From Gridiron to Life's Sidelines: A Journey with Monte Duncan

Music. I got my boy Monte Duncan on the line, and I'm just going to tell a quick story, and I'm going to kick it over to Monte.

But I met Monte at Tennessee State University. We both got scholarships to play football, and I met Monte at football, and we were both defensive ends. He was number 99. I was number 88, and the first week football training was rugged. Two or three days, I can't remember at the time, but basically we were going hard as shit. And I remember coming to like Friday, like the end of the end of the training

week. And I looked at Monte, we're in the locker room. I was like, yo, man, I was like, what the fuck, bro? Like, why are you going so hard? This is shit. It's the first week of practice. He looked at me. He's like, bro, I'm going hard because you're going hard. We just laughed. And we kind of at that point, we just kind of became friends. And, you know, it's carried on for over 20 years. We've lost contact a little bit after college for a little while,

but we reconnected. We're both in different parts of our life. We're both 40-year-old men now. I got families and shit. So, Amonte, I love you, bro. I'm so excited you're on this thing.

Kick it to you, baby. What's up? Hey, man. Look, man. I'm excited I'm on here, too, man. Anything from my brother, man. Hey, man. My name is Amonte Duncan from Atlanta, Georgia. The real Atlanta, Georgia, as I can say. That's right. I was raised in the bluff. I stayed in the F3s first. Man, go circle first. F3s, then I moved to the bluff. If anybody know about Atlanta, y'all know that's the real Atlanta. Where's up? You from Nikita? You're not from Atlanta.

If you from Gwinnett, you're not from Atlanta. If you're from any part, anywhere else that don't say Atlanta, George, you're not from Atlanta. If you got anything, each point, George, that's not Atlanta. All right. Let me talk about me and my boy Tyler right quick, and I'm going to piggyback on whatever else I need to do. Me and my boy Tyler, man, my first person I ever met in college as a friend. And guess what? My first white friend, Cajun friend.

In Atlanta, man, I go into a high school called Washington High School, majority black. We had our little Chinese people or whatever it may be, foreign people that go there. You know, they are, you know, smarter people in the school or whatever. But this is my first Caucasian friend I ever met in my life. And the coolest person I ever met in my life for us being in college. We actually met during football camp. And he was like, two a day,

three a day, whatever the fuck it was. It was hard as shit, I can tell you that. And basically, like he was saying, I was going hard, he was going hard. And I think for the most mentality was, so we had to go hard anyway because we was trying to get a position.

You know what I'm saying? I posted a sign to go to Georgia. My grades weren't right there. I had a visit to go to Georgia. They tried to get me to go to the military school. I couldn't do the military school. I was a kid. They really didn't pay attention to it. And it was kind of bad as shit. Whatever it came to be. So the military school wasn't going to work. But she stayed, found me, gave me a full ride. And that's how me and Tyler met.

Basically, man, growing up in Atlanta, not easy. Growing up in a poor home, my mom did everything she could from whatever she could. I don't know how she got some of the things she got, but me as being grown now, I definitely understand that I respect my mom for that.

I never had a dad in my life. My dad was always on drugs. He's still on drugs. My grandma just died. She died on July 1st this year, reconnecting with my dad. My dad's still on drugs. I had to get him to go to the funeral. He didn't go. So you can kind of understand how my life was a rocky, rocky, rocky road. Life's mad for growing up in Atlanta with our two parents. But like I said, my mom was my mom and my dad at this time.

I played in a high school called Washington High School, Booker T. Washington High School. I'm going to say one of the best high schools in Atlanta. The reason I say that is because we have real alumni, real people that went there. Mother of the King went there. A couple more people went to this school where this school is amazing, amazing high school. Now, I'm not going to say that it was a safe high school. I'm going to say an

amazing high school for us. Your legacies and things of that nature. Growing up in Atlanta, man, I grew up mainly in the Bluff. Y'all know about the Bluff, man. It's called Heroine City, man. It's the neighborhood where we was in Heroine City. If anybody needed Heroine, that's where they came to. When I first moved to the Bluff, man, it was the most amazing shit in my life that I'd never seen. It scared the shit out. That's what made me grow up fast.

I moved to the Bluff, stayed on Griffin Street, right next door to a store. I'm not going to give you my attitude, but I stayed next to her store, right next door. And when I came home, I was in middle school. Came home with my mom, finally stayed with my grandma. It was like 50 people on the corner. So I'm like, what the hell is going on? They finna play football or what the fuck going on? You know what I'm saying?

I'm coming from an apartment, so I'm thinking, boy, everybody out here ganged up, you know what I'm saying, to play sports or some shit. Shit, I get out of the car, like, man, what's going on? What's happening for? Like, boy, what you want? What I want? What the hell are they talking about? I don't even know what the hell they're talking about at the time, Tom. they were trying to send me some drugs. So I'm like, and remind you, these kids are the same age I am, and I'm bigger than them.

What the hell y'all nigga mama at? So at the time, I gravitated to these kids.

You know what I'm saying? I gravitated to these... I'm going to say they my homeboys now because everybody picked their own path to do, but these kids were in survival mode. Their parents were on drugs, so they had to survive. So they was out here making money buying their own clothes and shoes and shit that I couldn't believe this shit. My first... My first situation, man, one of my homeboys bought a car in eighth grade.

Eighth grade. That's how much money was going around in our neighborhood at the time. So you can imagine that.

Seeing all this shit i didn't really i wasn't really studying college at the time i was in this middle school so i was thinking about getting money just like these kids so i had to fake it i make i had a mom that it was hard mom like she wasn't with that bullshit you can't go out here and do the fuck you wanted to do i still tried you know i'm saying be sneaky my first my first sale was selling a bar of soap i cut the bar of soap up and i put it in some little packages you know

what i'm saying 10 10 packages like it was some dope you're not knowing how severe this situation is but i wanted some money shit i see everybody outside you know i mean what they might not want some money too so one of my homeboy r.i.p dion to this day passed away but long story short when i had served served somebody gave you know i mean gave a sale to a person and they take it shit we made it like two three hundred dollars we not thinking that jay gonna look for that after this

shit so long story short that jay was walking around the neighborhood looking for us about two three days we stayed in the house for a minute but so at this time i got a little i got a little homeboy that probably he lived hell But he already had a gun. We're in the 8th grade. So I said, you know what, man? I ain't finna be goddamn running for that dude. Fuck it. We go outside. We ain't sitting there for about two, three days. Cool.

Now we ain't thinking about that shit no more. By the third day, that dude is standing at the store. I'm coming home from school with a book bag on, all type of shit. I said, oh, shit, there go the man. So I'm not with nobody by myself. Oh, shit, all the dudes in the neighborhood know who I am. So, shit, they wanted to see what I was going to do. The dude walked up on my, punched his ass out. That was a grown man. He punched his ass out. That's the first time in my neighborhood that I made.

A connection with the people out there like oh no home and scary he'll fight but really i didn't want i never wanted to fight never wanted to fight then that started for me me my other homeboy fat and ron you know i'm saying he from vine fat from vine city my homeboy ron from south in this particular neighborhood these these three neighborhoods don't come together we normally fight each other so we came together in the eighth

grade made a bond and then we're going to high school where oakland city is a neighborhood called oakland city neighborhood called harris home neighborhood called Deer Avenue. I'm from the Bluff, and the Bluff is a neighborhood that was known for fire.

My first year of school, my whole neighborhood, ninth grade year, got kicked out of school. Now, I'm defending for myself, but in actuality, I play football, so I'm already in the game. You know what I'm saying? Football is a game, but nobody don't want to pay attention to that. If you're on a football team, in an organization, that shit is a game because you ain't finna let nobody happen to one of your teammates. At this time, I'm coming up the steps in high school. or it's a big brawl going

on. Really didn't want to get in because I got a game this week. One of my neighborhood friends, he was still left in the building. He didn't get kicked out. He was getting drunk. And then my first high school incident, I was scared as shit. Scared as shit. Ninth grade, but all these kids older than me, they would get with the steps fight. So I finally got into the fight. And that one I know shit, I could punch and got a hit at one hit of the quarter.

