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Editor’s note: This podcast took place before Ohio State’s first game against Marshall.

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Ohio State’s Bobby Olive. Bobby thank you very much for joining us today.

Now this year, obviously like many year, Ohio State is considered one of the best teams in the country. They’ll probably start the season No. 2 overall in the main preseason polls, they’re on the regional cover of Sports Illustrated for their preview magazine.

What do you think of the team this season? Do you think they’re benefiting from having a good roster on paper or do you think this team is strong enough to make a legitimate push for a national championship?

Bobby Olive: I think this particular team is … I think this is coach Tressel’s best team so far on paper as far as overall. I felt the team when Troy (Smith) was a senior was the best offensive team. But the reason I think this team is better is because they have a lot more depth on both sides of the ball.

This team has a good offense. We all know about Terrelle Pryor. If he plays up to the guy who we think he is, the sky is the limit for this offense. But they have a really good defense, they have a lot of guys coming back. They got (Cameron) Heyward coming back, they have the linebackers coming back, they have two starting cornerbacks.

So I think overall this is their best team vs. that ‘o6 team who had a questionable defense that was really young. But they had a really good offense. So I think balance-wise, this is his best team.

They have three tough games, to be honest. They got Miami, at Wisconsin, at Iowa. So it’s laid out for them to go 12-0, but who knows. But to answer your question, I definitely think this is their best team.

LL: Do you think this team lives or dies by how well Terrelle Pryor plays this season?

BO: Yes I do. And I say that because he’s the only experienced quarterback on that roster. So with that being said … now I will say they do have a lot more depth at quarterback. You could see it during the spring game. But as far as experience, they live and die by what Terrelle does.

If he’s playing well, I think they’ll go undefeated. If he’s playing well and being that dual-threat, running and passing, I think without a doubt they’ll go undefeated. But if he struggles like he did the first part of last season, they’re going to lose at Iowa. This is one of Iowa’s best teams in a long time.

It’s going to be at Iowa. (And) it’s always a dogfight when we play at Wisconsin, no matter how good we are. But this Wisconsin team is a good team, so those are going to be two tough games in the Big Ten and of course you have Miami coming in.

If Pryor can stay healthy and play up to his potential, I mean the sky’s the limit.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Michigan’s Desmond Howard, the 1991 Heisman Trophy winner.

Obviously everyone asks you about the pose every single time they talk to you. I’ve read many times that you’d said it was spontaneous. But tell us the truth: How many times did you picture striking the pose in that endzone?

Desmond Howard: Picturing it and practicing it are two different things. To be honest with you (inaudible) and I can’t really recall thinking about, “OK, this is what I want to do in the endzone.” Actually, what I wanted to do was a back flip in the endzone. (inaudible) That’s actually what I wanted to do.

But I was like, “If I mess this up, I’ll score but (inaudible).”

LL: I think you made the right choice. At what point did you realize that this was going to be one of the most iconic moments in college football history?

DH: Oh I didn’t know. That just comes a long, long way down the road. I didn’t know. I was just a college kid out there trying to have fun And I knew I wanted to do something special if I scored a touchdown against Ohio State. I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. So (I said to myself), “If I got in the endzone today against these Buckeyes, I got to do something special in the endzone.”

You’re still limited as a college football player. You can’t really do too much. So I was trying to be creative and spontaneous and so I did the Heisman pose and that’s how it came about. But just the adrenaline and to celebrate a huge moment in the biggest rivalry in college football and not get flagged for it at the same time.

LL: I wanted to also ask you about the current Michigan program. Everybody is going to ask about it every time they talked to you. I know that the consensus out there is that RIch Rodriguez needs to win eight games to keep his job. If you were to bet on who would be the Michigan coach in 2011, do you think it’ll be Rich Rodriguez?

DH: Oh I’m not going to make that comment.

LL: What do you think will be the key this year to Michigan reaching those eight wins?

DH: Oh the defense. I think it’s the defense. The defense is going to have to make some big stops in big games to be where they want to be. I think the offense has enough talent at skill positions to score points on people. They’re still relatively young. You’re looking at two sophomores at the quarterback position and a true freshman. And that’s the most important position in college football. So those guys are going to make mistakes. They’re going to go through their growing pains. But I still think their confidence is up there to score points so their defense is going to be key.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Texas’ James Brown, now the running backs coach for Lamar University who’s going to be playing their first football game this weekend against McNeese State. Mr. Brown thank you very much for joining us today.

James Brown: Thanks for having me and it’s good to be here.

LL: We spoke about a year ago just about the process of creating a new program, bringing in new players and building it from scratch. Now you’re just three days away from your first game – what’s the mood like in the locker room?

JB: Well I don’t go in the locker room too much, but on the field I think everybody’s ready. We’ve been preparing for this game for two years or more – specifically in the last three weeks during camp. So the kids are ready to play against someone other than each other.

And the attitude is good. As our coach always says, “It’s our first game together, but it’s not our first game individually.” So we’ve all been here before, it’s not our first game coaching. We just need to go out and play the game.

LL: So much work goes into preparing for this game and more so because you were building a program and you mentioned two years of work. As a coach, are you excited about going into this first week or do you kind of approach it just like any other week game you’ve approached before?

JB: I’ve played in a lot of games, so just the butterflies of football have just kind of gone away. You just take it like any other week. When we first got here, we were doing a lot of administrative things that, I guess, normal coaches don’t do at an established program, but those last two years we put a lot of people in place and so we can kind of get back to just coaching the game and watching film and teaching the game.

So we have a lot of administrative things in place now. So everything is working out well.

LL: Are you relieved now that as a coach you can now finally concentrate on the X’s and O’s and players and not have to do so much of that administrative stuff?

JB: Oh yeah, that’s good. Like I said, we’ve been transition away from those other duties. Like I said, we had an athletic director change here in the last few months, but we hired a video coordinator that helped us out a lot.

And it is good to really get down to football and this is our first week and the first of many first weeks this year to go up against another opponent, so we had a lot of time to prepare for McNeese. So we’re prepared and ready for this game.

Next week it’ll go a little faster for us because Tuesday we start our normal work week, prepare for our opponent. We’ll have Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday to gear up for that opponent, whereas that first game we had three weeks and even longer to prepare.

So this week is fairly easy because we’ve already done the work that we would do for this game week. So we’re kind of in cruise control and we’re more into weight lifting and conditioning part of the game rather than the X’s and O’s so much.

LL: Now I’m interested you’re basically in a situation where you have a brand new program. As a coaching staff, are you guys looking for something a little bit different than a more established program would be in the first week of the season or once the first game start’s are you guys in the same mode as if you’ve been playing for years?

JB: I would assume the latter. We’re going out to win the football game and I think that’s what any coaching staff is to prepare for. We were on the news the other day and in one of the interviews, (someone) told coach, “I predict you’re going 6-5 this year. Let’s talk about the five losses.” Coach was like, “What are you talking about? No we’re not going to be talking about the five losses, because we’re going out every game trying to win.”

So that’s just the attitude the staff and the team has. We’re going out trying to win this game. (Inaudible) Everyone knows what to do, everyone knows their assignments. We just have to go out and execute.

LL: So you guys aren’t going to be accepting any moral victories even though this is the first season?

JB: (Inaudible) We need to have the most points on the board. We need a real victory. And if we do happen to fall short, just as long as we played well and got some things covered. I mean this is a good team. But I feel like we put together a very nice squad. Even though (McNeese State does) have a lot of seniors, guy who have been in the program for four or five years, that’s an advantage that we do not have.

But we’ve been preparing just as long as they’ve been preparing this year. So we’ve had just as may spring practices and just as many fall practices that they’ve had. So we’re just going to get up there and play.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Northwestern’s Damien Anderson, member of the 2000 co-Big Ten Champions. Damien thanks for joining us today.

(For) Northwestern fans, obviously, you have a very special place in their hearts. That 2000 season was just an unbelievable season. But nationally I think a lot of people remember you as the guy who dropped the wide open pass in the incredible game against Michigan.

I read an interview you’d done not too long ago talking about that pass. And clearly it’s something that hasn’t bothered you or “haunted” you at all since it happened.

Could you talk a little bit about what it felt like and how you went about bouncing back from that incident?

Damien Anderson: Well Jose it’s football. There’s going to be balls that bounce your way and balls that bounce away in the opposite direction. But in the game of life, it’s how you respond. I mean I never planned to not catch the ball. I always planned on being successful. Besides that play, I had an amazing game, over 200 yards.

I don’t live my life in the past. I just use it as a defining moment to showcase how can I improve and do the next thing. And I just have that same type of mentality in terms of hard work ethic, surround myself with great people, in order to be a successful – not only athlete – but person, father, brother, husband and all of the above.

So I mean, given that play, I mean it happened. I knew the game wasn’t over. I played my hardest. I tried to catch the ball. It was unfortunate that I didn’t. But here we are talking about it. It makes for a great story, great television. You turn it into a positive. You live and you learn from that experience. I wouldn’t do anything differently.

Do I wish I caught it? Of course I do. But at the same time we still won the game. It’s a great story, a lot of people with great memories. But at the same time it was a great season, we had a lot of fun and we accomplished some things people didn’t think we could but we knew we could.

LL: From that interview that I had read you did tell a very nice story of hoe prior to the game you guys did the walk through and you were telling yourself, “Man, if anyone gets that ball in the lights it’s going to be hell for them to catch.” And then, lo and behold, that’s what happened to you.

After the play did you just have … could you do nothing but laugh at the idea that this was something you had noticed prior to the game and would’ve never thought it would happen to you during the game?

DA: No Jose. It was just my luck. I wanted to laugh but I didn’t think it was an appropriate situation for me, it being nationally televised game I knew that all the cameras would be on me. So I didn’t think necessarily that laughing would be the best answer. But it was one of those things where I just chuckled inside and thought, “Man, of all the people, it would happen to me.”

But I knew given the opportunity … I know a lot of people, given that it was 54-51 game, last minute score to win, a lot of people didn’t feel like we could win. But to be honest with you, I had all the faith. I just knew that I tired by best, I tried my hardest. It was unfortunate. Given the opportunity, we were lucky Anthony Thomas fumbled the ball. (Inaudible) picked it up. We marched down the field. Zak Kustok hit Sam Simmons on a skinny post and here we are, we were Big Ten champs and we were beating a Michigan team that a lot of people thought was unbeatable.

So here we are, Big Ten champs. We’re going to celebrate it, the ten-year reunion, this year back at Ryan Field. So it’s some great history for our son to look at. Big Ten champs, one of the best teams to come through Northwestern and one of the best individual performances, not only for that game, but for that year in college football for Northwestern athletics.

LL: It’s interesting you mentioned it is the tenth anniversary and that was the third conference title in six years. Since then the program hasn’t been able to match that success. But it’s certainly going in the right direction with coach Fitzgerald.

What do you think the Wildcats need to do going forward to get back to where they were when you were on the team?

DA: Well I think that they have some great competition in the teams that they play. And I think Pat Fitzgerald is doing an amazing job, although we haven’t got that title “Big Ten Championship,” I think he’s right there. He’s been very successful. As you saw, we played an SEC team that was supposed to be so much bigger, so much faster, so much stronger and we took it to the last second against Auburn.

So I think coach Fitzgerald does a great job preparing his men and not sacrificing athletic performance for academic integrity. And that’s what we’re all about at Northwestern: the student-athlete rather than the athlete-student.

So he’s done a great job. We went down there in Iowa and beat them in Kinnick Stadium when they were No. 3 in country, as well as we beat Wisconsin. You know we’re remaining to who we truly are; we’re student athletes, we play great football, we’re always going to be prepared and it’s just any given Saturday you never know what’s going to happen.

But I know one thing that I can guarantee you: Every time that the ‘Cats step out on the football field, you better be ready.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch and I’m being joined by Michigan’s Marcus Ray. Marcus, thank you very much for joining us today.

Marcus Ray: Thank for having me today, Jose.

LL: You’re a defensive guy and I think everyone can agree going into the season that it’s not really the offense that’s going to be a major concern even though the quarterback position is in flux. It’s really the defense.

You have the two best players on the team last year on the defensive side of the ball, Brandon Graham and Donovan Warren, leaving. How concerned are with the defense going into the season? Especially with the injury to Troy Woolfolk being lost for the season?

MR: Well I think Michigan needs to work on all three phases of the game: offense, defense and special teams. I don’t think the offense was just completely unstoppable and lights out. It was just the strength of the team.

Obviously we’ve had trouble on defense at Michigan the last couple of years and defense wins championships. Offensive teams always tend to start off a little bit slower at the beginning of the season and come together a little bit later and the defense usually stops people because the offense has to adjust and get their timing down and the defense reacts.

But, I think there should be a holistic concern for all three aspects of the game. I don’t think by all means Michigan is a great team. I think at times, on the offensive side of the ball they didn’t perform very well. They fumbled on the one-yard line against Ohio State and stuff like that.

Now I know they have young quarterbacks and this is the new year for this new coaching regime and they still haven’t settled in and truly hung their hat on a quarterback. Any time you’re in a situation like that where you don’t know who your quarterback is going to be week to week, there’s no way your offense can have continuity.

And as far as losing Brandon Graham on defense, I think that’s a definitely blow. I don’t think losing Donovan Warren is going to necessary kill Michigan’s defense. That experience probably could’ve been useful this year. And definitely losing Troy just from a leadership stand point, that hurts them. But Troy wasn’t out there tearing it up either.

So Michigan has got to find a way to get big-time talent to play on a high level, on all three stages of the ball.

LL: You played on some great Michigan teams and played on some great Michigan defenses. How frustrating is it to watch Michigan look downright mediocre and at some times awful the last (two seasons)?

MR: It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to not … Watching Michigan now, growing up, I would’ve probably would have went to Ohio State being that I’m from Columbus. Michigan became Michigan because of the coaching staffs and because we had great players. So if you look at it, all the games Schembechler won, all the titles, all the games (coach Gary) Moeller and Lloyd Carr … that’s Michigan.

So Michigan was built on winning success. A winning successful tradition and passing that torch on, passing that winning torch on and maintaining a high level of competent coaches and five-star football players.

So the team I played on, I believe our ’97 team had 34 guys that I can count off the top of my head that played in the National Football League at least one season. I don’t see 11 to 34 guys on that (2010) roster that I can see playing on Sundays eventually.

And that’s no knock on anybody. It’s just the name on the front of the shirt has remained the same but we don’t have the same caliber of athletes that made everyone fall in love with Michigan and help build that empire to the level that it once was.

So that’s why we’re having 5-7 seasons, 3-9 seasons. We don’t have the same talent. Some of the best players in the country won’t even open Michigan’s recruiting mail right now. And Michigan has one of the best facilities in the country. When I came (to visit), I felt like the tourist instead of family because everything was new. And I wish that I could’ve played in an indoor facility like that or the luxury suites at the Big House.

But the guys that came (inaudible), this new new generation that made this possible, they’re no where near playing Michigan football. And when you have talent that’s average to a little above average talent on paper – because people can say what you want coming out of high school. “This kid was this kid,” “This kid has four stars. He’s a four star.”

Well I saw a one-star kid like Glen Steele come in and be an All-American at Michigan. We have to find football players and not get caught up in who’s ranked where, but we have to find a way to get those football players; those mean rough tough, mentally tough strong football players that are coachable that want to come in and win for Michigan. Now guys are leaving Michigan left and right. They don’t want to be there.

LL: Does Michigan have to make a coaching change after this season?

MR: Do they have to? No.

LL: I’m sorry, would you like them to?

MR: Would I like them to? I would like them to make any change necessary to win games. If they have an unsuccessful season, then yeah. There has to be some change at some point. Now if they have a successful season … you gotta define what a success is. Michigan used to win eight games and used to call that a losing season. Now we’re just fighting and setting up a up a weaker schedule to just to make a bowl game. So is six wins a successful year?

