Just You Get Me Fired Podcast, John Magic, Young Gizzo.
We're back in the building.
Yeah, we got a special guest today. I'm excited about this one. You know, from the Central Valley, went to Fresno State, plays in the NFL. Jalen Mareno Cropper. Welcome to the podcast.
Appreciate it, glad to be Yeah.
Thanks for taking time off your busy schedule for just hanging with us. And we get to chop it up and we have questions that we definitely want to get to and then we're gonna wrap it up with this camp that you're gonna be doing, So let's get to it.
Yeah yeah, man, So first let's just dive into it. You're from the Central Valley, born in parlier, right.
Uh, No, I was born in Reatley, California. Okay, yeah, probably don't. We don't even have a hospital there, so yeah down yeah yeah really so I was born there, but yeah I grew up probably since man, I was pretty much born. Yeah yeah yeah.
And then you went to Singer.
Yeah, so I went to the same high school, went to wams for junior high and then from K through six I went to the uh elementary. It was kind of back and forth, bouncing around both those places, but definitely man long long way from there.
What is what is Partly are known for? We've been to Partli a couple of times, but only the high school.
I just always know that they're right next to uh, like kind of the same, right, they kind of blend together.
I always hear about Redley Beach. Is this a real thing?
It's like our version of a beach. Yeah, it's not really a beach. It's like a pond the beach front. Okay, but it's like the water. It's really the it's like a river there where people like float on, right. I always see people floating, floating. A lot of people go floating down there, do a lot of that stuff. My mom goes probably every year, and they just go in there and just drink, have a good time to sit on there and get some I was like, yeah, that's how'll leave that for them.
You know, when I started playing ball football in high school, it was because of a senior that that I always liked to watch and then you know, I want to do what he's doing. How did it start for you? Like did you just know as a kid, did you do the you know, pee wee football?
That stuff. I always kind of knew, like I wanted to play football. I'm a big Cowboys fan. Oh oh, big Cowboys fan. So like growing up you know that you watch Cowboys football, you want to play football, like that's all you want to do. So, you know, just growing up, it's always just been like I've always been interested in football, wanted to see football. They tried to put me in soccer, to just start me off in soccer, like, I mean, I played, but I don't really like it.
I was like I always I always wanted to play football. So when I first started playing football, that was just like once that started, I was like, yeah, I love it. Yeah, so I just kept it going. And man, ever since then, I've been going.
Now, you went in high school, you ended up transmitting to a Buchanan for your senior year. Yeah, made a name for yourself obviously, and then I'm sure the recruitments came in. Why Fresno State, I.
Mean fress Home, you know, growing up out here, you know on the five five nine, you don't really get too many experiences like this. You don't find too many you know, football atmospheres at that like Fresment State, you know, playing in front of the Red Wave. You know, it's
kind of a different feeling. You know, even going down and seeing you know, the Cowboys Stadium and seeing the crowd there, it's just like there's two different crowds, and I feel like, what makes it more special as you being from here, knowing that you know, the people in the crowd are you know, people that I probably grew up with or seen, so you know, just playing playing here was you know, I felt like it was going
to be very special. And I mean, you know the community, you know, they were very wholesome when it came to that, so you know, I'm very supportive. So I was very blessed with that.
Did you do that thing where you get to visit other colleges.
Yeah, yep, yep, I did. I had unofficial visions and official visions, so I believe you can only take like five I think it was five official visits. So I took all my official visits. I mean, I went to a lot of colleges and it was it was nice, like the atmosphere there is not It was just like the home atmosphere different than going somewhere else. And you know, it's just probably a lot of fans that you don't know and you know, just love football.
What were some of the schools that were trying to recruit you at that time?
I had offers from Oregon, everybody school teams Yeah, yeah, out of the West Coast, a lot of the West Coast teams, a couple I think it was just one school down south. But you know, the recruitment on like from Miami was like there was a lot going on, and especially like playing quarterback, it was more recruited like as an athlete, like you come in, you can play receiver, dB, whatever it was.
You being from the valley. This is just a fun question, and you don't you don't have to like lie, you can be honest with us, just because I know where where you know this generation is with the radio. But I was watching a preseason NBA game and the Lopez brothers were there and I like told him who I was. I was like Fresno John Magic, and they're like, we used to listen to you on the radio, Like when you were a kid growing up here, did you ever
look were you a B ninety five listener? Because that's what we're just on my work.