I punched the shit out of the dude that was popular as fuck, knocked his ass aside. So that's where they started from. So I got my confidence up to the point where I don't want to get a shit. He's going to have to work my ass now. He's going to have to really work my ass. But I never gave an opportunity for a person to hit me because I felt like, damn, I punch hard as shit. I want to, if somebody hit me, if I'm going to fall out. I never gave nobody an opportunity to hit me.

So you look like you want to fight, I'm swinging on your ass. And you act like you want to fight, I'm swinging on your ass. You want to argue, I'm swinging on your ass. Not argue with nobody, especially not a dude anyway. You know what I'm saying? When I put my hand on no females, I ain't really had too many problems without a female, even with that situation. But this one particular time I went to a club, my boys, it was a group in McCannville called 100 Deep.

They called this 100 Deep Boys, Blue Jeans Bandits.

So we're in the club. We're getting to it with them, and we're getting to it with Pac-Man Jones. I'm telling y'all now, anybody in the city can understand it, but we were whooping for ass. We were beating people's ass. So Pac-Man Jones ran across it. We got into that ass. You know what I'm saying? They were my boys to this day, but shit, we was a little deep. But then we turned around to get into it with the blue jean bandit boys and she, we were all brawling.

And from my understanding, we were fighting, man. I always seen we go to the club that a lot of people didn't fight. They always said they was in, but they never got into the fight. I understood that it was a group of guys. If I punch one ass, knock the ass out, somebody going to hell nah. They don't want that smoke. And that would happen all the time. This particular day with the blue jean bandits, they didn't go for that shit. I punched one of them nigga.

Them niggas said, hold up. But they went outside as we would leave and these niggas outside with a whole bunch of guns that I have never in my life seen before. They were in the yacht sticks. They were when they called the yacht sticks or the sticks when they first came out. I said, well, how the fuck need to get all these guns? Well, we had to run for our life. And I'm still not understanding why I still didn't stop fighting at the time.

In my eyes, I was in survival mode and it was fun for the purpose of time. After this situation, man, I used to come home every day and I stayed in the bluff. And I told Tyler Lee stories too, man. It was a police department call. Zone 1, they were called Red Dogs. Red Dogs were the most ruthless fucking gang unit in the fucking world. I don't give a damn where city you in or where you been.

Red Dogs is known every fucking where from a lot. I was coming home from school one day after this particular fight that weekend. Shit, the police outside fucking with the dope boys or whatever. So I walk about, you know, boot bag on thanking the police. Shit, okay, that's a school kid. There was a dude, particular name, Goldberg. Everybody know Goldberg and the man is Red Dogs. Shit, I say that name. They know they popular shit in the city.

Looked like Goldberg from the rationing goddamn thing. That nickname was Goldberg. So as I'm walking, he said, hey man, where you going? Standing on the side. I said, man, I'm coming from school. I didn't get to say shit up. I just seen my feet in the air and my feet in the air and they got landed on my motherfucking neck. This nigga slammed me so the first time I thought I was a kid and I screamed, mama!

Mama! Now I'm telling you now, I'm telling you, when you got a hood mama, she know your goddamn voice. And I ain't no whole ass nigga so I ain't screaming every day nigga my mama heard me screaming and came out the door when she came out the door, I'm surprised that this officer didn't slam my mama. Damn. I'm thinking to myself like, boy, that nigga put his hair on my mama, bro. I'm finna go in a hole in a hole in a hole. So he's telling me to call now and I ain't never been in no handcuffs.

I ain't never been got down slamming on the ground by no police officer. I don't know how to really deal with this reaction, period. Not crying because I'm not a crybaby, but in this situation, I'm like, damn, what the fuck do I do? And I couldn't do shit. This grown-ass man on top of me checking my motherfucking pockets. And the other niggas on the ground butt-ass niggas because they got them checking

their asshole up on their balls and everything. They really just got on my side, sitting on the curved neck. My first reaction was, please don't pull my fucking pants down. So I said, don't pull my pants down. So he went in my motherfucking clothes and checked my ass to see if I had no drawers in. I said, man, I just came from school. I said, well, I don't believe y'all y'all niggas walking around with book bags on. At this time, after this, I said, you know what?

But I ain't fucking with no more police. I'm going to try to avoid them at all

costs. But I said to Bluff, there was no avoidance the police now we have the shit that called dc6 and it's the most stupidest shit they ever made up in the land dc6 is sitting in the drawer zone you can get arrested you just sit there you can get arrested so you sit on the corner and there's drawers on they can just come pick you up in the restaurant even if you live there and say dc6 even if you live there if you're not in your on your porch or you on the sidewalk anything that belongs

to the to the city they're gonna lock your ass up. Just my luck. I was so young, but I was always big. So I always thought they were going to lock me up and do whatever they're going to do. I'm 13, maybe 13 at the time, but I look like I'm probably 16, 17. Now the kids in my neighborhood are selling drugs at that time.

So one of the places I was at the school I met named Axie Jackson. I don't really know his real name, but he was a cool, cool dude. They kind of, you know what I mean? Look, that looked like for a lot of kids because there was a lot of so much shit going on. But a lot of people were actually scared of this dude. He was a police officer.

He was a school police officer. he kind of he kind of guided me in the right direction so you know stay in sports and do what i need to do and i did all right long story short that's how me and tyler met came to tennessee state where we played ball like i said uh we met freshman year and i know the reason i met tyler man we both played in and we was going hard in practice like you said me being personally man i was going hard because i

said i didn't want to get my ass rando about this big old big old caucasian dude you know what i'm saying so i gotta go hard too and i'm still thinking like that i I want a position, but this is freshman camp. You know, it wasn't no other teams there. It wasn't no other older people there. So we thinking like, okay, shit, I'm finna fuck around the start. Me not thinking when the whole team got there, these niggas got there, the biggest fuck, oldest here, like, oh, they just grown there,

man, out here playing. What the hell? So that was the reason I think I had to go hard so much. And then I kind of liked my recruiting visit, man. Like I said, my background was fighting. So on my recruiting visit, I went to a party at Fish University. Never, never forget this. Fist University. So we at Fist University, I'm a recruit. I'm from Atlanta and my first time out of town ever without my parents, without my mom.

We go to the party and she, you know, we meet all the Tennessee State older guys. They giving us money to go out, you know, saying how we got the time drinking and stuff like that. But I didn't drink at the time. So I didn't drink. We get in the party.

This motherfucker don't go yeah my bad for the interruption man but yeah i went to fish university in particular time i told you all the recruits we met in a room so we kind of met all recruits they were taking us out so you can get another person they'll take you out you know things of that nature they give you a little money for you to take recruit out food and whatever drinks things and they so we get to this particular club it's university i go to fish university uh we get in

the club we're having a good time so it was a basket that fish have a basketball team and it was a dude probably about 6'8", 6'9", had gotten to it with a Tennessee State football player. Now, me, personally, I really don't know who the fuck I'm fighting, but now we in school, we're at college, so now you can kind of see the colors. We got on TSU, they got on TSU, they got on FISH. Now I can kind of understand who I'm fighting now.

And really, they're thinking like, oh, shit, the recruit gonna stay back. So one of the dudes at Tennessee State, hey, man, gonna move back. Shit, I'm like, hell nah, let me move in the front. I want to see this shit. So as the fight started, the 6'9", dude who ran up on me, ran up on me. And I'm like, what the fuck? They're big ass niggas that ran up on me. So long story short, I didn't have a time to react at this time.