If Michigan does not show at least a competitive 9-to-10-win season, then there probably needs to be some changes. I don’t know if it’s top down or you start to weed out some of these guys and try to find the best coaching staff in America you can put together. I’m not sure that’s the best coaching staff that they could put together.

When I look back to ’94 and I saw Les Miles, I saw Greg Madison, I saw Lloyd Carr, I saw Gary Moeller, I saw (inaudible). Now I’m naming future college head coaches, professional head coaches, national champion head coaches. Then we had guys like Erik Campbell, Vance Bedford, Stan Parrish. Our coaching staff was a who’s who.

So if Michigan is not going to win, then Michigan is going to have to make the changes they need to to get whoever they need in. Whether they created a who’s who list. if they get the who’s who as far as players, the Michigan is going to be back in business.

So to answer you question specifically, if Michigan has an unsuccessful year, then I say yeas, make some changes. If they win it all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

LL: Dave Brandon has come out and said that judging Rich Rodriguez’s performance at the end of this season just by wins wouldn’t be smart. But let’s say you’re the athletic director and you decide you want to set a benchmark for Rich Rod.

Where would you set it at in terms of wins and where would you tell him, “This is where we’d like you to be at the end of the year or else we’re going to be making changes.”?

MR: If I was the AD, we’re talking Michigan AD Marcus Ray, I would say “Run a clean program, no violations. Do everything by the book.” If Michigan is a football program of integrity, character and class and kids are on pace to graduate and they’re no kids fighting and getting into trouble with the law off the field.

If we got a program that can run like that, that’s the hardest part. The wins and loses are the easy part of coaching. It’s managing the program that makes it tough. So we can minimize the NCAA violations, do everything by the book, practice 20 hours a week, treat kids with respect. Do not curse them out or make them leave and run them out of town.

If we can nurture our athletes and teach them how to be men, then you’ve probably got the right coach.

Now, if you get all that on track, kids are able to graduate, now if we win a few more games, then that shows the program is headed in the right direction and seven or eight wins, when you look at the schedule, shouldn’t be out of reach.

Now if you just get beat by a team you’re supposed to lose to, then that’s something different. If you play a team that you’re legitimately not as good … I mean there were teams that we played, Lloyd Carr said, “We’re not better than this team but we can win if we x, y, z, a, b, c.” That’s the honest truth.

So I don’t think a number … I know that we can’t have another losing season. But as an AD I want to see a clean program that can be represented throughout the country as a model program for leadership, mentorship, execution, integrity, character.

Once you have a program like that and the right kind of guys living the right way off the field, the program is always heading in the right direction. And the wins will come. It’s just this team needs to have everything happen at the same time right now.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Northwestern’s Damien Anderson, member of the 2000 co-Big Ten champions. Damien, thank you very much for joining us today.

Damien Anderson: I appreciate you having me today, Thanks for you guys taking some interest and hopefully I can be of some benefit.

LL: Well, you certainly can. For any Northwestern fans that haven’t been able to keep up with you, you are a man of many jobs. Especially in broadcasting. You’re out here in Phoenix on 1060 AM, you also have a radio show online.

But I first want to talk about the website that you have, planetgridiron.com. Could you talk a little bit about what that website does and how it began?

DA: Well, Jose, really Planet Gridiron is a social networking (site), similar to Facebook, MySpace, but it’s geared for (inaudible) as progressed through the years of my football playing experience, let’s just say football in high school, college and professionally, I got to the point of progressing and I’d always tell myself, “Man, if I only knew this information back then.”

And that’s what Planet Gridiron was established to do. Obviously if you love football and play the game, you feel like you have your own life and you have the same ideals. So it’s based to give you informed information, not necessarily about nutrition, but academics, but also just to have fun. You can upload videos as well as pictures and share information with different people around the country about experiences.

LL: Explain how is it that you went from just having that same feeling many other athletes have – “If only I knew then what I know know” – to actually putting it into action and making a website.

DA: Well Jose I just felt that no one was out there that had done the premise of what PlanetGridiron.com was about. It was something I was passionate about. I was teaching my son and I saw how developed he was and I just really thought that’s the thing that separates a lot of athletes from success, is understanding the game.

And that’s what Planet Gridiron is developed to do. To understand the game; what an A-gap and B-gap is, different coverages. From the field dimension to something as complex as blitzes are. So it’s a tool to be used and have fun with.

LL: Technology and the Internet has completely blown up since your playing days. When you first started the website and going into social media, was there any … were you anxious at all with the social media and being able to keep up with the trends of online communications.

DA: Well no. … I knew where I wanted to take off and that’s where our economy and our world with social media just tookoff and is taking off. I mean Twitter and MySpace and Facebook and all those things. … And that’s what I tried to do with Planet Gridiron in that niche of social media, but obviously having it attached to something that I love has benefited my life in the game of football.

LL: Now I had mentioned before you do co-host a radio show and that’s your traditional media, but you also have a show online at VoiceAmericaSports.com. It’s (called) “Planet Gridiron.” What do you talk about in that program?

DA: Well at PlanetGridiron.com I had a great opportunity through a guy named (inaudible). He actually played for Ohio State back in the day and he’s one of our producers of the show. And I also co-host it with Roland Hill, he’s I guess a celebrity auctioneer and Dave Lockhart, who played at the University of Arizona.

It’s a colorful perspective on the world of sports. We try and incorporate local celebrities and national celebrities. Anywhere from Alan Branch, Larry Fitzgerald, Darnell Dockett, to several NFL GMs and Sean Salisbury. It’s just a different perspective on what the game is all about.

Our perception of what it’s about from athletes. Not just the nutrition aspect of it but the academic aspect. All of the above we try and cover every facet of what the game of football can do for people’s lives.

LL: Now did you always know you wanted to go into a broadcasting career? Northwestern has a great journalism program at Medill, but did you always know you wanted to do broadcasting?

DA: I was interested in college. I was a communications major in business institutions. So I always knew that I could convey my point in a manner that all could understand. But at the same point, it was just some great opportunity presented itself, like I said, with Voice America Sports and Planet Gridiron Radio and PlanetGridiron.com, it was just a great match. (inaudible) in training and being readily available 365, it’s a year round thing and talking about the sport and how it relates to people’s lives and using football as a tool to impact your life in a positive way.

That’s just what I wanted to do and the opportunity through The Fan (1060 AM in Phoenix) presented itself. And I do a show on Saturday with co-host Mike Rose, “Calling All Sports Saturday.” And you can also checkout the podcast as well as on azsportstalk.com, and we just talk about local sports as well as the national media.

I also do a little pre-game and post game on 620 KPR as well as some preview and post-game review on 1060 on Mondays.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Ohio State’s Bobby Olive. Bobby thank you very much for joining us today.

Bobby Olive: Not a problem, thanks for having me.

LL: The punt return against LSU, that was kind of your breakout moment as a player at Ohio State. You guys were down two touchdowns and had an amazing comeback. On that particular play, when you’re back there in the moment, what’s going through your mind? Are you just telling yourself, “I’m going to make a big run”? Are you telling yourself to hold on to the ball? What exactly is going through your mind just before you get that ball?

BO: Well for me it was pretty much two different mindsets. My sophomore year, that was the LSU game, I was still trying to learn about out the whole Buckeye history and all that stuff. So at that time I was still learning how to become a college football player. And that was my first big game playing in too. So with me being so young – and I remember being in that huddle the last drive and every play – I was a first-year starter, Greg Frey our quarterback was a first-year, Jeff Graham … it’s like half of the offense that was on the field was all first-year starters, so it was new to everybody.

But the thing I thought was good was that no one was real nervous. But on that particular touchdown catch, I remember when Greg called the play he basically called a double post. And for whatever reason, LSU went into a man-type coverage and as a wide receiver you feel, everyone wants to be covered man-to-man, so we feel we could beat anyone man-to-man.

But we called the play and lined up and I kind of knew he was going to throw the ball to me because he shifted the coverage over toward Jeff Graham and left me on an island … and it was just me and him one-on-one. So I knew (Frey) was going to throw me the ball. So my mindset, being a young sophomore in a big game on national TV and everyone was watching back in Atlanta, where I’m from, I was just like, “You better not drop this ball.”

That was my thing, “You better not drop this ball.” I knew Greg was going to throw it to me. So that was my thinking. Versus the Iowa game I was a senior, I was senior, I was a three-year starter and my mindset was a lot different that game compared to the LSU game.

LL: Could you talk about that a little bit. You’re immediate reaction when you make the plays as a sophomore versus a senior. I’m assuming like you said, in the LSU game you’re just telling yourself, “Don’t drop the ball.” I’m sure in the Iowa game your senior year you know you’re not going to drop the ball.

So after you make those plays, what’s the reaction like following the play your sophomore year versus your senior year?

BO: Well, sophomore year it was more … because back then that’s when college football allowed players to really celebrate in the endzone. It was a big thing. And like I said, I was one of the guys on the team who was the little prankster, the guy that tries to keep everyone fired up.

So when I held onto the ball and I saw the referee give the touchdown sign, I immediately went into this goofy dance in the back of the endzone and then all my boys (inaudible), they were in the endzone right there with me, so I wanted to do my little dance. And back then that was cool to do that. And that was also part of my mindset. I was like, “Make sure you don’t drop the ball and when you do catch it, you get up and do your dance.”

Versus senior season, I was a little more mature. So by that time I was just focusing on, I know it was a big stage and Iowa was really good that year and it was at Iowa. My whole thing then, when he called the play it was an option route. I knew the ball was going to be to me or Jeff Graham. So I actually wanted Greg to throw me the ball, like most wide receivers do. I wanted to be in that moment because I knew there was only one or two seconds left in the game.

And my first thought after I caught it was … it kind of felt like the LSU game as far as the excitement, but all I could do at that point was run to the sideline because just to celebrate with your teammates. It was a really exciting moment for us. We were all seniors and we knew that game put us in position to possibly play in the Rose Bowl.

….

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Ohio State’s Bobby Olive. Bobby thank you very much for joining us today.

Bobby Olive: Not a problem, thanks for having me.

LL: Now I’m sure for our Ohio State readers and listeners, hearing your name is just a blast from the past. Could you just tell us what are you up to these days?

BO: I’m working in sales. I’m still living in Columbus, Ohio, and I do telecom. We basically sell phone and data solutions.

LL: Now still living in Columbus do you deal with a lot of, when you’re working in sales, do you deal with a lot of people that remember you from back in your playing days at Ohio State?

BO: Believe it or not, that’s one of the amazing things about it. I remember as a student athlete at Ohio State, my position coach, coach Gene Hewie, he would always tell me, “Look, if you keep your nose clean and finish school, you can always come back to Columbus and people will recognize you and remember you 20-30 years later.” I was like, “Coach, come on man, please.”

But I’m really seeing it now, believe it or not, people are still remembering me mostly because either the LSU game or the Iowa game. Those are the two games that people kind of put my names next to. So it’s good. It definitely helps with sales too.

LL: I was just going to say, when you’re doing a sales call or working with a client and they bring up the Iowa or LSU game or just your entire career in general, in the back of your mind are you thinking, “Alright, I have this sale here”?

BO: (laughs) Yeah, as a matter of fact I do, because most of the time it definitely gets me in the door. I’ve kind of used it to my advantage a little bit because people just remember those two games. But the question I always ask, particularly about the LSU game … people always used to say … I probably met over 100,000 people and they always say, “I was at that game.” At that time our stadium only held 85,000 and with about five minutes to go, we were down two touchdowns, half the stadium left the game. So I always ask them, “So, were you one of the ones who stayed or were you one of the fans that left?” So it’s a little joke I use with a lot of my potential customers.

LL: And I’m pretty sure based on the responses there must have been over 120,000 people that stayed to watch the end of the game.

BO: (laughs) Right, right. Based on the responses there was well over 100,000 people still there. That’s a good thing, that’s good.

LL: You said that a lot of people mention the Iowa and LSU games. Has there been one thing someone has mentioned that you thought, “My god, how do you remember something that happened that long ago?”

BO: Yeah. The one thing that stands out is before each home game, me and Jeff Graham we would come out—we called ourselves Batman and Robin—and we would come out and do our little two laps around the stadium and then we would always go in the handicapped section and we would sign autographs and give away wristbands. That was our thing and I really enjoyed doing that. I enjoyed seeing the smiles on the faces of the parents and we would do that.

And a lot of people remember that and that was something we did two hours before each game. So, as you know, there’s only about 10,000 people in the stadium two hours prior to the game. It’s a lot of people that remembered we would do that. And we would do that before every home game.

LL: Has there ever been something that a fan tells you about that they remember but you yourself don’t remember?

BO: Yeah, all the time. I consider myself one of the guys … I was the guy on the team that kind of kept everybody involved. I was the prankster, the jokester. So I would do little things on the sidelines. I would stand on top of the bleacher and try to get the fans back into the game.

So a lot of people kind of remind me of the fact that they really enjoyed seeing me get up and try and get everybody involved. I’d go out and make a first down catch and just get up and kind of express my excitement and just try and get everyone pumped up. But in my own mind I was trying to get my teammates pumped up, but I guess the fans kind of (enjoyed) it.

….

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Michigan’s Chris Hutchinson, the captain of the 1992 team. Chris thanks so much for joining us. Can you fill everyone in on what you’re doing now?

We know that you went to medical school after your career in Michigan. But could you tell people where you are now?

Chris Hutchinson: I’m still in Southeastern Michigan and I’m an ER physician at Beaumont Hospital just outside Royal Oak. Actually it’s the third-busiest ER in the country.

LL: Now a lot of Michigan fans take a lot of pride in the fact that you went to medical school at Michigan after your playing days and ended up becoming a doctor. When did you realize that you want to do this after your football career?

CH: It was during undergrad when you’re trying to figure out what your major is going to be. I took an economics class and really didn’t like it at all and in summer school I took an anatomy class and found that I really enjoyed studying that sort of subject.

And at that point I thought, “You know what, might as well see if I can do it.” And as school went along and I continued to do very well, I thought that this could be a realistic opportunity for me.

LL: Now how often are you recognized in the ER by Michigan fans?

CH: Probably about once a month. I actually get more people who think I’m Steve Hutchinson and he’s obviously much more in the news, but then I say, “No, I’m the other Hutchinson.” And they go, “Oh, I knew there was two.”

LL: And what’s it like for you to fight off that jock rep? To be a guy that played Michigan football and when you were going through medical school, for people to take you seriously and realize that you’re the real deal here?

CH: Well in medical school, after you get out of the classroom, you don’t have to take it too seriously because most people don’t expect a lot out of medical students. When you get to be a resident and you’re a doctor and they expect a certain level of knowledge out of you, I think that’s where there expectations came from.

You can be a good student and sit in the classroom and do well. But to translate that into making decisions in front of patients in life or death situations, that’s a different situation all together.

LL: What was it like for you to attend medical school at Michigan, where just a couple of years earlier you were a football god?

CH: It was a great opportunity. Clearly my name was well received and it was a great opportunity to stay around Ann Arbor. Who would’ve thought a kid from Houston, Texas, would end up spending nine years in Ann Arbor and accomplishing all the things that our team did?

LL: Was it weird for you to be walking around as a full-time student on the same campus before you were training so hard to play football?

CH: No, I looked at it as sort of … it was a chapter and at the end of the book, it was time to move on and it was very natural because we had so much success and we won the Rose Bowl and I had the opportunity to go to the NFL Combine and take a look at the next step. And I actually had deferred medical school and then when I got to Cleveland Browns rookie camp I thought, “Boy I think it’s time for me to move on.”

So it was a very natural progression from, you know, your career has a finite lifespan to it and now it’s the next chapter of my life.