My dad, my dad, he used to sing and stuff like that. So like he used to be all around and doing stuff with like the music and the radio shows and stuff. So like evening in the mornings, like you driving a school Yeah in the morning, Yeah, yeah, I remember. I think I don't know which one it was, but I always remember, like the ones what you called, and they had like a whole it's like an answering machine, like they're talking to somebody. Like I always remember, like
just listening to people's drawing in the morning. Yeah, yeah, that's I'm fifth grade, sixth grade. Yeah, yeah, off that school, listen to that. So nah, I definitely remember. That's dope.
And so now you're in the NFL. You signed with the cow in twenty twenty three, by the way, my favorite team, So I'm happy you're part of the squad. How is the off season? Many camps? How's that been for you so far?
It's been good. You know, just once you get in that mode, you know, it's just that football mode. It's kind of like a switch goes off and he's just getting like a different type of perspective and everything that you know, I've been doing this year, you know, I've been you know, just trying to be consistent and doing that and you know, just get in the weight room, whether it's on the field, off the field, in the
film room, film study, stuff like that. You know, I feel like, you know, this offseason has been, you know, one of the best ones that I've had. Nice. You know, I'm definitely excited for camp. Yeah, yeah, come up, you know, and hearing it. You know, about five six weeks we do start camp up, so you know, I'm ready. I'm ready for that. You know, I'm very excited. You know, I can't wait for this season. Now.
You're obviously a younger player. Is there like a veteran player or maybe even a coach that's sort of like been taking you under the wing, mentoring you, giving you advice, anybody like that on the squad.
Definitely last year be Cooks was always Cooks and seeing how he does and how he goes from you know, his recovery process to you know, how he recovers for you know, the game or after the game or after practice or it just just his regular schedule, you know, leading up to the game, how he prepares, and just
seeing how professional he was every single day. You know, that definitely stuck with me, and it was just always like, you know, coming home, going to work every day, being consistent and doing the little things, because all the little things matter when it comes to, you know, playing football. So you know that was definitely one of the main people that you know, I was able to take me under his wing and just see the you know, the ropes of the NFL.
Here's something I've always wanted to ask an NFL player because in high school, in my head, and maybe I was delusional, but I was. I was a starter, a starting lineman, and I was like one of the I guess better players won a championship, and then nothing happened in college. So I ended up playing junior college and I did not see the field. I only saw once when by fifty, and it was I could just tell the difference from being a good player in high school
too or college junior college everyone is huge. So yeah, it was I was a bench player and I only glasted one year because I wasn't even playing anymore. So I wanted to ask you the well, now, from high school then college and then to the NFL, is there a big difference in your head and you're like, no, this is the same.
I think from high school to college was probably the biggest difference. It's a bigger jump. Yeah, it's like a bigger jump because of the speak. I feel like college, like the offenses in college are way faster than NFL really. Oh yeah. So it was just kind of when you see that you go into jumping into an office in the NFL, like everything's fast because you got to learn new terminology, you got to learn all these new players and stuff. So like that's really the only difference. The
speed of the game. I mean, the players, the d line, the offense line will give me bigger yeah. But other than that, you know, this is not really a big difference, like the speed of the game. Once you get used to that, you know, it was just football game. You
just go back to playing football. So it was that that jump from high school to college was probably the hardest one, just because you see this is from the first time, and usually in college, like you're not playing against a lot, like the whole team's not really not everybody's the best on the team. So you know, you go in college and this is every five star, yeah star recrup from a different city, and then when you
get to the NFL, it's the whole team. Yeah, you know, that's probably like just the more consistency and you know, the players and the average of being you know, how good you are the talent level talent?
Yeah, is it the same where I know the play calls in the NFL is so elaborate.
Is it the same?
That is what we learned in high school where just no meaning meaning a piece is just yours you listen for one piece.
It's kind of yeah, kind of in the same like aspect of that, because usually listen to the formation. If there's like a motion, you have the motion, and then like the play concepts, so like you'll have to listen to all that stuff. So like you really listen to the whole beginning and then the last probably like two words of the player will probably be right side of
the field. But basically, but you know, once you start picking up like the linger, like I said, like that was probably not the hardest thing to do, but the most challenging thing because you know, you being able to go from you know, college terminology to NFL terminology, like you you have everything in your brain from the last four years of the switches up because it's the same things, it's just now they have different words for it. So like, now you got to get those words out your head
and learn some new words. So that'll probably that's probably the most challenging thing. All right.
So now you talked about you know, uh campus coming up in July. I believe you guys go to ox Start every year, which is dope because that's like a four hour drive maybe from Fresno. I've been there a few times for training camp. When you do that, do you have like a lot of family that comes down to watch you practice, being that you know not that far.