He swung and missed. He swung and missed. I picked this nigga ass up and bumped him so hard on the ground and beat the fuck out of all. So at the time, his teammate was trying to come help. Shit, I punched one of his teammates. So I had to fight and break up. As the fight would break up, we'd go to the cars. You know how shit go. We'd go to the cars. Everybody amped up.

We'd get in the car and they'd fall like, hey, man, Because we didn't have no cell phones at the time, so we'd meet at another location. We were finna go on the script club. It was a house. It was a fucking house. It was a house. So we meet up in the parking lot. We talking shit about the fight. So one of the dudes walked up on me and said, where you from, bro? I said, I'm from Atlanta. So one of the dudes, one of the dudes said, hey, shout out.

I'm from the A2, shout out. Then when the real slang were going, I'm from the A2, shout out. What part of A you from, shout out? I went to Riverwood. I said, boy, your ass ain't from Atlanta. Boy, you out there in Riverwood. You ain't from Atlanta. Long story short, there was a dude I know named Ahmad, Ahmad Smith. Ahmad Smith was from the hood, but his parents were smart enough to take him to a mother's school outside the city. Gotcha.

So he was like, man, here, yeah, man, dude, he basically bragging like, I was whooping the dude with the ass of this in the third and here recruit. And some of the other dudes that was on the team didn't even help. So shit at the time, I'm like, well, shit, I just had a good time. I had fun. I didn't get beat up. I didn't get punched. So we go in the strip club. This was the other deal around the time. It was the other deal.

Went in the strip club. I've been in the strip club once in a lifetime. My eighth grade graduated, I went to the strip club. I told them I let them older. I had people in my neighborhood that had money, so we can do what the fuck we want to do at the time, because money was everything. I didn't have the money they did. I went in this particular strip club, but they put me in the front, the girl dancing, nothing shit. They set me in the front. One is I, the dancer, come out.

Remember, I'm supposed to be going to Georgia, so I'm not knowing that I'm the prize. They're trying to get me to sign. I'm not knowing this shit. I'm not knowing. I'm not going to lie. After that moment, I signed on the dotted line. I'm walking Tennessee State. I probably signed for the wrong reason. It's time.

Shit I ain't never had that much fun I have because I'm used to fighting in the club that's my shit that's the shit I do back home so this shit was already accustomed to me so I'm like well shit that's where I'm going now I get a full ride you know I mean I go to school she you know really didn't do work Tyler she really had to push me to do some work I had to get females help me to work really education part of school just football for me and I was pretty good where that if I

did get in trouble man um I got out of trouble really fast I remember my freshman year after the season i played in a couple of games or whatever i got redshirted then i came home for the summertime i got i was at my high school working out i'm saying to go back to school and you know i mean do my do my thing but at this time they call me and say well you don't come to summer school you you lose your scholarship because your grade point average is a 1.7.

I said i like well i know i want to do that good in school anyway but when nobody's one about the same shit but i'm thinking it's like high school you've grown that's what you got to check on your own shit yep so the coach called and said hey man you need to get down here Now, if you don't get down here now, man, your Scottish shit gone. So at this time, I still had some little roof down, Monday, little throats. So I had to get a car fixed to actually come back to Nashville.

I come back to Nashville, had to stay for the summer, went to summer school. But at this time, I said, hey, the coach said, hey, man, if you don't go to summer school every year, you're doing this, you're not going to graduate. Oh, shit. I said, well, shit, I got to stay for the summer every year. Now, after this summer, I had a child. I didn't have no money to do certain shit. My son was just born.

I never had a father, so I'm thinking this is the time for me to just leave school for school, the time to come back home. I had a little motivation where the coach was like, hey, mom, you need to stay in school. If your child hurt, is he injured? Is anything wrong? He was like, well, you need to stay in school. I still on his ass, Cole Reed, and still left him home to see my child. That's right. I came back.

And Corey was kind of pissed off at me, but I said, Coach, I'll make it up on the field.

I'll make it up on the field. This is my first game at Tennessee State. I got the MVP award for a John Merrick Classic. After this game, I got the interception for the touchdown or whatever. I caught the ball maybe on the 10-yard line around there. At this time, after the game, Corey said, oh, if you play like that every time, you can go home and see your son every time you got that field. Say no more. Say less. Say no more. I think for that whole period of time, man, I did have a good career.

But I wasn't focused on football. I was focused on more of my parents being sick. My mom died. So it kind of put me in a damper position for us. I wanted to drink. Drunk a lot when I go to the club. Over drink when I got to get carried home. I'm always fighting, knocking people out. That was the one where the quarter came from, shit. I get in the club, shit. One of my teammates, like, they getting bullied by somebody else. I remember the particular fight. He was an eye kicker.

It was a big dude. Fuck with Sunshine. I'm a little tipsy. And I kind of see it from far away. But my thing is I already know I'm finna knock his ass out but I wanna try something now cause I done did this shit so much I wanna see can I punch him with my left hand, as I'm thinking about this shit Sunshine is looking like he need help so I go over there alright bro let me fuck him what the fuck you gonna do I punch that nigga with my left hand he fell right out.

Sunshine gets so geeked up like bro you knock this ass out bro I'm like that's what I do but he shouldn't be fucking with you know what I'm saying shit like that but the whole time man I'm still this same pressure being a bully and not even understanding that I'm being. And there's a lot of stories I know people can bring up. Man, I remember I went to a capital party. Man, Rouser. Man, Nick Rouser, he went to Mays. He went to Mays High School, man. Good friend of mine.

Number 78. Good offensive line. Man, Rouser at the capital party. A capital team party. At that. You know, we only had a competition with capitalists because we were fucking all the other hoes. We didn't have no competition with nobody else. Capitalists were pretty part. So we got drunk. And the particular day, Rouser wanted to be me today. Rouser said, well, I'm going to just start slapping nigga ass. I said, well, you know I'm going to slap the ass with you.

So we're drunk. And we're having fun. I promise you, if they hear this story, I know for a fact we slapped like 10 capitals. And they ain't do shit. They ain't do shit. I tell you, I know Riles is slapped. And we big as fuck. So I know I'm 6'1", maybe 300 pounds. Riles is probably a little bit. He's probably 6'0". She's probably 320 pounds. As we slapping these people, I'm thinking like, man, these folks ain't fucking with her. These folks skate.

Now, these are the colored people, though. All right, now, incident happened again where I went out for the summertime with a dude that ain't supposed to be around, and the tables turned. The tables turned, not me getting my ass up. Never really got my ass up. I was getting bullied when I was young, standing at the ribs, but that shit taught me how to protect myself. And that's what it did. It turned me to a monster. It turned me to a beast.

Anybody in my neighborhood know I can fight like shit. Too old now. I really don't know nothing about that. Now, I probably shoot the shit out, you know? I'm trying to pick up my hands. Yeah, too old for that shit. I ain't trying to pick up my hands. It's fine right now. But we at the club, my girl, who I was dealing with at the time, was telling me, hey, you don't need to go out, man. You got a bigger goal. And she was absolutely right.

But I was being hard-headed shit as a man. Like, man, you can't tell me what to fucking do. I'm finna go do the fuck I want to do, and I'm finna go do it now. So I went to the club with a particular dude. He had just gotten to it with this dude maybe a month ago.

And it was summertime. so a lot of people gone home i'm in summer school so i go out with him we get in the club he see this dude he wanted to pick on me all right uh now i think i showed people certain shit that they couldn't do on their own but they just want to show me that they was they want a hole or whatever and i think they were this guy was doing so you're putting on this same dude that he probably beat up a month ago one story short he's from nashville where i didn't know

this and really didn't care because i really really wasn't standing so i'm trying to break this shit up but it looked like I'm trying to fight. Security guard grabbed me. And I'm not a little dude. I grabbed the security guard and throw him down. That's how we got put out. I threw the security guard on the ground. He would grab me, trying to rough me up. I'm going to slam him on the ground. So we ain't no getting put out.