LL: What was it like for you after your senior season? You’d been an All-American. A captain at Michigan. And then for people to peg you as too small and going undrafted and then going through the process of being an undrafted free agent.

CH: That was … you always have that thing that motivates you and that was one of my little motivation pieces. I still tell people that to this day. They’re like, “You’re kind of small to be a defensive tackle.” And I say, “It’s all about leverage. I give up 50-75 pounds every play and yet I still came out on top just about every time.”

So that was sort of my chip that I held. Everybody always thought that I was too small and that I could never play. And it was just sort of me proving everybody wrong.

LL: And looking back on your NFL career, was there one kind of moment or story where you realized that you just didn’t want to pursue the NFL and you just wanted to go to medical school, instead?

CH: Well it wasn’t until, actually just recently, that I put it all together. When we first got to Cleveland we went through all the … the doctor saw you and they did all the screening stuff and well I got a tetanus shot. And I didn’t know I was allergic to tetanus shots until about seven years ago.

But I put it all together and the next day in training camp I could not figure out why I was so sore. I could barely bend and turn and move and run and it never made sense to me. And so then nine years later when I got my next tetanus shot and the same thing happened and then I realized in 7th grade I got my tetanus shot, I missed my team photograph for football and it all became very clear to me that, that’s why I felt so horrible.

And that’s why I couldn’t really turn and move and so that’s what pushed me over the edge to say, “You know what, I’ve done a lot, I’ve had a lot of injuries. I’ve got medical school on the horizon. Let’s just say a career is a career and move along.”

LL: Yeah, I’m sure Browns fans are rolling their eyes right now thinking about their doctors infecting someone with tetanus.

But what was it like for you to hang it up so early? I know that guys that play 10-15 years have a hard time. I can imagine someone so young – it would’ve been so tough. Although you did have medical school at least waiting for you.

CH: Again I had done so much. I got to start at such an early age as a redshirt freshman and to win five Big Ten Championships and four Rose Bowls. College football to me sits much higher on a pedestal than the NFL.

Not that the NFL is not a great game. But I love the passion associated with (the college game) and it’s a very different game when you translate a college player to a professional player. And I sort of knew that, while you can make a small guy that’s not supposed to be able to play in college, that transition you can do that. And it’s a lot harder that whole other step to make that transition in the NFL.

And since I had felt like I had done all I need to do, it felt very natural to move on.

……

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by BYU’s Robbie Bosco, member of the 1984 national champions. The BYU team is widely recognized as the last time a non-BCS school won the national championship in football. Do you think it’s fair for other non-BCS school that it’s been so long without a team winning a national championship?

Robbie Bosco: I think … you know the thing, the rich get richer. That’s what college football is turning out to be. And it’s just not fair. There have been a lot of teams out there that have deserved a chance to do it and to win and to have the opportunity to play for a national championship.

They’ve gone and played through their season and have been undefeated and then to get blasted and not even get a chance to do it and it’s just not fair. And I’ve never been a big proponent of a playoff system. But I think the more that I’m around it, the more that I think it’s automatic. I mean everybody has one. Every sport has playoff systems. Division I-AA has a playoff system. Why can’t we get one? And there’s got to be a way to do it.

LL: Now obviously I know you’re allegiance lies with BYU, but right now what we have in terms of non-BCS schools, you have TCU is a team that could very much challenge for a national title and also a future member of the Mountain West Conference in Boise State.

Is there a little part of you that as you’re rooting for BYU, you’re really pulling for these other two teams to go undefeated and really challenge the current BCS structure?

RB: Oh yeah. Any team that is not part of the BCS, you want them to do well. You want them to go as far as they can go and kind of blow a hole in the whole system and … because all it takes, like I talked about before, you can have an unbelievable season and you lose one game at the end and it’s all, “See? That’s why you weren’t in the big game. Because you can’t beat this team or that team or teams like that.”

So you want these teams to be successful and you want to have that opportunity to make everyone think a little bit, “Maybe a playoff is where we should be going now and that’s the thing that we should be doing.” So hopefully in years to come we can get that exchange a little bit.

…..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Minnesota’s Karl Mecklenburg, member of three ACF-title-winning Broncos squads and currently a motivational speaker and book author, who has a new book out – “Heart Of A Student Athlete: All-Pro Advice For Competitors And Their Families.” Mr. Mecklenburg thank you very much for joining us today.

I also wanted to talk with you briefly about your NFL career. You come in with the Broncos, before that their history isn’t … when you were joining with the Broncos they didn’t have quite the history that the Broncos have today with your teams as the teams everyone kind of looks back at and remembers fondly.

What was it like being on three AFC-winning title teams and really kind of building what’s considered one of the most rabid fan bases in the NFL in Denver?

Karl Mecklenburg: You know when I got here in Denver in 1983, there was already crazy fans. I mean Denver fell in love with the Broncos early on. In ’77 there was the Orange Crush team that went to the Super Bowl. Ended up losing to Dallas on the Butch Johnson did-he-catch-it, didn’t-he-catch-it thing in the endzone. And (the team) had a great base of wonderful players.

They’re defense was really their strong point, their strong suit. When I got to the Broncos, their guys like Randy Gradishar, Tom Jackson, Louis Wright, Steve Foley, Barney Chavous – I mean unbelievable individuals. Great men and real mentors for me. I didn’t know what I was doing.

I was a 12th round draft pick out of Minnesota. I really hadn’t been in a program where there were a lot of pros coming out of it. So when I got to the Broncos, those guys took me under their wing and taught me how to be a professional player and in many ways taught me how to be a man.

So I had great examples when I got here and I came in with a great class. There were 13 of us that made that team. It’s very unusual that many people make the team. John Elway is obviously the most famous but there are a number of guys that contributed. Gary Kubiak, who was John’s backup through Gary’s whole career, was one of the rookies too.

We had some very talented guys and a young group and a group that played hard every single down. And if you can do that, you’ve got a chance.

LL: You’re certainly no stranger to kind of overcoming the odds. So what was it like coming into an NFL team. You’re a 12th round pick, not too far from being Mr. Irrelevant. How do you survive and become successful the way you did in the NFL?

KM: One of the things I think that I had that was an advantage is that I had paid attention in my studies. I knew how to learn. There’s all kinds of talented and gifted guys out there. That’s goes without question. There are gifted people all over the world. But the ones who are able to adjust and learn and persevere and do what has to be done at that time when they’re challenged, are the ones that are going to be successful.

I came to the Broncos as a nose guard. Tore a ligament in my elbow and they moved me over to defensive end. And it gave me a chance to play. Our first preseason game, for some reason I goted match up with Seattle’s starting left tackles, a guy name Ron Essink.

In one quarter I got two sacks and forced a fumble and coach Reeves named me the defensive player of the game and Elway is the offensive player of that game and that was it. It was having an opportunity, being decisive, stepping up and performing.

And that’s what the NFL is all about. You only get so many opportunities to make plays. The guys that are able to make them at key times and crucial situations, that’s the guy that you want to have on your team.

It’s the same in business. It’s the same in relationships. There are times that you have to step up. And how you respond, if you’re decisive in those moments, you’ve got a chance to be successful in those areas, too.

……

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Washington State’s Jason Gesser, the all-time winningest quarterback in Washington State history and currently the high school football coach at Eastside Catholic High School.

You were the all-time winningest quarterback at Washington State but I have to believe that the last two years in particular have been pretty hard on you, just as a fan, not only an alum and a former player but just as a fan, to watch Washington State and its struggles.

Why do you think it is that has been so difficult for the Cougars to win in the last three years?

Jason Gesser: You know, like you said, it has been very, very painful to watch because of where we got that program to where a lot of people talked about, “Hey, you led the Cougars to the Rose Bowl. Was that your most memorable, most favorite season ever?” And to be completely honest with you, my favorite season was after I was gone and watching the team after me, after our guys left, and they went on to win the Holiday Bowl and beat Vince Young and Texas in the Holiday Bowl.

To me that showed that all the hard work that we put in for the five years that we were there, was continuing over. That it wasn’t “Oh, we’re going to win for a couple years and we’re going to go away.” So that was very gratifying for me to see that continuing on.

And now to see where it’s at, it’s very, very heartbreaking. But, to be completely honest with you, what has been transpiring over the last two years, even though it has been very hard to watch, it’s very understandable how it got there. Because when Mike Price left, coach (Bill) Doba was a great guy, coach Doba did a lot of great things, but from what I knew of him and knew of the situation, he wasn’t a guy that loved the limelight.

He just wanted to be a positional coach, a coordinator, scheme up defenses and do that stuff. He didn’t want to talk to the media. He was just a true, true coach and he was one of the great guys that I always looked up to. And in doing that he entrusted a lot of the power to his assistant coaches.

And to be completely honest with you, I think the assistant coaches kind of do whatever they want to do with that power and kind of let it slip away to where it is right now or where it’s been the last two years.

And then when Paul Wulff and his staff came in, they had to go and dig out of a whole. And they were digging, and digging, and digging and now they’re kind of at where they’re on a level playing field and now they got to lay their foundation and now they’ve got to start building on top.

So these last two years have been kind of getting out of a hole. So hopefully this next year those things have paid off. We’re on a level playing field right now, so hopefully it’ll be a lot more competitive and we can see that translate out on the field as well as a couple of wins this year and then start building and building and building it.

As far as the entire school goes, as far as the entire recruiting goes, it’s phenomenal. I mean you’ve got your two worst seasons in the history of WSU football. But we’ve had two of our best seasons for fundraising as well as two of our best seasons for recruiting.

It’s absolutely phenomenal the work that the school and that the administration (and) the athletic foundation is putting in to it. And the coaches are putting into recruiting and getting stuff done because now when the team starts winning again and they continue to work this hard, it’s only going to get better and better and better.

And fans, including myself, we’ve just got to be patient. We’ve got to realize that, in today’s world everyone wants instant gratification. But you got to realize that things are a process, things do take time and it’s hard to swallow and it’s hard to look at and watch, but at the same time, at the end of the day and the big picture of things, it’s all going to work out.

So once you realize and the fans realize that, we’ll start seeing the improvement of the team, to continue to get better and we will get back to where we had to ten win seasons in a row and a dominant force in the Pac-10.

…..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermn.com and I’m being joined by Providence’s God Shammgod. Thanks so much for joining us, we really appreciate it.

I want to go back to the 1997 season when you were at Providence. Could you walk about your best memory from that season when you guys went to the Elite Eight?

God Shammgod: I guess the whole tournament was my best memory of the season because everything came together and we played well. And the NCAA Tournament is one of the best experiences you can have as a player.

LL: What was it like when you guys beat Duke and you guys were kind of the up and comers and Duke was the dynasty that it is now?

GS: It was exciting for the school. But as far as the team, we felt that we could beat them. It wasn’t like it was little guys against big giants. But for the school it was great recognition because Duke is definitely a powerful college (inaudible). So any time you beat Duke, it’s an honor.

LL: What was it like in the game against Arizona in the Elite Eight, You guys were down 12 with about six minutes left and Austin Croshere had fouled out of the game and you just took over. And you actually had a chance to win the game with a 15-footer with a couple seconds left and you guys went on to lose in overtime.

What do you remember about that game and that shot?

GS: I just remember we played hard. We wanted it really bad and we came up short, but we played hard. Even though we lost it was like we had won when we got back to our school. I remember that. It was one of the best feelings in the world.

LL: Do you ever think to yourself, “If I probably make that one shot, we probably would’ve been national champions?” Since Arizona went on to win it all.

GS: I just think if we had won period, we would’ve won.

LL: Are you still hoping to catch on with an NBA team in the near future or are you still doing this to make a paycheck and make a living?

GS: Naw. Right now I’m just playing basketball. I’ve been playing enough to make a living, so that part is over with. I’m going to play, hopefully forever. Hopefully if something comes out of it, it comes out of it. But if it don’t, right now everything is (inaudible).

My son’s coming up. My son’s a good player. And for me it’s always been family. It’s never been so much about the NBA. It’s always about family since I was in high school. I had my son when I was in 10th grade. So it’s always been about family.

LL: How old is your son now and what can we expect from him?

GS: My son just turned 16. He’ll hopefully be an All-American and going to be a good player at the end of the day. And it’s 95 percent that he’ll go to Providence and that’s where we’re going from there. And it’s up to God and God willing, he’ll go pro.

LL: And is his name God Shammgod as well?

GS: Yes.

LL: Great. I’m sure college basketball fans everywhere will be looking for him. Do you have kind of a timeline on when you expect to hang it up and move on from basketball?

GS: I’m not sure because it could be next year or the year after. I don’t know. Whenever I feel the time is right, I’m going to do it.

LL: And do you have a plan for after basketball? Do you want to get into coaching or stay in the New York City area?

GS: Naw. I’m in the works of doing something now but I can’t talk about that as far as coaching. Right now I’m coaching, playing and training so it’s not far-fetched.

LL: And could you talk about just the reaction … we get asked about you so often. Everyone wants to know where is God Shammgod. They just remember that magical run in the Tournament.

What’s it like being a celebrity? People want to profile you for Slam and things like that. When people see you and say, “I remember that Tournament run” or “I remember that name” – how could you forget the name God Shammgod? What’s the reaction like for basketball fans when they see you.

GS: I mean it’s good. I’m honored. They don’t have to do that so I’m honored by it. I love the fans and I hope they keep rooting for me and they root for my son.

LL: Last question for you. Everyone knows Jim Jones is best known for his song “Ballin’ ”. How come we didn’t see a God Shammgod cameo in the video with the jump shot?

GS: I was in China.

LL: Oh, well that explains it.

GS: (laughs)

….

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Providence’s God Shammgod. Thanks so much for joining us, we really appreciate it.

Last we heard you were rehabbing an injury but planning on going back overseas to China. Is that still the plan?

God Shammgod: Yes. I’m doing stuff up at my school right now to go back to China.

LL: Do you know which team you’ll play for?

GS: Shanxi Dragons.

LL: Is that the same team Stephon Marbury was on last season?

GS: Yeah.

LL: Have you talked to Stephon? Everyone knows he’s from Brooklyn. Have you spoken to him about playing next season?

GS: Naw. I just came from China like three weeks ago.

LL: Now a lot of people have been asking us about the Converse Band of Ballers tournament you were in a couple months ago. What was it like to defend your title down there and did anyone complain that Jim Jones was bringing in a ringer that used to play in the NBA?

GS: No, it was a good thing. It was a good thing to defend the title at Band of Ballers. And no one complained about ringers because I’m still from Harlem at the end of the day and that was what we were representing.

LL: Now many people know that you and Jim Jones are both from Harlem. But could you talk about how you guys first met and the relationship you guys have?

GS: I’ve known Jim since I was like 14. (inaudible) When you’re from Harlem, when you do something really positive (inaudible).

LL: And another thing some people know about you but many do not, that you went to high school with Ron Artest. Is he the same Ron Artest he was back in high school or has he changed now?

GS: Naw, he’s the same person, just bigger. Little more skills.

LL: Did he have any crazy antics like he does now?

GS: He’s always been an emotional player, an emotional person. So it’s just the same, just a little bigger and a little bit more skill, but he’s the same exact person.

LL: Another question I have for you is there is now a new player on the scene playing junior college ball who is called God’s Gift Achiuwa. Have you heard of him?

GS: No.

LL: What advice would you give someone who is named God Shammgod or God’s Gift Achiuwa? What was it like for you? I’m sure you got plenty of jokes and hecklers in college.

GS: For me it was never that bad, I guess because I was good in basketball. At the end of the day, if you do the right stuff (inaudible).

And that was my father’s name, so for me I never knew better.

LL: Now one of the legends around your basketball career is that you taught Kobe Bryant the cross over dribble that he uses today. Can you give us the back story to that?

GS: Well me and Kobe, we played on the same team at the ABCD Camp. I was going into my senior year; he was going into his junior year. His father was coaching at La Salle College and I wanted to go to La Salle College. And Kobe’s father was trying to get him to go there instead of the NBA.