No, for sure, have a lot of family. I mean I think my family goes every weekend. Oh nice. So just to see just to see the support from Fresno and not even that, you know, just the little towns around like Shelia Hilarry, Like everybody goes out there and supports because you know, I mean, you know out here better than me than just a lot of Cowboy fans. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, just that support and knowing that you know, it's a Valley kid, the Fresno kid, you know, playing
on the NFL roster with the Cowboys at that. Yeah, just being able to see, you know, the support out there. Man, it's it's a Blessing and.
It's dope because you're not even the only Fresne State player on the Cowboys. Dron Bland, you guys played together at state, was oh one, I believe how is that being hey, did he kind of like welcome you in when you got there or like, how was that relationship?
That's that was good? I mean when when he first came in here from Sax State, you know he was I mean, Ron's are quite dude, you don't really talk to me. Even in interviews, he seems like he don't really talk too much. So like, you know, just being able to get close to him, like you could see the type of person he is. I mean, I mean he loves his family, he loves everybody, and he's a great teammate. Everything he does, he works every single day, and I mean you see the position that he's in now,
and he worked for that. So just to see, you know, the way he goes about his business definitely, you know, inspires me. And then we also got Kales there too, so Josh Kelly's up there to for in Frost though, so I mean that's another kid that's from the state, so you know, just even the fres are so just seeing all that stuff. Man, it's full circle for sure.
Well, speaking of camp, there there's a camp coming here in town. Is that what's happening Roses Ye? Can you talk a little bit about that.
So we have our fourth uh fourth one. This is the fourth year, so we're going to be able to do this annually. I mean I've started this coming out of my senior year of college and it was just, you know, a chance to give back to the kids, you know, show the community that you know, not only a football player, but you know a part of the community like everybody else. So just to be able to come out here and you know, offer these kids that definitely a special feeling for myself and not only me,
but my team, my family. So yeah, we have a I believe it's ages seven through thirteen, but if it's a six year old fourteen year old, I really don't matter. Yeah, we have our camp from nine to one on Saturday this Saturday coming up. You can register still, there's my on my Instagram. There's a post on my instagram. You can just scan the QR code. It'll send you to the link. You fill out the information and you get
to go. But yeah, sign ups are still going on, and you know, we want to tell everybody, you know, be able to welcome everybody to come. So it's like a football camp. Then it's like a football camp slash like a festival fest kind of like every like like games music.
I saw you guys are doing giveaways of like PS five even.
Yeah, so like you know, just things like that, getting the you know, community involved, not only football, but you know, just activities on the outside of that.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong. Anybody could go up just to like watch, right, yeah, yeah, okay, and it was I saw it fifteen dollars. If you want to be a spectator.
You could just come watch and be you know, be part of the camp, see what everything's going on around that. But you know we're in for a good time. You know the weather. We just got the weather back too yesterday and they say it was gonna be good. So I'm excited for that.
Yeah, I saw that because it's been like a triple digits, but I think it's seventy eight on Saturday. Talk about the luck that you got with that Jensen Sports Complex. That's where it's gonna be Saturday nine to one.
If you want to go watch.
The fifteen dollars, but if you wanted to participate, you still can your Instagram page.
You could get the link.
What's your Instagram.
It's at Jalen Croppers j al e n. Cro Ppe.
R real quick before we let you go as a Valley kid high school to teenage years to college, what were some of the famous hangouts? What were your favorite hangouts in town? Like what was a kid like you doing in town during like your twenty.
What are you doing it?
For? The hot spots food spots, we would definitely go to number one probably be you know if there you go, that's just you knows. Five man. We used to go there every Friday spring Boar. Every Friday. Everybody would just go in there. We would just all be in there. Get the U State student discount student that's right, it's right there. So yeah, that was that was probably the number one spot. Bolero definitely we all have bo.
Did any of the if the student athletes were twenty one and over, did they ever go to clubs and stuff?
Yeah, if we were to go to the club, we used to go to Viction. We'll be down there. Yeah I played there. Yeah, so shout out little soaicually he got a new club down there in my tower. Yeah, yeah, so I know that was popping a lot. We definitely go there if we're in town. And that was probably the only ones who used to go to.
I always wondered that, like if they were out to like the party.
Yeah, yeah, Okay, you can do all that stuff, you know, once you turn twenty one at least one. Okay, Okay, there you go.
Well, we appreciate you taking your time to stop by and let us know about crop Fest that's going down this Saturday. Make sure you follow Jalen on his Instagram page to get all the info. But yeah, definitely good luck to you on the upcoming season. Especially you know that I'm a Cowboys fan. And once again, man, we appreciate you stopping by.
For sure, Man, appreciate it.
Yeah, appreciate you.
Until next time.
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