We get put out with them. We get put out with them. I grab my dudes. Hey, man, shut up, man. And I'm saying in front of the dude that he was picking on. I guess he called his big brother or somebody who ever the case may be and said, oh, yeah, but I'm finna kill you. Because I've been hearing about your name ringing bells in the bit. You've been knocking out all my homeboy. That's what that nigga told me to my face. I said, shit, what you want to do? And I'm still in the fight.

Here, the police come up. I get in the car with my homeboy. I was on a ride with Norma. I drive my own shit. I'd never be in the car with nobody. But I'm normally in the car with Tyler, his truck, you know what I mean, with the AC on, with the water down. He's in the car with Tyler. But long story short, I'm in the car with this dude in the summertime. He picking on dude we get put out. Dude walk up and say, man, I'm for the key of y'all. like, I'm going to kill you. So we get in the car.

We ain't studying that shit. We don't pull it out. I don't heard this shit before. I'm from Atlanta. I don't heard all this shit. Nigga, you got to show me. I get in the car. We riding around looking for a hole. Home mistake. Well, we stopped at a red light. The car pulled in front of us and started shooting up. The dude who was driving at the time got so scared, he put the car in. We couldn't go nowhere. So as anything in the world, you say, I'm in the front passenger seat.

So I let my seat back. I'm thinking that'll save me. But actually, I listen to they only hit the hood of the car and up under the car. They ain't hit the windshield or nothing like that. So I guess they were trying to scare us. We end up leaving after this situation. It all scared me so I need a gun before I go home because I just got shot at. I get a gun from one of my homeboys or whatever to take home with me just in case I really just being smart, just being cautious or whatever.

I get to the crib, my girl in the house, tell her what the situation is. Spend the time. She's like, hey, I told you I had to stay in the house. I said, yeah, baby, you're right, man. But I just, I was being hard. My fat ass hungry and I'm trying to get to Watt's house. I'm telling her like. You don't need to go nowhere. You don't need to go nowhere. That shit, you need to lay your ass down and go to sleep. You need to chill out. All right, as this argument is going on,

she's standing in front of the door. I hear gunshots, maybe like 10 gunshots before I even get out the door. But she stopped me from going out the door. If she didn't stop me from going out the door, I would have been in my car. They would have shot my ass up. And the incident of this situation, I run out the door and not, and I'm thinking somebody else just shoot, really not thinking they shooting at, you know what I mean, at my car or department or whatever it came in.

So I go outside, I see them standing at my car, shooting at the car. So I got my gun in my hand. Yeah, I return fire. As I return fire, like anybody else don't want to get shot, they ran off and pulled off. Cool. Now the next day, well, that day I seen the bullet holes in my car, but you know, it's dark. You really can't see how bad that shit looked. The next day my back wound a shot out. Well, I had 10 on my wound, so it wound a shot out. It was like broken.

They were still attacked. So I had bullet holes all in the car. I was like, I got to move the car because I moved from the area, so I don't want my girl spot. You know what I mean? Hot. You know what I mean? I don't want anybody coming to her door. I don't want anybody trying to do nothing to us or do nothing to her peers. So I want to get hot. And I'm moving back on campus. Moving back on campus. I wasn't never scared. I had my gun open the whole time. This shit's so crazy.

On high colleges, I had a gun every day in my book bag a single year in class. That's how I see where this shit was. Home story short, kind of seeing the people again. We ran into each other again. Had I shoot out or whatever. Case may be. Supposedly somebody got hit from Nazaria and supposedly I posed a hit. Really don't know the story, really. There was just something that came up.

Got questioned by the police and everything, but it ended up being like a self-defense or whatever the case may be. Moved past that, moved past that. I kind of understood that. I kind of calmed down from fighting. This is my senior year, so I was fighting from freshman year to my senior year. It kind of woke me up. Then I had a child and things of that nature and it kind of woke me up. But I tried it one more time, man. One of my homeboys came out for the blue and white game.

Me and Jeremy, me and Jeremy, is Jeremy one of the other defensive ends that played ball with us, man. He was like, my brother, they always say we look alike. So me and Jeremy at the club at this time, we have an hour party, TSU party, the boys party, and we got the hunch punch. Me and Jeremy is going back and forth with the hunch punch. Like, yeah, I can drink this minute. Yeah, I can drink this minute.

Before I know it, I had drunk like 15 cups of huntspunt. Now, that's the cheapest shit you can goddamn make. Fruit punch, maybe gin, all type of cheap-ass liquor to make their punch. But we would make money selling it and drank it at the same time. Now, I got my homeboy Rana with me. I got a couple of my homeboys from Atlanta. So somebody had said, but a girl over there trying to be a B.A. Off. That's one of the quarterbacks that played with us. So I run over there at the time.

I guess because the girl, but me, I'm drunk. I don't even notice that I'm drunk as shit, but I'm going to record. Somebody recorded me if I could see it the next day. The night is not over yet. So what happened was, I guess I was standing beside some dude. And normally when I'm drunk, I don't like people I don't know around me. My homeboy said, I punched a dude and fainted. I swung on a dude and I fainted. My homeboy had to step in and fight for me because I fainted.

So as I'm getting up, one of the persons said, bro, you didn't even get hit. You just fell out. I'm like, I blanked out? What the fuck? I was so drunk that I blanked out. Damn. Didn't even know this shit was possible. So as I blanked out, a dude named Big Al, he was a big dude. He never really played that tissue. He was big as shit. Actually came to save my homeboy from fighting all the dudes or whatever. And they were Nashville dudes.

So I'm so drunk. We're walking out the club. I'm trying to get up. I'm walking out the club, but I'm staggering. I can't get right my homeboy holding me. He said, hey, boy, you got to get right. These folks are behind us. They walking behind us to the car. I think I'm too drunk to fight. What the fuck? So I'm trying to get myself together. And there was another dude that was with us, my homeboy Sanchez, man. Now he's a big eight. He do the parties down here in Atlanta and shake

off something. He's very popular for this shit. But at the time, my dude was not a fighter. He was a lover. Cool dude. You know what I'm saying? He ain't really with that shit. If you have to fight, he will. As these folk walking behind us, he say, oh, he got a gun. He saved us that day by saying them folk got a gun.

The police got them draw down on them for us to get away. Now, we ended up leaving Sanchez Dino by mistake because he went the opposite way trying to get away from us, trying to get away from the people that were looking for that. So we had to end up finding him later on that day. And I remember this shit like it was yesterday. I woke up. I was dealing with two females at the time, Sona and Keisha. I say that name.

But I was really dealing with Asana for the most part. But I had broke up with Asana and I was dealing with Keisha. So Asana ended up knowing, finding out what happened or whatever the case may be. When I woke up, I got Asana and Keisha in the same room with me. Oh, shit. I'm like, hold up. What the fuck?

What type of shit it is so my homer ron said but i had to stay in the room with you so they want to kick your ass i said i appreciate you because well i even think this shit was possible that when i really found out people can actually be caught even if you don't like each other these two females don't like each other but they cared about me that much to say hey we said we we can't check on you to make sure you was okay because

we heard what happened and i said if these folks care about me that i need to slow my head down because i'm doing too much that was the last time I got to fine in college. The last time I got to fine in college and was on that bullshit, kind of throw away from drinking a lot. Remind you, Tyler is already graduated. He's in grad school. Nali is already graduated here in grad school. He done got married to his wife's doctor. You know what I'm saying? I had his first kid.

I didn't ever want to put Tyler in that mix or anything like that, so I never had him to actually go out with us and do that type of shit, you know what I'm saying, to that extent. And I do appreciate him to this day, man, because it was a time that I needed somewhere to stay. Let me stay with him for the summertime. I remember Doss used to make the baked chicken with the black beans. You know what I'm saying? Shit like that, man. My college experience was so great because of people like Tyler.