And me and him became close friends and he loved the way I dribbled. His father had actually showed him some dribble moves, stuff like that. But I just showed him some moves. Cross-overs, stuff like that. And he took it along with him.

LL: You said that you’re going back to China in 2010 for the 2010-11 season, but in the story in Slam Magazine a couple years ago, you said it was a real bad experience. Why are you going back overseas if it didn’t work out very well?

GS: China now has come full circle. Anyone that knows China now knows the league is totally different. The place is totally different. They’ve been built up since the Olympics. The Olympics basically changed everything that, not wrong but (inaudible). Everything became different.

LL: Yeah, could you talk about what’s changed in the past couple of years?

GS: As far as eating they have better restaurants. They have Friday’s, Applebee’s, stuff like that. The hotels are better because … they got better because of the Olympics. So they had to make better hotels, better gyms and things like that. So that changed everything.

LL: Are you excited by the fact that you’re a New York City guy, to be teaming up with Stephon Marbury, another New York City playground legend next season?

GS: I don’t know if Steph’s coming back yet, so I can’t say that. But me and Steph played together my whole life so this isn’t the first time. Me and Steph played AAU together my whole life.

……

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Penn State’s Adam Taliaferro.

About the play in particular, now 10 years later, what do you remember from it? Was it just kind of a fog because it happened so fast or do you remember it very vividly?

Adam Taliaferro: Yeah I still remember it pretty vividly. I was still familiar with it … I was going in to make a routine tackle and I remember kind of going in to take the running back’s legs out. I don’t remember much of the impact but I remember waking up on the ground and attempting to roll over and pick myself up and it just felt like nothing was there. And I tried to move my arm and my arm wouldn’t move and I thought I had broken my arm because I couldn’t move it.

Then I tried to pick my legs up to get up and nothing happened and that’s when I knew something was wrong and thankfully our trainer, Penn State’s and Ohio State’s trainers came out there and from that point they kind of took over and I don’t remember too much after that. But I think because they did everything 110 percent correct – without those guys I certainly wouldn’t be walking.

LL: What was it like for you on the field when you can’t move? Are you worried you could possibly die? I can only imagine what’s going through your head at that time.

AT: It was really strange. When I was laying there not being able to move, I thought I had a stinger or I thought I had a concussion. I had never had a stinger or a concussion before so I thought I had something like that. But the thought of being paralyzed, even though I couldn’t move, the thought of being paralyzed never went through my head because when you’re playing football you always think that is going to happen to everybody else.

So, of course I was concerned, but I wasn’t really panicking because I thought it was something that would be temporary. I thought I was going to be flying back with the team later on that evening. When I was on the field I was nervous, but I just didn’t think anything was going to be that bad.

LL: It’s been well-chronicled what a positive person you are. How long did it take you to kind of wallow in your own misery, when you’re given a three percent chance to walk, until you finally said, “I’m going to beat this and beat this odds”?

AT: I think for me the best thing I had was my parents. That night, when I got to the Ohio State Medical Center, the night of my injury, the first thing my dad told me was, “You’re going to get out of this. You’re going to walk.” He refused to believe, or for me to even think that I wasn’t going to walk again. From day one I had him and my mom and my brother drilling in my head saying, “You’re going to walk again, you’re going to walk again.”

And I had so many other people in the Penn State community and all around the country just saying, “You’re going to walk again, you’re going to walk again.” And when you hear that enough, you really start to believe it. So, of course I was upset that my football career was over, but after about a week or so I said, “You know what, you really can’t change the past, but you can change the future.”

So I just went at it, kind of like it was a football practice every day. Every therapy session I just went as hard as I could go because I knew, I really believed that I was going to walk again and I just had so many people in my corner that I just felt like it was just a matter of time before I’d be up on my feet again.

LL: What do you tell people like Ohio State’s Tyson Gentry, who had a similar spinal cord injury in 2006 but hasn’t been able to walk yet? And you were able to walk by the next season opener.

AT: I remember when Tyson had his injury and I talked to coach Tressel and then I got to talk to Tyson and his father and both of our parents talked and I got to go out and visit Tyson. And what I tell him and what I tell anyone who has spinal cord injuries is that (with) these types of injuries, there is no same injury.

You could break the same bone in your neck and have two different results. It’s just so crazy how these injuries occur. And I’ve known people who’ve had a spinal cord injury and they’ve walked ten years later, so I never tell anyone that you can’t do it. I tell them, “You keep at it every day and don’t ever let someone say that you can’t do it.”

If you can’t walk again … Tyson’s doing great now. He went back to school, he graduated and he’s leading a great life. But even if he’s not walking, he’s independent again and he’s living a great life. But I tell them every day to keep at it because you never know. Ten years later you may see Tyson walking down the street. So tell him to never give up hope and that’s what I try to tell everybody because you never know. Especially with the advancements they’re making with spinal cord injuries today, you never know what could happen.

LL: What was it like for you after being given a three percent chance to walk again, to come back out on the field in the 2001 opener, to be jogging out onto the field?

AT: It was certainly an experience that is hard to still put into words because, like you said less than a year ago the doctors are saying I might not be able to walk again. And to be able to walk back into the stadium and Penn State was great; everyone that had a piece in my recovery: (my) therapist, my entire family were in the stadium that day.

So for me it was kind of like a big thank you for all those who had helped me get to that point and for them to be in the stadium and for the people who weren’t there, to see that on TV, I felt like I wanted to let other spinal cord injury patients see that as well. Because if they see me out there doing it, they can say, “Hey, if he can do it, I can do it.”

So for me it was a great opportunity just to share my story and to thank those who have helped me was something I will never forget.

LL: Could you talk a little bit about your relationship with the Paternos? I think everyone kind of pictures Joe Paterno as like their grandfather but no one really sees him off the field and you had so many stories about your interactions with Joe Paterno and his wife bringing you cookies. What was it like to really get to know him after your injury because you got injured in your fifth game of your college career?

AT: It was weird to me. Like you said, before my injury, as a freshman, we didn’t interact with Joe Paterno too much, we really interacted with our position coaches. So, of course Joe Paterno recruited me and I knew him, but after my injury I got to know him as a person and just got the opportunity to see the compassion that he has for his players.

I mean, you hear all the time, “He’s a good guy and he does a lot for his players,” but I got to see it firsthand that he really cares about us more than just football players and when he would come down to the hospital every other week to visit me and when Mrs. Paterno would drive from Penn State, which was—Philadelphia is a little over three hours from Penn State—she would drive down to bring me cookies.

Coach Paterno would visit me to say hello to other patients and he never wanted anyone to know. He didn’t want news people there, he didn’t want papers. And I would just watch him and say, “Wow, does he really need to be doing this?” And he didn’t have to do it. He could’ve easily just sat in his office and called me and asked how I was doing.

But for him to come down every other week is special. I don’t know if a lot of people would’ve done that. I mean, let alone for a football player or even someone in their own family (inaudible).

So my relationship with him is just at a different relationship than even some of the guys that just played and didn’t have an injury like I had. And I will always respect and always think of him as just a … kind of like a family member to me.

LL: Last question for you; I read a couple years ago that you said there was still some lingering effects from your injury, such as not being able to grip your hands fully. Are you now at a point where you’re completely back to normal, so to speak, or are there still lingering effects?

AT: Probably since we last spoke I’ve had two hand surgeries. I had a tendon transfer surgery and a fusion surgery in my hand to give me some more movement. So my left hand is fine, my right hand still has some tightness but it’s 100 percent better than it was before the surgeries.

I can write with it and hold things and do everything like that. It’s still tough to run and my entire right side is still just a little bit weaker than my left side. But I guess if you see me today, I guess it would be hard for you to know I had this injury and thankfully I’m able to work out every day and kind of lead a normal life. I’m really blessed and things have turned out really well for me.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by BYU’s Robbie Bosco, the starting quarterback of the 1984 national champions and currently the Varsity Club director at BYU. Mr. Bosco, thank you very much for joining us today.

Robbie Bosco: It’s good to be here with you Jose.

LL: Now could you please explain to us what exactly is the Varsity Club director’s job at BYU?

RB: Well I have a couple of jobs. Along with being the Varsity Club director, I also do a lot of fund raising. But as the Varsity Club director, it’s basically trying to get the former athletes back. Try to get them involved with the university.

And that may be through bringing them back for football games or basketball games or maybe reunions. A team may want to put on a ten-year national championship reunion that they had or different things like that.

Every football season, prior to the games, we have a tailgate party and we invite all the former athletes back. And we arrange anywhere from two to four hundred people. And then when we make a big push and we have something happening that’s kind of exciting back at the game, sometimes we’ll get five-six hundred people back for that.

So it’s been a lot of fun to be a part of that and get to know the other athletes that you may not have played with in their year.

LL: Now I know a little bit about what it’s like trying to find former athletes, just from our site. So trying to find former BYU athletes, can it be tricky for you? How challenging can it be at times?

RB: It’s very challenging. When you look at … it’s very hard because you try to reach them through e-mails and then when you get the female athletes, their e-mails have changed because they’ve gotten married and things like that.

So it’s very difficult. Most of the guys and females that come back for the Varsity Club tailgates are ones that may live around here. Or we’ll send out mass e-mails to former players and they’ll try to get back for a big game like Florida State last year. I think we had close to 700 former athletes back and it was a lot of fun.

Bronco Mendenhall, our BYU football coach, once a year he brings back the former players. And the first year that we did that we probably had 40 to 50 people come back, not including families. And this past year being, I think the fourth year we did this, I think there were close to 800 people that came back. So that’s growing, also, with that.

I’m not so much involved with that one. But that’s all part of the Varsity Club and bringing the former guys back.

LL: Now I have to imagine that it’s interesting, as you try to find athletes for different events, it’s interesting to see where people end up. For you as an athlete, I’m sure the community of athletes while you were attending, you got to know athletes, obviously on your own team, but in different sports.

Is it interesting to see where some of those people, who were athletes when you went to school, where they ended up and being able to see their families?

RB: That’s a big deal. One thing that we’ve always stressed here at BYU is family. And being part of a big family. And then to see a guy that you played with or, maybe guys that you knew who played other sports, and kind of see what they’re doing now and see what their family situation is. If they’re married, how many kids they have.

That’s a lot of fun. It brings back a lot of great memories and it just shows the maturity level that they might not have had when they were I college, but obviously they’ve had since they were married, and it’s a lot of fun to look at them and see what they’re doing now.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Kentucky’s Ramel Bradley. I wanted to ask you about the NBA Draft this year since I know you were a Kentucky Sports Radio correspondent there.

What were your thoughts about John Calipari’s comment where (he said), “This is the greatest day in Kentucky sports history,” and then people got upset about him saying he would rather not win a national championship and have five first round draft picks instead of winning a national championship and having zero first-round draft picks?

Ramel Bradley: Well I hadn’t heard that quote from coach. I just thought it was a great day, especially for Kentucky. We take a lot of pride in being first and doing everything the right way and it was just a historic day. All five of those guys were in the first round of the draft and they deserved it. They worked their tails off all year and I would be proud to be a part of that fruition.

LL: What’s your relationship like with John Calipari? I know you played with Tubby Smith and also Billy Gillispie. So you never played under Calipari but how close were you to him?

RB: I wouldn’t say I’m as close to him as the players are but every time I’m in Lexington and he’s in town, I do go say hello and he treats me as if I was his own also. I fell in love with him even though I didn’t play for him.

LL: And what’s it like to have both of your former coaches, Tubby Smith and Billy Gillispie, have very unceremonious exits from Lexington?

RB: Well I think for me it helped me out a lot mentally. It just made me a lot stronger as a player. It also made me realize that nothing is ever set in stone. On any given day, things change and you have to adapt to change and just do your best while adapting to those changes that are going to occur.

So I think that was the main thing and the main way that helped me out a lot.

LL: What’s it like for you to go back to Lexington, Kentucky? You hear so many stories of how former players are treated around town and it sounds like you’re almost like a member of the Beatles if you’re a former player. How much do you get back and what’s it like for you?

RB: Well it’s still pretty crazy. There’s no fan like Kentucky fans. They remember you forever and it’s kind of like when you give 150 percent on the court, then they give it right back to you whether you’re on the court or off the court. I still run into people that say, “Hey Ramel, how’re you doing?” And how much they love me and miss me and they want to see me in the NBA. (inaudible) It’s just great going back down here.

LL: What was your best memory at UK? You had a lot of ups and downs in your times with the Wildcats.

RB: I have so many memories it’s so hard to choose one. But if I had to, I would say it would probably be senior night. (inaudible) And I just remember after the game was over, it’s going down and I was hugging my teammate Joe Crawford and it was just a great feeling knowing that it was going to be my last time at Rupp and the fans and everyone was cheering and my mother, my family came down.

I think that was one of my best memories.

LL: Last question for you: What’s it like for you to see your former teammate Rajon Rondo, who a lot of people said coming into the league, “He doesn’t have a jump shot, he’s never going to make it.” And to see him become one of the best players in the NBA. How much encouragement does that give someone like you that’s trying to overcome the obstacles and make it?

RB: So much encouragement because, like you said, they said he couldn’t do this and he couldn’t do that and every year he improved at everything that they told him that he couldn’t do. So it’s just a great time for me to say, “You know what, I don’t care who doubts me, who doesn’t believes in me, if I believe in myself and I work as hard as I need to work, then good things are going to happen and I will reach my goals and my dreams.”

And every time I’m out there and I watch Rondo play, I’m just like, “Wow, this guy just improved so much and it’s well-deserved.”

LL: His time in Lexington was obviously a lot shorter than yours. But how close were you to him and how much do you keep in touch to give you tips on how to make it to the league?

RB: Well we were pretty close because we were both point guards, so we had to run checks by each other and go through scouting reports together, so we were pretty close while we were on campus. I still talk to him every now and again. Actually I ran into him, he was in New York back when we were both staying at the W Hotel and I ran into him there.

But we just talked. (inaudible) just to make sure everything is going well with him and his family. Basketball players don’t talk much about basketball when we’re around each other because it’s our lives.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Minnesota’s Karl Mecklenburg, member of three AFC title-winning Broncos squads and currently a motivation speaker and book author who has a new book out, Heart of a Student Athlete: All Pro Advice For Competitors And Their Families.

Mr. Mecklenburg, thank you very much for joining us today.

Karl Mecklenburg: Thanks, I appreciate it Jose.

LL: I would really like to talk about the book in a moment but first I would like to ask, a lot of athletes go into motivational speaking or speak at various events after their playing careers.

How did you get into motivational speaking or why did you get into this particular field?

KM: Well I tried a lot of different things. The thing I missed most from football was the adrenaline. The whole pregame excitement, the preparation, the game-time excitement. And I found that public speaking really replaces that. I get that adrenaline when I get up in front of a large group. In a lot of ways it’s like football. You game plan depending on the group you speak to, you perform at a high level for a short period of time and you evaluate and move on to the next one.

So in a lot of ways it’s been my way to replace football.

LL: It’s interesting that you compare the two because I think for the general fan, you see a football game and the athleticism and violence of that sport and then you see someone talking on stage and you could never see how they’re equal. Could you explain a little bit more what is it like for you once you’re on stage and speaking to a particular group?

KM: My passion, my desire at this point is to inspire long term positive change in teams and individuals. To me that’s my Super Bowl. I get up there and I got the adrenaline going, I’m excited about it. I talk about things that really relate football to everyday life.

I talk about teamwork with leadership being the ultimate expression of teamwork. Courage, the courage to try new things and the courage to be decisive; dedication, which I describe as hard work, constant learning and refusing to quit. Desire, that’s the dream, the passion, the mission. Honesty and forgiveness, first of all with yourself and self evaluation and then with others and finally goal-setting.

