me against the world. I felt like I was by myself, even though even my family was there.

But unless you go through something like that or have a family member that goes through it, it's hard to really wrap your brain around taking your own life or someone fathoming taking their own life. So in my mind, it was really me against the world, and I just got to kind of reinvent who Hayden Hurst was. I got to fall in love with myself and really understand who I was as a person. So yeah, it sucked, but it was kind of beautiful at the same time. Yeah,

it's crazy how things like that happened. You hit that rock bottom, and it's like, how do you get back to where you are? And like, thank God to be you know, offered that other chance at life to come out and do it. And I mean look at you go, like what an inspiration to so many people. What's your advice to somebody that might be going through something like that? For one, never make permanent decisions on temporary feelings. My sister told me that, you know, when I was going

through it. That's one thing that kind of resonates with me and I try to tell people. And the other thing is just taking a day to time, you know. That's what I do today, you know, and in my life, my day to day life, you know, I try not to look too far forward or too far back. I'm really just trying to live hour to hour, you know, trying to be the best man, the best boyfriend, the best brother son. You know that I can be in that hour and then you know, figure it out from there.

Are there other protocols that you think should maybe be in place to help athletes on the mental side of things. Do you think that we're doing enough to to really give athletes and resources that they need. I think in the last few years, it's definitely the tides have turned a little bit. You know, when I first got in the league, probably what five years ago, it was more

of a taboo topic. Yeah, let's talk about it. But you know, the more people that come out and start talking about it, share their stories, the more people that relate to it. You know, when I when I get out there and I you know, give a speech or like tell my story, the coolest thing is when people come up to me and they're like, you know, my sister went through this, my mom struggles with this, my dad's an alcoholic. Because like I can relate to all that. Yeah,

I've had all that stuff in my family. I've seen it firsthand. So that's that's cooler than anybody coming up to me and telling me how good I did for their fantasy for right, Yeah, yeah, well, hey man, congratulations to you. And again, I mean I think just for to be able to use your platform and use time to speak about that stuff. I know it's never easy to talk about that stuff and keep rehashing that stuff, but I know that it does obviously help so many

people that could be going through a similar thing. Um, which led to you creating your foundation. Right, tell me a little bit about your foundation. Yeah. We started it when I got drapped by the Ravens in twenty eighteen. You know, it's me and my mom, my dad, and my sister helps a little bit too. You know, she's a vet in Atlanta, so she's got her own stuff. Yeah, she'll help wherever she can. Um, But it's really my mom. You know, she's she's the rock star. Looks like she

runs a tight ship. Yes, she's very, very type a details. She makes sure that the rest of us are too. Yeah, but yeah, I kind of I told them, I want you guys to retire. We're going to start a foundation. It's going to focus on you know, mental health and adolescent suicide prevention. Yeah. And you know, whatever city that I've been in or played in, you know, Columbia, I did some stuff in Atlanta, did a lot of stuff in Baltimore and then Jacksonville, our hometown. We try to

just do like little events to raise money wherever we can. Yeah, just because I know, if you can tool kids at the young age, you know, because unfortunately, things happen in life. It happens everybody. We all go through traumas and stuff happens. Yeah, so if you can better tool kids to deal with it down the road, you know, that's kind of the

age target work. Yeah, going after right now, if hayden Hurst today, we're talking to hayden Hurst, you know many years ago, what would you say, take a step back and appreciate it. Man, I was a different person when I was younger, so yeah, we all were right crazy, we're all different people. I mean when you think of like a year ago to five years ago, ten years ago, we all grow when mature and her resources change and life changes. It's like trying to trying to adapt with

it all. Absolutely, I would just take it a day at a time, you know, be the best person you can be. Your choices have consequences. Yeah, I mean, like I said, you know, I ten eleven years ago the hayden Hurst that was compared to the hayden Hurst that is. It's just I'm very proud of myself. Yeah, where I've gotten. I think we all are. Ye. Yeah, hats off to you. Um okay. On the other side of things, what are you into, like off the field, what's next for you

outside of football? That is a topic that I've been discussing with many people, just trying to figure it out because with all the responsibilities that come you know, Monday through Saturday, obviously on Sunday as well with football, it's hard to focus on other stuff, you know, the grueling, you know, demands of football throughout the week or tough.

So it's hard for me because I'm so present in what I'm doing to really be like, you know, I want to do this when I retire, So I really I'm big on my family, I'm big on you know, my personal time, and I'm really I'm not sure, you know, maybe some sort of coaching, you know, just because I do kind of get joy from helping people. That is like my thing, I guess, And obviously football has done wonderful things, so it'd be cool to stay around the game a little bit. Yeah, but I don't know. I

really don't know. Time will tell, yes, but not. I mean, you got plenty of time, so absolutely, or we can all just calm down, we'll get there. When we get there, I will listen Hayden, thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. And again thanks for being so vocal about mental health stuff. I appreciate it. Yeah, all right, it's been renee all day with Hayden Hurst. Y'all,