A lot of people I came across college-wise. Tyler can kind of remember, man, college was not easy. That was probably easy to him because he was smart as shit. For me, yeah, that shit was kind of hard, but like I said, being a star athlete, females are willing to do anything for you. I really didn't have to do too much work, but I had to, you know, try to do something to show the teacher I'm doing something. So I had a passion, graduate, you know what I'm saying? After I graduated.

Hold on, hold on, a couple of things because some stuff, as you're talking, I'm writing down notes that you've reminded me from TSU, because I do want to move into post-college. But, and let me just kind of back it a little bit up. So when you get to college as an athlete, you kind of get there, you go into the student dorms and you're by yourself and you just left all your friends, all your homeboys.

And while BJ and I, I'm sorry, Monte, BJ is my other homeboy that I met when I was a Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputy. But Monte, when we met, we had some similarities because I came to college. I didn't have nothing either. My mom had got me a truck. But at the time, I was in a rift with both my parents. So I was pretty much on my own. My dad dropped me off. He was there with me when I dropped off to college. But I was kind of just by myself.

And I wasn't married yet, but left my high school girlfriend, who later became my wife, unfortunately not my ex-wife. But so I was solo solo dolo. And that's kind of how you start. You don't know anybody. Like you said, you try to fight for a spot on the team. And it was a it was a grind. So being able to have connections with somebody was was key to especially surviving that first year.

And you just reminded so many stories. But one thing I wanted to tell you, because I don't know if you even knew this or if you did know, I can't remember, but towards towards the end of my college career, because I had a great time at Tennessee State. I loved it.

I never had any problems. I was one of the few white dudes on the team sometimes I was the only white dude on the team because people came and went but I never had any issues and one of the I think he was a kappa too he told me he's like yeah man because I was talking to him about it he's like yeah you didn't know this at the time but people had mad issues with you but nobody wanted to touch you because Monte and some of my teammates was like

you put hands on him we're gonna fuck you up so I don't know if you intentionally did that or if it was a common occurrence that you're like hey man don't talk about my homeboy because I'll fuck you up But apparently I had unknown protection that I didn't even realize because I would go to alpha parties, alpha parties, queue parties. I mean, the queues were not officially on campus during my time frame, but there was a whole bunch of stuff that went on.

So one, I appreciate you. But two, do you remember that or do you remember having those conversations?

So let me piggyback on that what you said so basically why that was going on you was the only white guy on campus that looked that cute to all the girls you you you didn't pay them no mind so they was on your dick so you don't remember and it was a lot of girls like sheree sheree still cool to this day made her still cool to the day she ran tracks she was a tiger bell it was a lot of girls that used to ask me about you you know i'm saying hey man what's

up with your boy title what's up with him like he's like black girl this and third I'm like I don't know why y'all try never been a hater I was one of my boys you know experiencing whatever going on you could have fucked a lot of that I'm gonna be real like he had a, a different a different type of you know what I mean a different type of growing up to do because I fucked all that I'm not gonna lie I did not pay them no mind

he stayed faithful the whole time and at this time I'm dealing with my baby mama my first my first child I got two kids I have my take Duncan and Marley Duncan I'm going to say it's 20 right now. Marty is five. I would do it with my first baby mama at the time when I was doing all that. She was in the military. Long story short, she was sending me money to make sure I was good. But kind of was just a totally different thing.

Tyler got married. We was thinking about getting married. Me and my baby mama was thinking about getting married, but I caught it off like close to the time frame or whatever came to me. She kind of got pissed off. I understand the importance of marriage at that time because I was like, man, I'm going for the lead, man. I ain't trying to marry you.

I'm going to have a big time to do what I need to do. but I know for a fact that a lot of dudes were hating because, a lot of girls that they was dating were actually digging you and you probably didn't know I know you had some problems with girls you know trying to say talk to you or whatever the K may be you probably just, didn't pay that shit no mind like you really didn't I really appreciate you not paying no mind because the one you didn't pay attention to I fucked.

I appreciate you yeah you know what I'm saying but that's what it was so it was like, They think you're a white boy, so they think they can try you, but they're not knowing you're 6'2", shit, 280 pounds, so they really don't want to try you. So they're looking at me, and everybody else is like, man, nah, these niggas are fine. They wouldn't do people's ass around campus, so we can't do nothing.

That's what it was. I don't think you ever have to worry about it by yourself. You would probably kick somebody in the ass anyway. It was just the whole point of not having you right, because at the time, you had a minority scholarship, right? No, no, no.

See, that's another thing, bro. I had an athletic scholarship. everybody kept saying i was a minority style so i was like listen fuckers i'm a athletic i'm a i'm a scholar athlete no you're right you're right you're right you're right i mean to cut you off you're absolutely right i mean to cut you off because you're the one who told me about minority scholarship yeah for us you could you could get that's what that went all the

shit there yeah because you was already smart as shit i ain't know nothing about a scholarship different scholarships or all type of shit it was a whole bunch of left-hand scholarship minority scholarships of Hope Scholarships. I never got none of that shit that I was smart enough to get in there. Anything that had to do with any other scholarship for a football, I could get on the football.

Well, I always thought it was fun. They were like, white dudes can get minority scholarships to go to TSU because of the HBCU. And I was like, I didn't even know that shit was a real thing. I was like, no, that's not what I had. So kind of going back and forth a little bit, but do you remember the first time I met your mother? Because I drove you down to Atlanta. You were like, yo, come to the house. And I walk in,

And your mom, I think I can't remember. I mean, it was to me, it was no big deal because I grew up very similar. I didn't have as much interaction with dope boys and shit. But but I walked in and I laughed so hard. I still tell the story to this day because I walked into the house. Your mom was like, Monty, you didn't tell me you was bringing white folks to the house. You were like, you were like, oh, yeah, because because you had to think now we from Atlanta.

We share in our own neighborhood and we barely, barely, barely see white people. All the time we did actually see white people, we went downtown or something like that. But normally, like, we were so poor, we really didn't go too many places. Yeah. No, I'm sad. And then when I was playing to my mom, like, hey, man, this is my home bus. She was like, oh, okay, she's going to work when you're in an open arms, man. Of course.

She never seen a white person come in our goddamn house. That's what it was.

You were the first person. Now it's so crazy. Now our neighborhood unchanged so much that it's white people actually stayed next door to us in our neighborhood because we stayed close to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

So they're trying to make the area like downtown yeah yeah so a couple a couple more stories one do you remember when we were we were practicing like we were just in our warm-up our jumpers and we were practicing and this was with coach reese so it was early on this was before webster came and we were we were just walking through drills like we were all in the same you know tsu athletic jumpers we're about to get on the bus whatever and like four

or five cops rolled in hot sliding in They jumped out like the gang unit for Nashville and Coach B's like, what the fuck? And the cop was like, we got a call. There was a gang fight going on in the parking lot because we were walking through. Do you remember that shit? It's all right if you don't. It's one of these stories that sticks out. I don't remember that one because it don't be so much shit, man. I know. I remember a Vanderbilt fight when B-O.

I can't think of his name. He played defensively and he moved the linebacker, man. They had put him in a police car and let his ass out, the police car. Okay. Now, that's all right. One more story I wanted to touch on. Kind of the reference in the club stories. Because, again, like you said, I didn't really go to the clubs. I think we went a few times, but I never really got involved in all that.

But we got called into the, we mean the whole team, got called into the office and was like, hey, there's a hit out on y'all because one of our teammates was fucking a drug dealer's girl. and they were trying to make peace. I think this was our freshman or sophomore year. And they said, hey, y'all can't be going to the clubs no more. You got to lay low. And they had to resolve that. Do you remember that? I think I did.

I think that was our sophomore year. Our sophomore year, yeah. It was early on. Yeah, I think our sophomore year. And that's the thing, man. When we was in school, man, a lot of us was fucking girls that we didn't know who the fuck they were or where they were from. It was coming on us, you know what I'm saying? Or we just had that swagger to the point where we said something to him that gave us our number.