All those steps that take you to those desires, those passions. And that’s how I was able to come from being a college walk-on and the 310th pick in the NFL Draft, that’s 20 guys from Mr. Irrelevant, and make it to six Pro Bowls and three Super Bowls and have the long career I have.

LL: One could say that they see the parallels between motivational speaking and coaching in sports. But a major difference: When a coach tries to motivate his players for a game, he’s just trying to get them ready for that game and trying to get them in the right mindset. Whereas a motivational speaker, you have the potential to change someone’s life and have them make life decisions based on what you’re saying on stage.

Did that idea ever scare you or does it scare you that what you say could affect the course of someone’s life?

KM: That’s the great thing about it, truthfully. Like I said, it’s all about inspiring long-term positive change. But to me success is overcoming obstacles on the way to your dreams and a lot of people don’t realize that anyone who is successful has struggled.

And if you’re not struggling or running into obstacles, to me that means you’re not pushing hard enough. You don’t have an extravagant desire that’s important to you that you’re striving towards.

Those who persevere are the ones who’re successful. It’s proven over and over again. If I looked at my life and you looked at your life, the areas where you’re successful you’ll see that that’s because you’ll know where you’re going, you’re excited about it and you’re moving in that direction. That’s an awesome thing about speaking.

My father’s a doctor. My mother was deputy secretary of health and human services in the Reagan administration. I was raised by people who raised me to see that doing socially significant things with my life was important. Then I end up playing a football game and that was my life for quite awhile but I used that notoriety that I got from the football field and from my success there and converted that into a speaking business that gets me all around the country.

I actually had a speech in South Africa in April so I guess I’m worldwide now and I’m loving it. It’s just great fun and I have an impact and what a great thing.

LL: You have a new book out. It’s called Heart of a Student Athlete: All-Pro Advice For Competitors and Their Families. Now was this just an offshoot of the motivational speaking you had been doing or was there something in particular that motivated you to write this book?

KM: Both actually, Jose. I found that with my desire, my passion to inspire long-term positive change, that long-term piece is really difficult for a keynote speaker. I’ll go in, I’ll talk for an hour, an hour and 15 minutes and people will be fired up and walk away with some great ideas. But five or six months down the road, they don’t remember what I said.

But the book, they have the book, then the book’s there. It has the same concepts in the book, a lot of the same stories that I use in my speaking, so they’ll be able to refer back to that when they’re running into their obstacles, trying to remember what I said and how it affected them at the time.

The other thing is I’ve got three kids of my own. I have a 25-year old son, a 20-year old daughter and a 12-year old son and all of their lives I’ve helped coach. I’ve coached girls soccer, I’ve coaches T-Ball, I’ve coached basketball. I’ve coaches all kinds of stuff. And in every situation, I’ve had young athletes and the parents of young athletes come up to me and ask me, “How can I get my child to the next level? What’s important, what isn’t important?”

And there’s so much information out there right now, especially with the Internet and all of the things you can see. And everybody is trying to push their plan, their camp, their nutrition programs, their workout schedule, whatever.

But those things are irrelevant if you don’t have these universal, unchanging keys to success. That’s the great thing about teamwork, courage, dedication, desire, honesty and forgiveness and goal setting. Those are what allowed your grandfather to be successful. Those are going to be what allow your grandchildren to be successful.

Those are across the board universal and unchanging things that you’ve got to have. That’s got to be your base. And then, yeah, the nutrition is important and the workout is important and all that kind of stuff. But unless you have those, you’re not going to have a chance.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by UNLV’s Ickey Woods, famous for his “Ickey Shuffle.” Mr. Woods, thank you very much for joining us today.

Ickey Woods: No problem, no problem.

LL: First of all how did you come up with the Ickey Shuffle when you were 20? Was this some kind of spur of the moment thing you did after a touchdown one time? What was the impetus for the Ickey Shuffle?

IW: I did it after I scored a touchdown. And Rickey Dixon, who was our first round draft choice that year … I actually just started off putting my hands between my legs like that and after the game Rickey Dixon asks me, “What was that?” And I told him it was my touchdown celebration and he said, “Man that was wack man. You need to put some steps to that.” And I was like, “You think so Rick?” And he was like, “Yeah.”

So that whole week I thought of what I could do when I scored and I couldn’t come up with nothing, and five minutes before it was time to go and warm up, it just hit me. I said, “Rick, check this out, man. This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to go one, two three to the right; one, two, three to the left; one, two, three back to the right and I’m going to hop back three times and spike the ball.”

He was like, “Aw man Ick, that’s going to be live. That’s going to be live.” And that’s how I came up with the shuffle.

But I tell everybody I just came up at the right place at the right time. I was on a team that was winning and we happened to make it to a Super Bowl that year. If I was on a losing team, I don’t think that would’ve ever caught on. So I just think I was at the right place at the right time.

LL: Being at the right place at the right time, did you ever think, being on a winning team as you guys were winning through the season, did you ever think that that was going to become as big as it did?

IW: I really didn’t. I really didn’t. I kind of just did that for our fans. And if you go back and look over my short career, I never did it away from home. I always did it at home. I didn’t do it in a visiting stadium because that was something that I did for our fans in Cincinnati.

LL: Being a young guy when this was big, how much fun was it to see the city embrace the Ickey Shuffle and it become as big as it did and doing it for the home fans?

IW: As it got bigger, it became nation-wide and even worldwide. It was great. It was a fun time. We were winning ball games and we happened to make it to the Super Bowl that year. So being a young guy it was overwhelming. It was a wonderful feeling to walk down the street and everyone knew who you were. Something I’ve always dreamed of and it was a lot of fun.

LL: Now very similar to a musician that has one hit, a lot of people just know you for the Ickey Shuffle. Twenty years down the road, now that you’re in your 40s, do you get a little tired about when people say, “Oh my God, you’re Ickey Woods from the Ickey Shuffle!” or have you always appreciated the legacy of your touchdown celebration?

IW: Well you got to appreciate it. It’s something that’s a part of me and if people remember me for that, that’s great. A lot of people remember me for the way I played football as well. But it’s something that’s part of me now so I can’t look back on it and say, “I don’t want it to be a part of me” because it’s something that’s a part of me and something you have to embrace and roll with it.

Like I said, at that particular time it was great. We were having fun and we were doing things. So we were loving life and I wouldn’t take it back for the world. I loved the time that I spent in the NFL but life goes on. I got a family to raise. I’ve got six kids; I’ve got four grand babies, so I’m loving life.

LL: Last question, because you are known so well for the Ickey Shuffle, I don’t think a lot of people realize just how short your NFL career was unfortunately because of a knee injury. Could you just talk about how tough was it for you, after having such a successful rookie season, to suffer that setback and never really be able to recapture that magic you had in your rookie season.

IW: Well at first it was real hard to deal with but at the time that happened, I had a wife and four kids, so I couldn’t sit back and self loathe and sitting up there thinking about the what ifs. I had to go to work and provide for my family. So it is what it is. Life goes on. You can’t sit back on harp on it.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It was a time in my life that I enjoyed and life goes on. I’m doing great now so I don’t even harp on that anymore.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Syracuse’s Rony Seikaly. I also wanted to ask you a little bit about your playing career. A lot of people don’t realize that you’re actually the logo in Shaquille O’Neal’s logo.

How much pride do you take in that that Shaq picked you for that iconic image?

Rony Seikaly: Not a lot of people know that and obviously Shaq and I have joked about it. I told him I want my royalties. (chuckles) But we laugh about it a lot. I guess he used to like the way I dunked in college with my knees to my chest and stuff like that. It’s a great compliment. I love it. Every time I see it … I bought a watch with the emblem on it.

And then if I tell people, “You know, this is me.” They look at me and say, “Come on, really?”

LL: Yeah, right. I think a lot of people just assume it’s Shaq because it’s his logo.

RS: Yes. But I try to tell them the story and they’re like, “OK, Rony. Maybe you need to get some sleep.” (chuckles)

LL: And I want to ask you about your time in Syracuse. You had such an unbelievable career there. But there was the loss in the ’87 title game with Keith Smart’s shot. How long has that kind of hung around you and what do you remember from your Syracuse days?

RS: (inaudible) are the things that stick with me the most. I had an absolutely amazing time. This is where basketball is played for the right reasons. You ask me how long it’s stuck; it’s still sticking in me. It’s never gone away. Every time the NCAA Tournament has come around, it’s something that’s never going to go away.

It’s just one shot away from giving us … putting us in history. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of history. So it’s never gone away and discussions continue 20 years later and people still talk about Keith Smart’s shot and people talk about that game as being one of the best games in the NCAA Tournament history. I wish it went away but I don’t think it’ll ever go away.

LL: Could you talk a little bit about your relationship with Jim Boeheim? I don’t think a lot of people remember that when you got to Syracuse, you were such a raw player. You had grown up in Greece, you were great at soccer and then when you get to Syracuse you redshirt your first year. Kind of learning the game and then by the time you’re done, you’re a lottery pick in the NBA.

RS: Yeah, well the thing is I think I landed in coach Boeheim’s lap. There was no recruiting whatsoever done to get me there and I was very, very raw playing the sport of basketball. But I was an exceptional athlete as far as running up and down the court and jumping and coordination and all that.

So when I went to Jim Boeheim’s camp … you have to remember back then, there was no such thing as foreign players. It was kind of a rarity. So you get this guy walking into your gym telling you he’s from a foreign country but he’s 6-foot-10 and telling you he can run and jump, you’re like, “OK, who sent this prank to me?”

And he was hard on me because he saw the potential in me. At times he was a little too hard and sometimes I need a (inaudible) because I was new to this game and he wanted me to be what he thought I could be right away. And sometimes it just takes a little bit longer and sometimes he would see flashes in a game of me blocking four or five shots or grabbing 10, 12 rebounds in a span of seven minutes and then he wants that for 45 minutes.

So it was tough on me but that’s why it made me a better player. It made me a hungrier player. Bernie Fine, who is just as important to Syracuse basketball history as coach Boeheim is because he’s been his right-hand man for so many years, he just worked the hell out of me. He used to beat the (expletive) out of me and got me to where I needed to be.

LL: Last question for you: You grew up in Greece, you’re from Lebanon originally. How much when you go overseas these days do people say “Thank you so much for you did for international basketball”? Because as you said, 25 years ago there really wasn’t such a thing as a European big man and now they’re going top 10 in the draft every year. You got guys like Ricky Rubio who are being compared to the next Pete Maravich when no one’s ever seen them play.

RS: You know how they talk about Magic and Larry Bird and then Michael, after they have opened up the road to all these big contracts? I think that myself and Drazen Petrovic, the late Drazen Petrovic, and maybe Vlade Divac opened the road for all these European and international players. I was in the league before Vlade was and back then there was no such thing as a foreign or European player. You’re lucky if you were just half – like your mom’s American, your dad’s American … that kind of a Kobe Bryant deal. His parents were American but he lived in Italy. That kind of thing.

But to be fully foreigner was like to be from outer space. People would ask me where I’m from and I would tell them Lebanon and they would say, “Where the hell is that?” Now, today, you tell people you’re from Slovenia, people know where Slovenia is because of all the basketball players from there.

LL: And what’s it like for you to see what’s happening with Greek basketball. Where Josh Childress is playing over there now. There was talk about a Greek team wooing LeBron James. It just seems like it’s really exploded, especially in Greece.

RS: Well it’s always been like this. In Greece it’s always been privately held by very wealthy individuals. And since the days I played there, those offers have always been made. They signed Dominique Wilkins. Every time there’s a free agent they’ll make a splash. It’s just publicity for the teams.

But Greek basketball is very emotional. The gyms are pretty small. They’re very loud. They’re very rough, they’re violent. I love Greece. It’s a great place to play and it’s a lot of fun. But it’s not easy for an American player to go over there and go into the different scenarios that are offered in Greece. The culture, the way the gyms are. The way people (inaudible). It’s very different than what American basketball is all about.

……..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Washington State’s Jason Gesser, the all-time winningest quarterback in Washington State history and currently the high school football coach at Eastside Catholic High School in Sammamish, I hope I’m pronouncing that right, Washington. Mr. Gesser thank you for joining us today.

Jason Gesser: No problem. It’s a pleasure being here.

LL: Now we had put on our website awhile ago that you were the head high school football coach at Eastside Catholic High School and I think one of the things that struck us was just how young you were already being a head coach in high school.

Could you talk about how you become the head coach and what’s that been like so far?

JG: The whole process was pretty crazy and I’m a true believer in things happening for a reason. So I was playing in the AFL, I was playing for the Utah Blaze for three years after a two-year stint with the Tennessee Titans and a one-year stint up in Calgary and was playing. Finished my contract and was about to sign a new contract to go play in New York in the AFL and at that time the league ended up folding and claiming bankruptcy.

So at that time I really didn’t have anything going on and that was when I started Jason Gesser Elite Sports. Training quarterbacks, training athletes. Getting them ready for the next level. Also training youth guys to get them ready for the high school level.

And while I started doing that the Eastside Catholic head job popped open. And it kind of intrigued me. I went to an all-boy Catholic school out in Hawaii, St. Louis High School. We were a powerhouse in football. No. 3 in the USA Today my two years as a junior and a senior. Never lost a game in high school. A consecutive string of 14 straight state championships in a row.

And it really intrigued me of coming to this job, so I came to this school. It was a beautiful new campus they had just moved to up in Sammamish, Washington, and it was just something that just fit. I came in, put my hat in for the job, went to the interview process.

I did my research and it really was a time for me to kind of step into this role, being that my ultimate goal is to be the head coach at Washington State one day, and I thought it was a great way to start taking steps toward figuring out what it’s like to be a head coach at a pretty prominent and high class school.

LL: So when you got the job were you a little bit surprised that you had gotten it? How confident were you after having the interview and going through the process, that you were going to end up being the head coach?

JG: To be completely honest with you, I would’ve been very surprised if I didn’t get the job because of what they were looking for and what I had to provide was exactly a great fit. And I even said that in the interview process. They were looking for somebody to have energy, to revise the program, to spend time with the youth kids. Do all these things to get out there, be a face of the school, be a face for the athletic program.

Not only was I training kids on the side and having that and having my arms reaching very well around the Northwest but I was also a face for college football on FSN Sports. So that would also get the school exposure, as well as our program exposure and that’s what they were looking for. For somebody to come in and not only do that but a guy that was great with kids and understand how to work with kids, and at the end of the day I put my football knowledge up against anybody out there and I believe that I’ve gone through a lot of things and learned a lot of things and will continue to learn. I probably learned the most coaching in this last year of being a head coach.

Right now I’m studying a lot of different coaches. Reading a lot of different books. When I was playing I always kept a notebook of every head coach that I had from Mike Price at Washington State to (Tennessee Titan coach) Jeff Fisher and (Mike) Heimerdinger, my offensive coordinator at Tennessee to Danny White with the Utah Blaze. I always took notes on all those guys on how they attacked the game and how they were a head coach and how they worked with the players.

So it was really kind of intriguing, my style that was kind of a perfect fit of what they were looking for at that time and that’s why I say timing is everything. I mean two years down the road they could’ve been looking for a different style of coach, a different fit. But at that time, what I was able to give is what they wanted, so it was a pretty nice fit.

LL: You said you learned a lot over the year. What would you say were the most important lessons you learned in your first year head coaching?

JG: I would say the most important thing was … I followed a great coach that was here before and very well-respected and very well-loved. And I came in trying just to get the kids to accept me and to like me. And I think that was a huge mistake. I tried to be too buddy-buddy with them.

I’m a personable guy first off and I care about the kids tremendously, first off. So that comes across. But then when you try to be too buddy-buddy with them, you lose that whole coach-player line. And you need to have that line to stand. You need to be able to express that line and to show the kids where you can go and where you can’t go.

That was one thing that I did not do very well with but I’ve already done a great job with the guys this spring as we’re going through our summer workouts and everything as well too and the kids are even coming up to me and noticing and saying, “Hey coach, you’re so much better this year. You just know what’s going on.”

And it’s very well-appreciated from me to actually know that my changes aren’t going unnoticed. And the other thing I think is just understanding the whole organizational skills that comes with being a head coach and an associate AD. You are doing 500 things at once and you have to be able to organize your time very well or else you’re going to drown.

…..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Penn State’s Adam Taliaferro. Everyone remembers you obviously from the 2000 game against Ohio State in which you suffered a career ending spinal cord injury.

You’re now a lawyer at Segal, Berk, Gaines & Liss in Philadelphia. Could you tell people what your job is there and what you’re doing now?

Adam Taliaferro: Yeah. First, thank you for having me. I’ve been an attorney for the last, coming up on two years now. And I started doing corporate law and just because of my injury background I decided to switch (inaudible) back in January and now I’m doing personal injury law. So we’re helping people with injuries similar to myself and all varieties of cases.

And it’s been a great experience where I kind of feel like I’m helping those the same way that I was helped.

LL: Now I know that you had originally stated that you had got into law because you wanted to be a sports agent. Is that still the ultimate goal or are you sticking with personal injury?

AT: That’s always in the back of the head. I started playing sports at the age of seven but my main thing right now is really just to learn how to be a good attorney and I think when I learn that, it’ll translate to maybe one day eventually working with … it’ll be great to help out some of the Penn State guys and then take it from there.

But right now I’m just concentrating on being the best attorney I can be and if that plays out in the future, that’ll be great.

LL: What’s it like for you to be – I know you do so much work with your foundation to incorporate spinal cord injuries – into what you’re doing as a profession as well?

AT: It’s great because that’s a big part of me. I look back and it’s going to be the ten-year anniversary of my injury this year and I look back on all the support and all the great help that I received. I feel like it’s kind of my obligation now to provide as much assistance as I can because I feel like I was one of the most blessed and one of the most supported people in college football in this area.

LL: I know that you said that you really found out that you wanted to pursue a career in law after a bunch of tests you took after your injury and it really forced you to think of what you were going to do the rest of your life.

Before the injury, did you have any plans on what you were going to do or was the plan just to play football forever?

AT: Yeah, I mean I was solely … I really believed I had the opportunity to play in the NFL. So when I was playing, I guess I got hurt the fifth game of my true freshmen year, but I felt like everything was going so well and that I was really going to have an opportunity to play in the NFL. So the thought of really having anything to do work-wise, to actually have a normal job, really never went through my head.

But when the injury occurred and my career was over, I was forced to come to that decision a lot earlier than I expected. And that’s what I try to tell these guys now. This football thing doesn’t last forever. So I try to encourage guys even in high school to starting thinking about what you want to do because football, it only lasts so long.

LL: Now your foundation, the Adam Taliaferro Foundation, obviously does a lot of work. How’re you able to juggle that with a career in law? It sounds like two full-time jobs.

AT: Yeah, I mean my foundation, we have a board with about 20 members. And, as you said, with being an attorney it takes up a lot of my time. But I’m so thankful to have a board of great volunteers who put in so much time because they all work as well. But they do a great job organizing our events. We just had a big … we hosted a high school all star game in South Jersey and we have different fundraisers throughout the year and they just do a great job with it.

Without the board that I have, there would be no foundation because it’s tough for me to be involved on a daily basis like I’d like to be. But when I’m not there, I have so many people that are picking up the pace for us and keeping things moving ahead.

LL: Now a lot of Penn State fans know that you’re actually engaged to Erin Mulshenock, who was a swimmer at Penn State. When’s the big date and what can you tell Penn State fans about it?

AT: Yeah it’s great. My fiancé, we met at Penn State and she was a swimmer there and she actually won the Big Ten title in the 200 IM her freshman year. But we just moved in together and we’re getting married September 2011 and we’re making sure the wedding is before the football season because we’re going to have a lot of Penn Staters down there and we’re looking forward to it.

I feel like it’s just the next chapter of my life and I’ve been with her ever since my junior year in college so we’re looking forward to hopefully having some little Penn Staters in the future.

LL: Now I gotta ask you about the injury. It will have been ten years ago this September. Do you have any big plans to commemorate the anniversary?

AT: There hasn’t been anything formally set yet. But there’s been some early discussions with … Penn State is going to do something. I think we may be doing something in September and I’m not sure about out at Ohio State, but I’ll be going out to Ohio State. Every time Penn State goes out to Ohio State, I go out there now to see my therapist and all the doctors that took care of me. So I’ll be out there again.

I’m not sure if they’re going to anything but, like I said, for me it’s a blessing to be up and walking around ten years later and feeling good and feeling healthy.

LL: Could you talk a little bit more about your connection to the Columbus doctors? It’s well-documented how close the bond was between you and them. How often do you keep in touch with them and talk to them?

AT: It’s like my second family (inaudible). The nurses at the Ohio State medical center. I talked to one nurse. Facebook makes things a lot easier. I talked to one of my nurses, Kim, probably every other month. And during the football season is when I really talk to all of my Ohio State friends because you have a friendly rivalry when Penn State and Ohio State are playing. Even when they’re not playing, seeing who’s winning and who’s losing in their respective games.

So even when I go out there I tailgate – the nurses have a big tailgate. And it’s just great to see them every other year when I’m out there.

…..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by BYU’s Robbie Bosco, the starting quarterback of the 1984 national champions and currently the Varsity Club director at BYU. Mr. Bosco, thank you very much for joining us today.

Robbie Bosco: It’s good to be with you Jose.

LL: You took over as starting quarterback after the graduation of a man named Steve Young, which I’m sure many people know who he is. This was your first season as a starter; just going into the season did you have a sense that this team could do something special?

RB: No, I didn’t. Like you mentioned before, Steve Young was the quarterback and he had a great two years as a starter and his senior year there were a lot of guys that went on to play in the NFL and we lost a lot of key players from that team.

And so really going into that season my only worry was, “I can’t lose the conference championship.” We’d won like six in a row and I didn’t want to be the first quarterback labeled as losing the championship. So the expectations, they’re always high for you as you go because you want to be good, you want to be successful.

But reality was I just wanted to get into conference and be successful in conference. I wasn’t thinking about going undefeated or anything like that and I don’t think the team was either. But then we beat Pittsburgh and then we got ranked, I think in the Top 15 (Editor’s note: they were ranked No. 13 after the win). And then we beat Baylor and all of a sudden we’re starting to get ranked higher and higher and people are starting to think, “Man, what if we keep winning? Are we going to keep getting ranked higher and higher?”

So that was kind of the thought. But anything prior to that beginning of the season, at least with me, wasn’t thinking too big.

LL: Was there a feeling of anxiousness, a feeling a fear? How were you operating those first few weeks of the season?

RB: It was strictly fear. We opened up against the University of Pittsburgh, at Pittsburgh. First live telecast of ESPN and my opportunity to show the country what I could do. And with that the perfectionist that I am and wanting to do well, it really got to me. And probably a couple days before we got on the airplane, I almost doubted myself and questioned myself if I should be doing this. If I could do this, if I could lead the team.

And it was very scary because I wanted to be so successful and successful early. And then after, when the game started and after my first two passes, I really doubted myself. I was throwing them over their heads. I was hitting them in the back of the helmets. So I just wasn’t sure. And I can remember LaVell (Edwards, BYU’s head coach) meeting me out on the field—I think our first two series we were three and out—meeting me out there and says, “Hey, you just keep playing. Don’t worry about it. You’re the quarterback. You don’t have to keep looking over your shoulder.”

That just kind of gave me a calm of they are relying on me. Coach wants me in here, I’m going to be their guy. So that settled me down and then we went on and played pretty well.

LL: Now I want to fast forward to the Holiday Bowl. How different were your feeling prior to the Pittsburgh game to prior to this Michigan game when you’re 12-0 and you have a chance to finish the season undefeated?

RB: Well we were talking. I mean our attitude was totally different than what it was. We started, probably with about two or three games (left) that whole season, we started strutting around like we were pretty good.

I think the one thing about that team though is that when the game started, it was all business. It wasn’t like we thought that we were so good during the game. We were battling. We felt that we weren’t just battling the team we were playing, we were battling everybody because it seemed like nobody really wanted us to win because nobody thought we deserved to be there and (everybody) thought, “Why should BYU be No. 1 or have the chance to be No. 1?”

So we kind of battled that all the time and it was kind of the chip on our shoulder and we wanted to go out and prove to everybody that we were good enough. So that actually really helped us more than anything because even when we thought we were pretty good, we knew as soon as we lose a game there’s going to be a bunch of naysayers and I told you so’s and it’s going to be worth nothing anymore.

So I think that really helped us to focus in on each game and really show what we could do.

…….

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Kentucky’s Ramel Bradley. Ramel, thanks for joining us.

I want to ask you about this website you’ve launched called dreamsmooth.com, which is counting down, you’re giving yourself one year to make it to the NBA. Can you talk about how you decided to launch this site and why you gave yourself only a year for what many people take their whole life to do?

Ramel Bradley: Well, a couple reasons. A couple of things have inspired me to do this. Number one, first and foremost, my dream, just like any other player, any other basketball player, was to be in the NBA. It’s been my dream my whole life. It’s been a goal of mine and I’m a little crazy with the number three and this is my third season after I graduated from school and I just feel like the energy is high right now.

LL: But I guess I was wondering, you had a very solid career at Kentucky but wouldn’t someone say, you play in the second league in France and scored 12 points a game, how does someone make that big jump to the NBA in one year?

RB: Well it was the first league in France and there were a lot of obstacles and a lot of things that happened this year. At the beginning of the season things were great. I was the leading scorer in the French league and after that a couple of the players got hurt and there was a coaching change and I was in an accident on the highway and nearly lost my life. Thank God I walked away without a scratch. But there were a lot of things that happened this last year and the season didn’t quite end up the way that I wanted it to or expected it to.

But I can’t dwell on that and even though the year wasn’t as well as I planned it to be, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to live my goals and live my dreams, which is to be in the NBA.

LL: So what do you think it’s going to take from you this year? Is there a certain number of points, a certain number of wins that you think that you’ll need to get to the NBA or to get looks from NBA scouts?

RB: I think that I’m a really good player. I had a conversation with my agent, Andy Miller, and we just discussed it. And teams know about me. Everyone knows that I can play. I just think it’s a matter of me having a really good season. Being consistent. As well as building up some momentum and marketing myself in the right way. And I think all of these things combined will help me to reach my goal.

LL: Could you talk a little bit more about your marketing efforts? I know you’ve gotten involved with Kentucky Sports Radio and what other stuff are you trying to do to get the word out there about yourself because obviously there’s a component where you’ll have to work extremely hard, which I know you’re doing, but then there’s the component of getting the word out there that you’re trying to do this and getting on people’s radars.

RB: I think the first thing is just surrounding myself with people I trust. People who believe in me. And we can all just come together and honestly believe that this can happen. And honestly believe that this can happen. I’ll be working with some great people in New York. I’ve been also working with a real good friend of mine at (inaudible) and we’ve just been trying to do a bunch of things (inaudible).

I already believe that I’m a great role model and a great person. I carry myself the right way, I work my tail off every single day, night in and night out. And now I just need to let everyone else see this and let the people who already support me, the people who already believe I should be in the NBA, just let them see a little bit or a lot more.

That way they can continue to support me and I can grab some more supporters on the way and make that really strong push.

LL: Now what would happen is after a year’s time you still don’t get looks. Would you reconsider whether you’re going to continue to play basketball or try and change things to get more looks? What happens if you don’t make it?

RB: Well honestly I’m not even thinking about that. That thought hasn’t even crossed my mind. My goal is by this time next year I’ll be in position to sign an NBA contract and if I don’t. If it doesn’t happen, I’m not even worried about that. My goal is that it does happen and I’m telling myself that it’s going to happen every day. The people that are around, we’re telling each other that it’s going to happen. So when that day comes, we’ll worry about anything else.

But for now I’m focused and I truly believe it’ll happen.

LL: The first step of getting into the NBA is obviously getting into the summer league that goes on in July. Have you talked to any teams about playing in this year’s summer league or are there any nibbles there?

RB: The thing is, there’s a lot of things involved with going into that and I talked with my agent, Andy Miller. He’s one of the top agents. And a lot of times guys will come over and they’ll say, “Let me play summer league.” And they’ll play summer league and they’ll play 2-3 minutes a game because the players that were just drafted or the guys returning from the team, they have to play.

Sometimes the summer league is not a good option to go somewhere and just not play basketball for two weeks and just say you were in the summer league. I had some teams that wanted me to play but me and my agent thought it would be best for me to focus on my game and to go back overseas and to build on all of these things: momentum, marketing myself and working my butt off and being consistent the whole season.

LL: So you haven’t set a goal of trying to make a summer league roster next years? It’s just an NBA contract or bust?

RB: As far as next summer, of course, That would be my goal, but I would want to be in a position where I’m coming in to play at least 20-25 minutes in the summer league. Whereas if I played this summer it would just be put me on a roster because I’m Ramel Bradley.

LL: Now I know you’re going back overseas this season. Why’d you decide to do that instead of the D-League, where some people say you have more exposure and you can get called up easier if you want to make it to the NBA.

RB: Well the thing about the D-League is it’s not necessarily true that you’ll have more exposure. Yeah, you’ll be in the country. But a lot of guys in the D-League are fighting and battling and it’s almost a lot of times not enough basketball to go around. Because everybody feels that they’re so close to the NBA.

And also the financial aspect of things. I just believe, personally I don’t think that’s the right way to go when I sat down with my team. So that going to Europe would be a way better decision for me.

LL: I gotta ask about this website, which I’m sure UK fans will get a kick out of. It’s dreamsmooth.com. And a lot of people guessed that Smooth is your nickname but that’s actually your middle name, correct?

RB: Yes it is.

LL: And how did your parents come up with that? What is the genesis of the middle name Smooth? It seems like more of a nickname than a middle name.

RB: I really couldn’t tell you. I think I grew up and it really just kind of stuck with me. I grew into the name. The funniest thing is I talk to people and they’re like, “What is your middle name?” And I’m like, “It’s Smooth.” And they’re like, “Come on, I don’t believe you.” And they want to pull out my birth certificates and all this stuff. So it’s pretty crazy but it’s pretty cool.

LL: Yeah, it’s definitely a lot of expectations to put on a newborn kid. But also with this site you have this huge rap career or music career. How’re you going to juggle that with playing overseas and trying to make the NBA?

RB: I love music, I love to do music. But if I want to make my dreams come true as far as playing in the NBA then I know I have to put all of my effort, all of my focus into basketball. So as far as music I recorded a song recently, “Fly.” It’s on the website. And the song is just basically getting off the emotions of some of the things I’m going through. Just telling myself it’s one year and I believe that everything will fall into place after one year.

So as far as music, that’s just the one song that I’m going to do. I’ll probably listen to that song every day until this year is over and I’m really not focused on the music aspect right now. I just focus a lot on that one song. I’m going to put the song out there and just let that song linger. I’m also going to do a video for that song. Other than that I’ll just be focused on basketball 24/7.

…..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Florida State’s Chris Weinke, the 2000 Heisman Trophy winner.

I want to ask you about the 2000 Sugar Bowl. A lot of people remember that this is the game Michael Vick went crazy. What do you remember about winning the national championship at Florida State with Bobby Bowden and Peter Warrick and that great team there?

Chris Weinke: Yeah, it’s one of the reasons I’m in coaching now. I built that relationship with coach Bowden and he was kind of that second father figure for me and I kind of watched how he handled young kids and help them grow into young adults. And I look back at my collegiate career and I was fortunate to have a number of top players around me. And really the culmination and the one highlight from my college career that stands out is the victory over Virginia Tech in the ’99 Sugar Bowl (Editor’s Note: It was the 2000 Sugar Bowl).