Gave it a number and we only had a damn, I think you had a cell phone at the time, but I only had a damn dorm phone. That's the only thing I had to communicate. Yeah. My roommate Stinky Butt used to use my phone all the time, bro. Yeah. That shit's so crazy. Stinky Butt or Ralph. It's a lot of people that we came to school. And that's another thing I want to talk about too, man. I think we came in 22 strong. You graduated before I did. I think I only graduated with five of us.

Yeah correct correct yeah not all i've just made it and i didn't know that at the time how that went yeah stinky butt bro that dude yeah balmer balmer graduated, balmer i went to balmer graduation balmer graduated like well it had to be three years after you maybe two years after i graduated yeah younger the younger guys, balmer was with us remember no no yeah i know but he took he graduated after yeah yeah the only thing i i've told people throughout my life and i still have

the jerseys was the bet classics, bro, because that's something about HBCUs, the black classics. Let's go, baby.

And I have those jerseys. I have them hanging up now. I've got three of them. And I always laugh because, again, usually it was – sometimes it was just me on the team. Sometimes it was maybe one or two because we had the quarterback and Jimmy. But I remember – What's the big guy named that drove the truck? I forgot his name. From Memphis. I forgot his name too. Yeah. And, again, I'm reaching back. These weren't stories I necessarily remember.

Remembered one that we talked about wanting to discuss, but it just popped in my head. But I remember because they were usually spot, those games were sponsored in Atlanta by the 100 Black Men Association. And so they would buy jerseys for us. We had custom jerseys. And I remember every time they would hand it to me, they kind of had this look on their face like, so I was like, yeah, thanks, man. I appreciate it, bro. But I still have those jerseys. But those classic games

in Atlanta, bro, 80,000 against FAMU, loud as shit. Do you remember playing in those? Them were one of the games I always remember, man, because I never won a family game. No, we didn't. I never won a family game. I remember going back on the family. I don't know if you remember this, but I think it was my senior year. I'm at D-Tackley in the third year. I'm in the middle of the defense. The whole line blocked me. The defensive ends were free, and I'm the only one that got blocked.

And Coach Reed said, what the fuck? What the fuck? Look at this shit. My name was getting called a lot because I guess I was almighty on high. I did some shit and then get in trouble. I remember the particular day and Balmer was late for practice. They said you were late for practice. You had to do hill. But we had class. We had class. Basically, if y'all don't know that about football, you got a scholarship. They'll hold up the fingers and say, Class first, football second.

But it go different orders. Football first, class second. Damn right. That's what it was. Football first because you got paid to be there through football. But the story was that we got there late, and Coach Reed said, hey, man, go put your shit on. They told Bama to go on the hill. Bama said, God damn, man, on the hill that shit fell. He said, because that's how much they done. Bama was mad at hell. I still remember that shit like it was yesterday, man.

But my boy did do his thing. Bama still was doing his thing, man. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah.

It. Last story from the locker room, because like I said, I've been telling these stories for so long. I don't know. I think it was my freshman year. It definitely was my freshman year. Because I think at the time, it was either me, just me, or me and Jimmy. I can't remember. But I was in the shower, showering afterwards. And everybody on the team kept kind of looking, peeking their head over.

And I'm like, yo, what the fuck, man? People on this gay shit are trying to look at my dick or whatever. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? and I believe it was you because you were like, yo, man, most of these dudes have never seen a white dude, let alone a naked white dude. And I was like, are you for real? So then I said, fuck this. I walked around the whole locker room with my dick out saying, y'all want to look? And everybody was like, oh, man,

get out of here with this stuff. But they were all kind of like looking. They wanted to see. But from that point on, they never fucked with me, bro. They thought you was a white crazy boy. They're like, this is why I walk around with this dick out. And then this time, I'm so nervous because shit, I'm taking a shower with niggas. I got on a swimming tron. I got on a swimming tron. I'm like, hey, man, I ain't trying to show my dick, but you kind of got used to that shit as time went by.

You know what I'm saying? As time went by, you kind of got used to it. Like, man, fuck that shit. I'm taking a shower. I'm taking my clothes off. But yeah, I remember that moment, man. It was like, because at the time, I don't think it was no white boy on the team, but Mox and you, because we all came in at the same time.

So Mox didn't he took a shot and he left you the only white boy that did take a shot at that time correct yeah I was I was one of the only ones so do you remember I'm sorry I'm not remembering this stuff because we called him Gooch Gooch he got a shot with his baby Ralph yeah and they I think the seniors at one point took his and said hey man you gotta fucking take a shot they stripped his ass naked and they scrubbed him with some brush and put a shower

because his ass always straight now when they call him Gooch. Yeah look and see this is the creative part too man you don't remember I don't know. We tried to get it like they were trying to cut our hair. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember that shit. Did you get your hair cut? Well, I already had it. I always kept my hair short anyway. I think Coach didn't want people having like raggedy hair or froze or dreads or something like that.

I can't remember what the cause of that was, but my hair was always short anyway. Yeah, so I remember this particular time where they was cutting all the freshman hair. And I was one of the particular ones that didn't get my hair cut, mainly because I was supposed to be playing, but I ended up getting injured.

Like a medical red shirt but this was the most intense time that i have seen people cry i remember when they cut uh chapman uh you remember chapman he had like two goals in his mouth we played linebacker running back he had braids at the time man when i tell you they cut this nigga braids out his head like undead the machine got them have them undead they just cut the whole braid out.

Man i was like man this shit is crazy i said but y'all ain't touching my head we're gonna have to fight you know what i'm saying and at the time they already knew i knew how to fight so i didn't had no fucking problem yeah exactly i don't think i don't think you didn't eat at the time you know i'm saying i don't think you did no not at that time that i can recall dude that that's just that shit's funny to me remembering that shit so the other thing i wanted to bring up is just the we kind of

talked about it before but you said that when you met me you hadn't really ever drank or smoke and and also food i remember food was another thing you you called me like a year or two afterwards but yo what was that food we used to eat at panera bread like did you talk about right oh shit like this is now for me it's white people food because I don't really know shit Panera Bread never been never even seen a fucking Panera Bread so man Tyler took me

a Panera Bread I think it was a Caesar chicken salad or some shit like that man this fucking sandwich the salad was so fucking good I still eat it to this day. When I see a Panera Bread I try to go stop and get it right now and that broccoli soup man you're talking about some shit that I'll never forget man And it was it was it was it was a blessing to actually meet you because actually growed me up to the point.

Well, hey, man, white people not bad, man. I used to hear a lot of stories at the time. Remember now from Atlanta, we don't hang around black white people. We don't really have them go into our schools. And it's crazy now because I'm in the field of education where I have worked in schools and have, you know, work with Caucasian people. So that experience with me dealing with you kind of made it piggyback over. Would say, oh, okay, man, these folks are really cool.

Man, they're not no asshole like everybody's saying they are. Everybody had their own stereotype of race. Race was still race at the time. You know what I'm saying? It's still the same now, but it's not so much different. I don't think nowadays we can call people niggers and crackers and shit like that in the world and things of that nature, but I know all that shit was going on at the time.

Yeah, and I wasn't always a good influence because you said you still kind of fuck with Black and Miles and you got a little drink in it because you're like... Because I was like, yo, you need to learn how to drink these drinks and the different drinks and shit. I remember that shit. I remember being in your motherfucking dorm room and drinking the motherfucking pile of my son. I'm like, man, what the fuck is this?

I don't even think. What was we even? We weren't even 21, bro. How the fuck we getting?

See, that's my upbringing. I wasn't dealing with dope as shit, but I was running around with people in high school shit. And I did a lot of that stuff before college. So, like, a lot of that partying shit, I did that at high school. strip clubs, smoking black and mild, smoking weed, going out and get drinks, doing that shit. I did that shit in high school. So when I got to college, I was like, man, this ain't nothing to me.

I'm trying to be serious. And I remember that shit. People will fuck with me because they're like, boy, you don't ever go out. I'm like, I've already done all that shit, man. I don't want to do it no more. Right, right, right. And then we wanted to do a number of fighting shit anyway. So I was like, yeah. So I wanted security too, man. I actually had a couple of jobs in Nashville when I was down. I did security. I worked for Alamo.

I worked for the real company. Yeah, we got to do a lot of work for the beer company. Yeah, so this is the thing that kind of the beer company. So I was like the smartest person at the beer company. So this is what I did. I used to go to work in the morning, clock in, and leave. So by all of them, everybody would just be like, what the fuck this nigga has said? Why he ain't here after work? Because they used to ride with me too. I had a car at the time.

My friend, I had two cars. I had the Buret and the Sabre when I was staying with you, and then I had the Chevy. The Sabre had fucked up. I had to leave it in the apartment. You remember your car? Hey, man, they finna tow your car. I'm like, man, shit. They got a tow it in. It ain't working. Yeah, I can't. Ain't nothing I can do with that motherfucker right now. But yeah, man, college life and college experience was totally the thing, man.

But I definitely want to talk about this one time before we get off, man. When I came home from school, I got a job at an alternative school.

Um the alternative school was for call cp community community educational partners if you ever seen high school high this is this school is worse than high school high so this school is particular for all bad kids in the city you got a regular school you get you get sent to this school so this is my first year working as a paraprofessional in a school or whatever so this school was so fucking illegal to the point where they had me

as a pair of teaching the kids and i wasn't certified so So the kids was, all right, now I'm going to give you a background of the school. So we in Atlanta, there's a game called Fam America. Fam America is a game by Ronald. He went to the school. Ronald is an artist here in Atlanta that's very popular. We had Young Thug. Thug was a person that went there too that was called The Rock. That particular time, these two gangs were beefing with each other. They were fighting every day.

And the school only, it wasn't that many people in the school because it was alternative school. It wasn't like a regular high school setting or anything like that. It was a middle school and a high school together. And the school is set up like pause, like a jail. So all the kids go, we had to search the kids in the morning. They could have no money in their pocket. They could have none in their pocket. We'll get them out of the stuff they need when we get in school.

All right. So this particular day, we at the school, Time America, Ms. Rollo, and Rock Crew, The little rock crew, Tick, Lester Slugger, all these little kids, they get in trouble with each other. So we had a big-ass riot in school that I didn't think would possibly could happen. At the particular time, man, I was a kid named Joe. I just seen Joe maybe two weeks ago, man. His brother, R.I.P., his brother, Big Boo. Fam America was my neighborhood,

the bluff or whatever. That's where Fam America came from, my neighborhood. Fam America or whatever. They called themselves Fam Goons. It's so many of them that the rock crew didn't have a chance. So it was three members of The Rock who came to school that day or whatever. So what happened was one of The Rock crew members had shot one of the kids from my neighborhood in the neighborhood where we stayed at. So the next day, you know, it's around as far as they can't wait to get to school.

So when they see any particular guys, it might be 50, 60 kids jumping on these guys. I mean, it's like trying to beat the shit out of them. But if people ever got jumped before, ever been jumped by anybody, you know, you get jumped by so many people. It really is not that bad. you get dropped by five people two, three people that's worse than anything else because they can actually they can actually put their hands on you when you get dropped by 50 people like you.

Basically the 50 people hitting each other you know what I'm saying so one of the particular kids that I seen was in a helpful situation and I had to die on top of him but then to start whooping his ass well now you know I'm from the neighborhood where these kids are, so they respect me I'm a hood teacher I've never seen this shit I'm from the hood and I'm from they same neighborhood they've never seen this shit a day

in their life so they're like this nigga stay in our neighborhood and work at the school. So as I dive on the person, they start whooping his ass. They start whooping his ass because they didn't want to hit me. I thought one of the kids hit me and realized that I was on the ground. Oh, man, that dunk. You know what I'm saying? That Mr. Duncan nigga, hold on, chill out.

So they start the fight. Basically, what I'm pinging back on with this story is, man, that this school I should try to write a book about this school because this school was the most interesting school that I have ever, ever worked at. Because.

Teachers fucking with kids because these kids had these were bad kids now they're the kids in my neighborhood that had money like these kids had more money than the teachers i i remember one particular kid um from bankhead coming in with like ten thousand dollars and and at the time he was like you know they're gonna take my money bro can you hold my money for him like shit hell yeah bro i know how that shit is i'm a hood nigga now so i already know how this shit go he can't leave it

at home with him on my arm probably don't draw it they're gonna steal that money or whatever too so I'm like cool so I held their money or whatever at the end of the day I gave Matt Tom just to hold his money just to hold just to hold his money he like man I'm glad you hold I'll give you 500 because shit I wouldn't have had no money if I left it at the crib or I let them take it if I'm mistaken I got naked thing with Lil Bankhead or something like that at

the time that was his nickname or whatever.

But most of these kids now are in Atlanta running the city we got Rollo Famigun and you got Thug that's on trial right now for a Rico case, i've seen these kids after growing up to be who they are today you know i'm saying they're good ugly however they want to put it they they make themselves a priority in the world to get some money yeah i salute them all the time for that because i'm a person from the neighborhood i never really stepped outside the box for us

that that nature's like trying to get riches you know i mean i sold drawers or did things of that nature but that shit didn't work for me i got it at the time because i it did at the time because i ain't never been in jail for no hard drawers or things of that nature but but just experiencing the life of seeing kids grow up i mean from being kids to adults and understanding that but it anybody can make it man you put your put your heart into it to do what you need to do for making it in this

world man like you just gotta grind and put some some life but man basically just to get on your shit and do what you need to do for a survival world, man, because I never thought I'd be in the school system right now. Just like, you know, you wouldn't think you would be in law enforcement. You know what I'm saying? And I've tried to leave the school system, but God keep bringing me back to the school system. You know what I mean?

For the kids and things of that nature. Yeah, man. And listen, this isn't the last episode for you and I, but there's so much more we want to talk about. But I know you're talking to me on your break. Mate's still working right now. He took time out of his day to talk to me. But if you have time, do you want to talk about what happened after college? Because you talked about your life growing up, you graduated, you went back to Atlanta, you were trying to make it work.

Do you have time to talk about that? Wrap it up in like five, ten minutes? Yeah. Yeah, because it definitely, it's something I didn't know. But that story to me, like all the stuff you've come through and you still got your degree and you've come out of it now. But, you know, you talk about what happened when you got out of college and what led to that. They have enough TV time or something like that to make the money or whatever.

Now, now I'm working at the school. I'm working at the alternative school. I left the school because I'm getting drafted for this league and they was paying $60,000, $50,000 a year. But they bagged out on us at the time. I can't think. I think it was a kid that played for Florida. If I'm not mistaken, I forgot the quarterback at the time. He played for Florida. I can't think of his name, but he was drafted on my team.

But at this time, all this was decided by going to that. Then they kind of declined the deal, so I had to go back to the school system again. Now, I go back to the school system. They had changed the name of the school to force his academy. But at the same alternative school, they did change the name and change the building. I went there. I stayed there for maybe five to seven years, I think, if I'm not mistaken. And then I went to a school called Kip Collegiate Atlanta. It's a charter school.

This was the school I made most of my money at. I came up, like, you don't have to be certified there. Like, I was a peer at one point. Then I came up being a behavioral specialist. Then I actually became an administrator. I started a practice coordinator to make $6,000, maybe a little bit more than that. I learned a lot of stuff through the school system and like how kids was treated. I always been the person that worked in the school system for not trying to get you in trouble.