There’s no better feeling than to be able to hold up that crystal ball at the end of the season and know that you’re the best team in college football and I think that was the result of a lot of hard work, great leadership and a number of players that went on to have success at the NFL level.

But when you look back at coach Bowden’s career and you see that that’s his only undefeated season and one of two national championships and really it was probably the shining moment in my college career. Even more so than winning the Heisman Trophy.

LL: And that’s something we ask every Heisman Trophy winner we talk to. Where is the Heisman Trophy now and how often do you revisit that thing?

CW: For a number of years it sat in my parents’ house and they had all the trophies that I was fortunate enough to win. More recently now I have the Heisman Trophy here at my house in Florida. It brings back a lot of memories. I think every year that I’m removed from it, it becomes more important. And you realize not only as a former college player but a huge fan of college football, it just brings back a lot of good memories.

And I’ve said it right from the get go: It’s an award that’s given to an individual and probably the most prestigious award, but at the end of the day, it’s really a team award. You cannot have that type of success without great players around you. Obviously great coaching and it’s nice to know I’m part of a unique fraternity.

LL: How often do you keep in touch with your teammates from the national championship team? A lot of people thought there was disconnect between you and your teammates because you were 28 at the time and most of these guys were 20-21 years old.

CW: I run into a lot of the players that I played with when I go pack to Tallahassee to watch games and obviously there was a number of players to watch coach Bowden’s last game at the Gator Bowl down in Jacksonville last year to celebrate not only his career, but all of the things that we accomplished as players there under coach Bowden.

So obviously being back in Florida, I run into guys a lot more now because I’m down here. And actually have a few of them involved in our academy down here. One of my favorite receivers, Peter Warrick, is a local guy from Bradenton and had an opportunity for him to be over here for our kick off weekend and be part of what we’re trying to do over here.

So it’s nice to be back in Florida and enjoying the experience and having the opportunity to run into a lot of those former players that I played with.

LL: Could you talk a little bit about your NFL career? A lot of people thought it was such a unique situation that when you were drafted, when you were a rookie, you were really in the middle of what most people would consider a regular NFL career being 28-29 years old. And you retired after six years in the league but you were already 34 at that time. So what was that like for you?

CW: Well it was obviously the road less traveled. I came in as a 28-year old rookie and so it was a little bit different, but in some ways it was an advantage because I was a little bit older, a little bit more mature and was able to handle that situation starting as a rookie. I spent seven years in the NFL and enjoyed every minute of it. It was a great way to make a living and be able to really just enjoy the experience.

And although I didn’t really have great success at the NFL level, I enjoyed it. And I walked away with my head held high knowing that every time I took the field I was giving my best. I have no regrets. People ask me all the time, “If you did it over, would you not play baseball and go right to college and play football.” And I say, “No.” Because I learned a lot of life lessons while I was playing professional baseball. I had to grow up fast and mature as a 17-year old in the real world playing professional baseball and I learned a lot.

I was able to go back to school at the age of 24 probably more focused academically. I was able to graduate in three and a half years. So could my NFL career have been long if I came in as a 22-year old? Possibly. But I have no regrets. I enjoyed my time and walked away feeling I gave it my best shot.

LL: Last question for you. A fun fact that not everyone realizes is that you were on first base when Michael Jordan got his first hit in the minors. What was that like to be involved in that media circus and did you say anything when he got to first base?

CW: Yeah that was a great experience. There was a lot of hype surrounding that, him coming back to play professional baseball. We just happened to be the team playing against him when he got his first hit and I just remembered him getting a base hit up the middle and rounding first and I was playing first. And he came back to first and I said to him, “You got the first one out of the way.”

He just chuckled and it was great. We got a chance to play his team eight times because they were in our division and spent a lot of times talking with him and really just enjoyed watching him. He’s one of the greatest athletes that any of us have seen in basketball but it’s a reflection of how tough baseball really is. So that was a good experience for me.

….

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Syracuse’s Rony Seikaly.

I know you have a CD coming out at the end of July. Could you tell us a little bit about that and is the plan with that, trying to become the next famous DJ with a CD? I know that they’re k9ind of taking over where it’s not so much about artists, it’s about DJs that can put together great songs and put CDs together.

Rony Seikaly: Well the actual CD is going to come out after the summer. What’s coming out at the end of July is my first track release. I signed it with Subliminal. Subliminal is the biggest electronic music label. So that’s my first track will be released in July. And then I have a second one being released in August and every four to five to six weeks I’ll have another track release and then in October, I’m going to have a full CD release party.

LL: And could you tell us the name of the CD is going to be and when the date of the release is?

RS: Well the name of the track that is coming out is called “Come with me” and the release date is July 28th.

LL: I know that there was speculation a couple of years ago that when you parted from your wife you were partying too hard and now people, their reaction to your DJing is, “Oh this kind of confirms that.” How do you respond to people saying those things?

RS: I’ve been doing the same exact thing since I was 14 years old. So nothing has changed for me. Nothing has changed for my family or anybody else. What comes out when you’re in a bitter divorce is a lot of fabrication that is kind of put in by the lawyers to add spice to the story. But, you know, I lived with my wife for eight years and I used to DJ for her and her friends for eight years. I played music for them nonstop. So she knows exactly what my passion and love for the music is. So I don’t drink alcohol and I’ve never been a bad apple. I just love the music and (inaudible).

LL: Now you’ve been to places like Ibiza, Dubai; pretty much the most luxurious places in the world. What’s your favorite city to visit?

RS: Well there’s a favorite city to visit and then there’s a favorite city to party. I mean, as I said earlier, the NBA schedule doesn’t give you the option of going to the glamorous cities. You have L.A. and New York, basically. And then the rest is not really glamorous. And as far as the DJing is concerned, you really hit the glamorous cities worldwide and once in a while you’ll do an offshoot of somewhere that isn’t really glamorous.

It’s tough for me to say but the clubs that I’ve decided to play in are all clubs that I love to play at. I love LIV here in Miami Beach. It’s one of my favorite clubs. I think it’s one of the best clubs in the world aesthetically, sound wise, quality of people. I love a club called Queen (Club) in Paris. It takes you back to the old school of underground clubs. So it’s kind of an institution that’s going on there 20-25 years, that club. I love that club. And then Amnesia, it’s like saying “Let’s play at Madison Square Garden.” You’re talking about the Mecca of all arenas and all clubs.

LL: And I gotta ask you, what is the city or the club with the most beautiful women you’ve ever visited?

RS: Um, wow. That is a tough one. Well, Miami is one of them. Amnesia is the other one. Between New York, Paris and L.A. it’s the third one.

…….

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Oregon’s Reuben Droughns, now an assistant coach in the Central European Football League.

I wanted to ask you a little bit about your time in Oregon. You were a junior college player like Akili Smith. You guys arrived at Oregon and obviously had so much success. What’s your best memory from playing there?

Reuben Droughns: My best memories from playing at Oregon was definitely the guys and coach (Mike) Bellotti. Coach Bellotti gave me an opportunity. Coming in from junior college and not knowing where I was going to stand, coming in as a sixth or seventh back on the list and coach Bellotti came up to me the first game and told me, “You’re going to be the starter,” after Kevin Parker went down and I didn’t know how to take it, but that first game … I believe I ran for 215 or something … I was running scared pretty much.

When you come from junior college you see some pretty big guys but when you’re looking on TV at Michigan State or looking at film and stuff, and you’re looking at these guys like these guys like Robaire Smith and Julius Peppers, you’re like, Oh, my god, these guys are monsters” (laughs). I was terrified to be honest with you.

LL: What’s it like looking back at the program now and they went to a Rose Bowl but the legal problems of LaMichael James and Jeremiah Masoli. Are you connected to any of that or do you talk to other guys about this?

RD: I’m not connected to any of that. My thing is to stay out of the way. Chip (Kelly) is going to handle it the way he needs to handle it. It’s one of those things of being young and not knowing. If I was obviously to talk to them I could tell them things that I’ve been through over my career and the ups and downs that I went through. It’s better to stay out of trouble, it’s better to stay focused on your career and your family and your friends.

LL: And speaking of your ups and downs, it seemed like in the NFL you were either rushing for 1,000 yards or not playing at all. How would you describe your days in the NFL?

RD: You know I enjoyed it. I honestly enjoyed it. I understand I didn’t play running back as much as I would’ve wanted to, but playing special teams was definitely fun for me. It gave me a chance to go out there and act like a defensive player and hit somebody. And just to get a chance to block for a guy like Jeff Feagles, future Hall of Famers, Desmond Howard.

Those were exciting moments for me when I got a chance to do stuff like that.

LL: What was it like for you to rush for 1,000 yards in Denver, you had a great season in Cleveland and then before you knew it you were riding the bench again? Did you feel like, “Hey, give me a chance, I can prove what I’m doing out here?”

RD: I did. I did feel like I wanted more of a chance. Not necessarily saying in New York or anything. I think in Cleveland I wish I had got more of a chance in Cleveland to really help them get over the edge and I think me and Jamal Lewis would’ve been a great tandem of players.

But unfortunately that didn’t happen that way. But I’m actually fortunate enough that it didn’t because I got a chance to win a Super Bowl that I never thought I’d (get to) during my whole entire playing career. I mean you can pinpoint it either way. Either I want to be a star running back or be an unknown player on the bench that’s playing special teams and winning a Super Bowl. I think that was the best bet. (laughs)

LL: Last question for you. About that Super Bowl, what’s it like to have a Super Bowl ring, but with the team that kind of fazed you out toward the end? Is it kind of bittersweet at all or is it just, “A Super Bowl is a Super Bowl”?

RD: It was bittersweet. Not getting a chance to get on the field and actually run some goal line plays like I had been earlier in the season. You gotta understand that … I guess they felt that my running style was already diminishing and they already had that kind of running style with Brandon Jacobs. Then you throw Ahmad Bradshaw and Derrick Ward in there. Those guys have a different style of running.

I really didn’t mind how it ended. I was glad that I got a chance to be with an amazing coach in Tom Coughlin and (running backs coach) Jerald Ingram and those guys and it was definitely a life learning lesson that I went through with that team.

…..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Michigan’s Drew Henson. Now everyone knows you were being chronicled well back into your high school days. But what was more pressure for you: being a Michigan starting quarterback, the Cowboys’ quarterback or the Yankees’ top prospect, all of which you were once?

Drew Henson: Well I think growing up you want to be a professional athlete. But that’s such a down-the-road goal that the first thing at hand is playing well in high school and getting a college scholarship and from when I was 12-13, that was the first goal. So in my own mind I built that up so much.

So the idea of being able to play for the University of Michigan was the first goal in my mind and looking back at the venue, the amount of people that watched it each week that was probably the biggest thing I was a part of.

LL: Now what do you think about the alleged Steinbrenner Conspiracy Theory; that he signed you way from Michigan to play for the Clippers and the Yankees so that Ohio State would win the next year?

DH: You know it lends itself to a great story. Knowing Mr. Steinbrenner and the way they do business, as big as an alum and fan as he may have been, the Yankees are always his No. 1 priority and all of the decisions he made on that side of it weren’t going to be affected by his or his wife’s college alumnus.

LL: Now I remember that when you were with the Clippers they said that you were always the first guy there, the last guy to leave. How tough was it for you decided to hang it up, knowing that you didn’t make it to the Yankees full time?

DH: Yeah. Retiring essentially at age 23 is one of those decisions where I got to experience professional sports and make it to the highest level and two, being one of the handful of guys that got to do that. Obviously I didn’t achieve or play as long as I would’ve liked to but just those experiences, that’s what I take from it as opposed to what I may or may not have achieved.

LL: Everyone in the Clippers organization seemed determined that you were going to ride this out as long as it took. At what point did you say, “This just isn’t working”?

DH: I think after the 2003 season, which ended up being my last one, I was still at the age where I still had options open to play football again. And it was one of those things where on a day-to-day basis, what did I want to spend the next couple of years doing. So right or wrong, in between I jumped at another challenge and if nothing else it was another great experience and one you can tell your kids about.

LL: Now people find this interesting that everyone assumed you and David Terrell and Anthony Thomas were going to have ten Pro Bowls under your belts at this time. How often do you keep in touch with those guys?

DH: I’m real close with them. We speak on a regular basis. Everyone was back last month for the Mott’s Children’s Hospital Fundraiser/Golf Outing Weekend in Ann Arbor and those guys are back among 30 or 40 others. But the three of us achieved a ton together in school and we’re all good friends and great friends now and like to get together when we can.

LL: How much do you reminisce about that 2000 offense, which many people say is the greatest offense in Michigan history?

DH: Yeah we do. Inevitably it comes up when we get together. Just being how probably the top 13-14 guys on that offense got to play in the NFL for a period of time and it was just one of those seasons of missed opportunities. We felt like we had the talent and at the end of the day, we just didn’t finish the games that we needed to, to put ourselves in that position. Yeah, there certainly was a lot of talent on that offense.

LL: Now a lot of people don’t realize that you were the original “Golden Boy.” SI called you this, now Tom Brady has taken that name over. Do you ever joke with him that he’s stolen your nickname?

DH: (chuckles) No. He’s been more deserving these days than I have so he can take care of that, but no.

LL: Last question for you. I know that a lot of the alumni are fully behind Rich Rodriguez. They expect things to turn around this season. But playing devil’s advocate, which a lot of fans are playing these days, how do you think Michigan’s going to improve and go to a bowl game when the lost their best player in Brandon Graham and possibly their second best player in Donovan Warren?

DH: Well I think you just have to trust the third year in the system. Especially since coach Rodriguez has brought in guys that more or less fit what he’s running on offense. These are 18-21-year old kids we’re talking about and the improvement in 12 months can be drastic. A lot of these guys have had a ton of experience. They had a great start and a tough finish and I think through it all, especially going into their third year all in it together, I think you have to have real optimism.

LL: And I would definitely like to add, what is going on with Lloyd Carr these days? Do you still speak with him? A lot of people joke that he’s reading Civil War novels on his front porch these days.

DH: Well if he wants to, hopefully he has the time to do that. Coach Carr has been a lifelong coach. He’s got some time to himself to travel and to enjoy some of the finer things in life. I know that he has a pretty rigorous schedule speaking and doing a lot of fundraising for the Mott’s Children Hospital and that side of it. Every time I get to town town, I can stop by his office and check in with him and he’s probably the best mentor I’ve ever had.

…..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Oregon’s J.J. Birden who currently works with Team X88 Distributers selling Xocai healthy chocolate. Mr. Birden, thank you very much for joining us today.

J.J. Birden: Thanks Jose, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.

LL: Now anytime I read about chocolate being good for you my ears perk. So I have to ask, Xocai Healthy Chocolate – could you talk a little bit about what exactly that is?

JB: Yeah. It’s Xocai Healthy Chocolate. It’s actually a company called MXI that created the world’s first healthy chocolate. And the reason it’s healthy is because it’s not processed. They don’t have wax filler or preservatives like commercial chocolates. It’s actually made from unprocessed coco (inaudible) and other natural ingredients and a nice, low glycemic natural sweetener. And it’s the tastiest and healthiest chocolate available.

LL: Now I had read in a profile about you that when you were first approached about this product, being a professional athlete you were a little skeptical. Because, I think as many people know, professional athletes are approached with a lot of different things, business ventures and what not.

Could you talk about the circumstances under which you were approached and why you decided to go forward with supporting this product?

JB: You’re right. As athletes and ex-athletes, we’re approached with so many different types of business opportunities. I’ve always been a business-minded person. When I retired from the NFL, I became an owner and part-owner of three different companies and I had been running those three companies. Two were medical industry-type companies and one was a fitness equipment company. So I had been actively involved with those companies.