But I always try to find a way to get you out or find avenues to try to help you be better in school. I mean, I want a life teacher that if I came in a room and I'm going to draw on the shit out. You know, I'm going to make it fun or I'm going to give you like if it's a female or something, she having a bad. Hey, man, I like it. I like the outfit. I like your shoes. the whole point of getting in contact with a kid, you have to like something they're doing or you're just a regular teacher that,

oh, I just see you as a regular teacher. Hey, how you doing? I'm going to go about my business. But every kid that sees me stop, talk, you know what I'm saying? I'll be in a relationship with. And then, like, my son, he played football from 10, maybe 10, to he graduated high school. That was a great experience for me. You know what I mean? My child, my child stayed with me since maybe from the sixth grade till he graduated from high school.

It was just me and him for a long period of time. And then I ended up getting a girlfriend. I don't know what a kid may be. And I ended up having a baby by her. I had my second daughter, well, my only daughter, that's five, her name is Marley. Beautiful. Very bad, but beautiful as him. But at this time, I'm still, it's like, I'm still lost.

I'm still lost in certain stuff, man. I'm working at the school, but I'm still trying to make extra money selling drugs or doing whatever I can to get by, man, to get my child or whatever he needed, especially my daughter. You know, it was just a whole different leaf with my daughters. As I'm at the second school, HIP Collegiate Atlanta, they stopped paying us in the summertime. So I left the school, took out my 401k and my private shit about maybe six months.

I'm going back and forth in Knoxville. Maybe came home with on the weekend, average on the weekend, probably like $15,000 every weekend. At this time, we was doing pretty good, me and one of my cousins or whatever. So as we go down, we getting big now. My cousin actually get pulled over. He has no license. He got pulled over. He had $30,000 in his pocket. And the police let him go. Now, me being smart, I'm from the bluff, know how this shit go. Oh, we got to leave. We got to get the fuck on.

Long story short, my cousin is greedy. I don't want to leave. But we end up just being smart, coming out on the weekend, maybe during the week sometime, but not all the time. Long story short, I go by myself one weekend. I get pulled over, and the police cop comes to the car and says, yeah, Mr. Duncan, how you doing today? Mind you now, I'm in a whole other car. I'm in a flip car, a flip van. I'm in a flip BMW. So they flip the van on the car. So the car is not in my name,

so I wonder how in the fuck the police know my name. So apparently, our name is ringing bells because we're selling this particular drawer that I hand locks with. Long story short, I stopped. I'm going to get the fuck on from it. I leave it alone. My cousin still go back. He'd fuck around and go back one particular time and get pulled over on the expressway and try to jump out of the car and run. He's my size.

I don't know where the hell he's running from, but same size as me trying to run and try to throw the brick of ice and fail.

And all the the the drug was on his leg no geez oh they locked him up getting him they was he was facing 20 years i think they gave him 10 but my thing was man i thought everything i did see in life was possible that i did try i did do but i thank god for giving me the opportunity to say hey well now it's time to stop this because you know you got kids and do you want to be in this place with these people it been i maybe got locked up maybe twice in my life when i graduated from college.

I got locked up. Take one of my girlfriends back home in Marietta. Shouldn't have been driving in Marietta. Got pulled over like a half bag of weed and a whole bunch of sacks. I didn't know that. I don't know if you know this, but in Atlanta, for some apparent reason, law enforcement can pull up your whole background and see that I graduated from school, graduated from college. Didn't know that. So when I got in the jail, Carl County, he was like,

well, man, we ain't going to hit you for all this weed. We just going to hit you for the sacks. Me thinking that's smart, but that was the dumbest thing I did. They should have just gave me the bag charges, the whole bag, instead of the sack. But now it's distributing. It was a felony. So now I sit in jail for that one day. I get out. I had to go to court. I paid all these goddamn court fees. I think I paid maybe $5,000 to the lawyer, maybe another $3,000 to the court for me to have.

That one I was going to go to the lead or whatever for me to get non-report probation. When I finished the non-report probation, my life changed drastically because I never tried to do anything else at that time, but I still was sitting with a little bit or whatever it may be. So I kind of slowed down, started working more on second job. I started working security in the neighborhoods and things of that nature, like an apartment called Overlook Atlanta.

I'm working at the school and at night I'm working at Overlook Atlanta, man, trying to grind, trying to figure it out. It's really not enough money to survive. Nowadays, it's really not enough money to survive. But long story short, man, I think my life kind of, kind of took a turn for the best because I always felt like I was going on the wrong path and fighting in drawers, hanging around the wrong people.

My kids actually brought life into me to the point where I felt like I would be selfish as shit if I get locked up for trying to make some money and not even giving them all of the damn money, but still taking care of them as much as I could. But I just felt like it was selfish just to leave them out here like that. So I let that shit go. I let it go. So, man, that's about it, man. And right now, I work at Trice City High School in Atlanta.

Don't want to be in the classroom, so I'm like an athletic custodian. Man, I deal with all the fields and things of that nature. I have a low-key job. Like right now, I've been on break how long I want so I can really do the fuck I want to do at work, but I do my job. You know what I'm saying? I do my job. Yeah, I do my job to the point where people respect me. Like, oh man, if he leaves, he must have something to do.

You know what I'm saying? It's just about your personality and things that you do to help other people. You know what I'm saying? It gets you through. Everybody have problems. Everybody have kids. They got I tend to just say my baby mama been calling me all the time. I know my little girl FaceTiming today, but I had to finish the interview because we've been trying to do it so long. And just like you said, man, we'll definitely keep doing it because I know it's going to go somewhere.

A lot of people are going to listen to it and be like, what the hell? And normally, like, what I'm going to try to do is start, we can put a picture behind the shit if we want to. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, man. Who the hell is that person talking? Like, you know what I'm saying? We can kind of, you know what I mean, let people know. Like, I'm not afraid to say what I did in life or what I ran across or what things that made me better or what things that made me worse.

It's a part of life. I have to be life every damn day. That's right, bro. Yeah, you got to figure out how to get up and make your life, better than what it is the next day. Like, what can I do better today than I did? You know what I mean? What can I do better tomorrow than I did today? Well, Mate, we're definitely going to have you back, bro, because there's so many stories, bro. But I definitely just wanted to get something on the books, basically. And I appreciate your time.

And I'm going to end it now. But I appreciate you. I thank you. And I look forward to talking to you some more, brother. I appreciate you. And I love you too, brother, man. Hey, man, good to talk to you, man. I'm glad we reconnected, man. Man, like I said, Tyler, we haven't probably seen each other in almost 20 years, man. So hopefully, maybe not when this year out, but maybe when next year starts, we'll be able to get in contact and see each other. You know what I mean?

Run across each other and do something. Yo, real quick, bro, because we were talking about going to the homecoming. Just saw on the news, they were shooting out there, bro. TSU, the homecoming, made the news. I was like, God damn, I'm glad we didn't link up at this one, of all things. I mean, sad to hear what happened. But God damn. Right. So I'm noticing in every city, kids are getting worse, man. In that situation, it was nothing but teenage kids during the shooting.

The world is so fucked up now, man. In the rap game, these rappers are telling the kids it's okay to walk around with the blick, with the stick, hit them up. Nine turns out of ten, none of these rappers did shit. They ain't killed nobody. They ain't did shit. They just talking about them shit. They make these niggas believe it. These kids out here doing that shit, man. They're fucking crazy. It's fucking crazy, man.

It's their lifestyle they're living, man. like this they live in a music lifestyle they live in like GTA around this motherfucker man and they think it's okay but there's so many cameras in the world man it's eye in the sky and they got they got a place for your ass they got a place for your ass my home I'm never you to say this shit all the time but they got a place for your ass they gonna be a place your ass ain't gonna wanna be at they gonna

tell you to get up and eat your shit when they tell you to that's right I'd rather be on my own accord like there's nowhere in the hell I don't want a brawman telling me to get up and do what the fuck they telling me to do every goddamn day. I'll do that at work. Yeah, you're going to pay me. I can tell them what to do. Well, I know we can probably talk for three more hours, bro, but. Music.