But there were these studies I read on the Internet. I read some studies on the Internet about dark chocolate actually being healthy, which I thought was kind of ridiculous. One, I didn’t like chocolate and two, I didn’t see chocolate as being healthy.

But, Jose, I saw anywhere from (inaudible) different sites and studies and the media promoting the health benefits of dark chocolate and I read one study about athletes who were consuming chocolate milk after marathon runs and that led me to some studies on dark chocolate being a natural anti-inflammatory.

Being an ex-player, I love football and I had a ball but I did some pretty bad things to my body and I’ve got some aches and pains and I kind of got sick and tired of taking the over-the-counter medicines. So I wanted to see if this chocolate actually worked and so a friend introduced me to Xocai and being that it was the only chocolate I saw out there that was a more healthier version of it.

I started taking it and I noticed some positive results and I became a consumer of it first and then later got involved with the business. I wasn’t looking to do direct selling as a business, but people loved it and my business grew and I started getting more involved in the business, too.

LL: How long did it take before you started seeing results from eating this chocolate?

JB: I noticed (after) about a week or two because dark chocolate is very high in antioxidants. And being that ours is not processed, our chocolate is considered one of the highest as far as antioxidants in general. And there’s a scale out there called an ORAC scale, it stands for oxygen radical absorbency capacity. And a third party, Brunswick, they test the antioxidant levels of fruits and vegetables. And chocolate is actually a vegetable, it grows on the cacao tree, and it’s considered one of the highest producing antioxidant foods on this Earth.

And so when I started consuming it, it kind of wants to balance your body out at a cellular level and so around week II I started noticing a difference. And it blew me away because I’m 45, I still work out, I’m very active, and I just could not believe the chocolate was actually working. But it was the only thing I actually changed.

So I didn’t ache as much, I had more energy. And actually chocolate curbs your appetite, too, so it actually suppressed my appetite so I actually lost weight, too. So there have been some pretty impressive benefits I’ve received.

LL: So when you’re talking with people and you bring this up and you say, “Well, you know what, chocolate, at the right amount, can actually be healthy for you,” do you get strange looks from people?

JB: Oh yeah, all the time. They go, “Yeah right.” But you know what I tell them to do? I say, “I want you to do this. I want you to go Google ‘dark chocolate’ and tell me what you see.” Because when they do it, they’re going to see all these studies out there on dark chocolate. There are some ones out there on cardiovascular benefits and blood pressure and diabetes. I mean the list goes on.

So when they come back to me and they go, “Wow, I never really knew chocolate could be healthy.” And I say, “Yeah, but not all chocolate is healthy.” And that’s when we show them the difference between commercial chocolate and Xocai Healthy Chocolate.

……

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Florida State’s Chris Weinke, the 2000 Heisman Trophy winner. Chris thanks for joining us.

First question I have for you is could you tell people what you’re doing now at the IMG Football Academy?

Chris Weinke: Yes, we launched the football academy down here at the IMG campus which is in Bradenton, Florida. It’s the IMG Madden Football Academy and we are primarily right now a place for youth, high school, collegiate and NFL quarterbacks to come and train and I’m the director of that program.

We started our kickoff weekend June 4 and we’ll run camps throughout the course of the summer and we’ll work with a number of collegiate and NFL quarterbacks throughout the course of the year. So they’re excited about the opportunity and things are going very well.

LL: Now I know you were working in business, is this going to be an entry into a coaching career or you?

CW: Yeah. When I got done playing I looked at a few different opportunities in terms of coaching and had some opportunities in coaching at the collegiate and NFL level, and this opportunity came up and as a former client of IMG and as a guy who trained down here prior to the NFL combine, it was the perfect fit for me.

So I was comfortable with what we do down here and it was a perfect fit for me and really kind of an opportunity for me to not only be the director and run the business side of it, but to be on the field and coach on a daily basis with young football players.

LL: Now what is it like for you to be back in Florida? I know that you were recently in Austin, Texas and you were involved with Triton Financial and obviously it was a very messy situation there. What’s it like for you to be back in Florida and away from that situation that got caught up in headlines?

CW: Yeah it’s just a bad situation and it’s unfortunate for a lot of people but I knew my heart was in coaching and I knew that when I found the right place, that was going to take advantage of the right opportunity and it’s nice to be in coaching, it’s nice to work with kids.

It’s an opportunity for me to not only share my knowledge and experience as a player but it translates nicely into the coaching side and I feel like we’re doing an excellent job in terms of teaching the fundamentals and the proper technique to the kids down here.

And really that’s where we get the satisfaction as coaches, so it’s been fun so far.

…..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Oregon’s Reuben Droughns, now a coach in the Central European Football League. Reuben thanks so much for joining us. My first question for you is I’m sure more than a few people took a double take when they read the news you were going to be an assistant coach in the Central European Football League.

How did you end up there and how are things going so far?

Reuben Droughns: It’s one of those things where I’m trying to play football in Europe and I figured I could probably lend more of a hand out here for the start of my career. It so happened I got in touch with a guy out here named Goran Nisavic and we began to talk and continued to talk and I just landed here.

LL: The first question I think everyone asks is, there’s so many places to get into coaching, whether it’s the UFL now, the AFL, CFL, high school, college. Why not pursue one of these other options as opposed to Serbia?

RD: Because I felt like I could lend more of a hand out here as far as these guys, getting the grind work down and learning how to coach kids and getting personal with them as far as one-on-one situations. And I figured that with the knowledge that I have with the nine years that I played in the NFL, I’d be able to come out here and actually give them a better hand as far as trying to get them to a certain level of play.

LL: Could you tell us what it’s like living overseas in Serbia? Have you ever spent an extended amount of time overseas before?

RD: No, this is actually my first time. It’s a little bit different. You obviously miss home and miss certain things about home and it definitely makes you appreciate what you have when you see places like Serbia. Right now one of the biggest problems with our teams is trying to get sponsorship for the team and getting equipment as far as coaching as far as like bags and stuff they honestly need. The biggest issue is that. And other than that, you’ve got some great guys out here and you’re able to teach them the basics.

LL: Tell us what the level of talent is like. I think everyone pictures Serbia as a place for basketball and soccer but definitely not American football.

RD: There’s a few guys that have some talent that could probably compete at some college ball. But as far as them being able to compete at the same level as the college level in the States, it’s not going to happen any time soon. I think they have a lot of recruitment to grow. I think they will get there sometime.

But it’s going to take some players and people like me that know the game that are in the States to come out and help out to try and try to strike their knowledge into this type of league. I think that’s the biggest thing most of these teams are missing is coaching.

LL: And how’re you trying to acclimate to the culture? Are you trying to learn the language? Do you know anyone there?

RD: I am trying to learn the language. That was one of the good things about it. It gave me a chance to come out here and pick up a new language and give me a chance to actually see some places that I never thought I’d get a chance to visit. We play teams like Hungry, Slovenia, so it gives me a chance to travel around a little bit too.

LL: And what’s the ultimate goal with this? Do you want to become a major college football coach? Crack into the NFL one day?

RD: I do (want to become a college coach). That’s my plan. Right now I just want to get the basics and get my feet wet a little bit. I know it’s not the same level as becoming a (graduate assistant) and all that stuff. But right now I’m getting my feet wet and I’m not wasting any time and when I get back to the States, hopefully I get the opportunity to coach at the next level.

LL: Now you’re NFL career ended in February of 2009 when you were released by the Giants. What were you doing between now and then? Were you exploring these different coaching opportunities?

RD: I was exploring some options. I hope you don’t mind me mentioning, me and my best friend had started a business called Local Ride Shop, which has been great. I’ve spent most of my time with that and trying to get that up and going.

But other than that, I’ve just been kind of wavering whether or not I want to do coaching because when you finish, most of the time, you really don’t know where you want to go and stuff and you’re not really ready to be done with football. But I felt this was the time. I took a little time off and I felt this was the time to get it going again.

LL: Are you still involved in that business? I would imagine that it’d be pretty tough to juggle that from overseas.

RD: Well I am. I’m still involved, me and my partner. I try to do things as far as marketing and stuff and as much as I can do. But when I get back home, for the most part that’s going to be my main focus for the start. We definitely want to get that thing up and going. That’s important for me.

LL: And are you spending you time in Colorado when you’re not …

RD: I’ll be moving back home, back to California as soon as I’m done here. As soon as I’m done in Serbia I’m going back to California.

LL: And what’s your response to people saying you took this job in Serbia to get out of the country after the story in January broke about growing medicinal marijuana in your home?

RD: Well no. I don’t think that was the situation at all. My thing is this has been something I’ve been trying to (inaudible) for a while. That happened to be an unfortunate incident as far as that coming out in February because I was leaving in February to be honest with you. And that kind of put a hold on the situation and I wanted to make sure I could still take a job overseas and come out here for coaching.

But that had nothing to do me making my decision to come out here and coach. I had been planning on it, had been talking to several coaching agents beforehand and obviously that was just a terrible, unfortunate incident that happened.

LL: Could you explain what happened there? Because I think a lot of people that read that kind of laughed, the read the headline “Growing Medicinal Marijuana For Their Family,” which I think was a …

RD: My thing with that was me and my brother … my brother came to be and he asked me to get something started and if we could get something started and everything. And the case is still pending. I actually have to go to court pretty soon.

It was one of those situations where it was something that kept going and not necessarily say it went overboard or anything. What happened was I was planning on opening up a shop and everything, and before I could do it, somebody came in and somebody told the feds that I had a bunch of marijuana in my house and I was selling and all that stuff and that wasn’t even the case.

What they actually told them is that I had over 200 plants in my house, which was nowhere near the amount I had in my house at all.

LL: And when you say shop, where you planning on opening like a medicinal marijuana shop?

RD: That’s correct.

LL: And what would be in that kind of shop?

RD: A dispensary.

LL: Are you still planning on doing that or has that been put on hold?

RD: Naw, I’m not messing with that stuff anymore. (laughs) I’m good.

…….

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Michigan’s Chris Hutchinson, the captain of the 1992 team.

Now we’re obligated to ask you, what are your thoughts on Rich Rodriguez entering year three? We know all about the hot seat. What’s your take on this third season?

Chris Hutchinson: Well, I would like to see the defense play much better than they have the last two years. The offense is great but clearly my heart lies in the defense and that defense has been a heart breaker. They’ve been so poor.

Clearly that offense is very competitive. I like Rich Rod. I’ve been to practice and been the honorary captain last year. I think he’s done a very good job. It was a very difficult transition but that defense has to get a lot better.

And I don’t like where some of the circumstances ended up with the NCAA but we’ll get through that and we’ll get back to a Big Ten Championship standing.

LL: Now a lot of people like yourself are very optimistic about Rich Rodriguez turning things around. But from a fans’ perspective, Michigan lost Brandon Graham, their best defensive player. They lost Donovan Warren, possibly their second best defensive player. And some people consider Zoltan Mesko their third best defensive player because he was punting the ball to give them a big field.

So how in the world are they going to hold anyone … they talk about simplifying the defense in year two under Greg Robinson. But if you’re a fan how do you have any hope for this defense this year?

CH: Clearly I pointed that out to people. How this is going to be a complete team effort. There is no, let alone super stars, hardly any stars. They’ve got to be able to come together and play as a team because you can get away without having a super star on defense if you play team defense because that’s what defense is all about. Know where your help is and run to the ball and it’s about effort.

So you can get away without having a Brandon Graham if you’re all on the same page … which they weren’t all on the same page.

LL: What’s your thought on the transition to becoming a Michigan head coach? Because a lot of people say, “People don’t realize how hard it is to come in as an outsider and take over this job,” but you were there when Gary Moeller took over and granted, it was a different situation, but he came right in and was winning Big Ten Championships. He didn’t go right to sub .500 seasons.

CH: Very different situation. While he did change the offense and open it up a little bit from what we played with Bo, and I think Bo actually commented on this, that the cupboards were about as full as they can be and we had a stockpile full of very talented people, where as I don’t know if that was really the case when Rich Rod got there and most importantly when (former Michigan quarterback Ryan) Mallett left, especially in that offense, that leaves a big hole.

So I think it was a very different situation. You know Mo went through his transitions. We were used to Bo standing up there and yelling at us and then there’s Mo who was a little quirky, awkward when he first got up there on the podium. But I think it was a very similar offense and defense and basically none of the other coaches changed. The philosophy didn’t change so it was a much more gentler transition than what Rich Rod had to go through.

LL: Last question for you: how good does Michigan have to be to save Rich Rodriguez’s job?

CH: Boy that’s a tough question. The guys that I work with, we were talking about this yesterday and he was going through the schedule and thought they would have eight wins and if they didn’t have eight wins that Rich Rod was going to be gone. I don’t know.

My personal feeling is it’s going to depend on how the team does and not necessarily … wins and losses sure, but how they progress. And then also what happens with the NCAA investigation. I’ve met David Brandon and was extremely impressed with him. Clearly he is going to be the one that’s going to make the calls here. But I think it’s going to be one of those that depends on this and that and bringing in the right guys and not necessarily eight wins.

If the defense get significantly better and the offense is stable and there’s no shockers from the NCAA then I think he’s probably going to be around. But if one of those fall apart, I don’t know. I hope the best for him but I wouldn’t think twice if David Brandon decided to break ties and move in a different direction.

……

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Oregon’s J.J. Birden who currently works with Team X88 Distributers selling Xocai healthy chocolate. Mr. Birden, thank you very much for joining us today.

I think if you look at your average professional athlete, especially professional football player, and the way their career goes. Then you look at your career. One could say you almost appeared out of thin air to become a very solid professional athlete.

I want to go back to (when) you’re in high school. You’re not getting looks from Division I schools. The only thing you’re promised from Oregon is that you might, might get a tryout in your sophomore year. Why did you take that chance?

J.J. Birden: Yeah that’s a good question. I had a very good high school career in track and football. I wasn’t the prototypical wide receiver because I was 5-10, 133 (pounds). I wasn’t very big. But I think it was just continuing to hear college say, “No, you can’t play Division I college football. Go to Division II, go to Division III.”

I just felt in my heart I could play at that level. I felt I had the tools, I had the toughness, I was determined. I just needed the opportunity. Track-wise I knew I was Division I. In long jump a 24’9” in high school, that’s pretty good. So I knew I could get a Division I scholarship in track, but if I could find the right school that would just give me the opportunity, a shot. And Oregon, ironically next to a couple other schools, were the only one that said, “We might give you a try your sophomore year.”

And when they said “might,” I knew there was a chance and all I wanted was a chance. And Rich Brooks that second year said, “Hey we’ll give you an opportunity to see what you can do.” That’s all I needed. And it did not take me long, Jose. I remember coming in there, seventh string and by week two I was number two.

And what the coach said to me was, “Wow, we never knew you could play like this.” And all I said was, “All I wanted was an opportunity,” and I definitely proved them wrong.

LL: I can imagine that anyone who has a regular tryout, the days and weeks leading up to that tryout has to be nerve wracking. You had a year lead up to the tryout. How anxious were you going into it your sophomore year?

JB: I was very anxious because I would go watch practice and I remember seeing the kids they gave scholarships to who were playing at the same time I was. I remember a couple of running backs they gave scholarships to and converted them to wide receiver. So I was getting so hungry and so hungry but I was also killing time because I knew I needed to put a little weight on.

So I ballooned up to about 155, I gained like 20 pounds during that year. It was natural growth. So by the time I got out there I was so hungry. I already knew I could catch the ball. I already knew I could run. I understood the receiver position, I just had to adapt to playing at that level. And I was very hungry and determined, and I was very satisfied when they just said, “Wow we want you on this team.”

LL: By your junior year you become a starter and as luck would have it, both your junior and senior years you get injured. Through your career you only have one touchdown (reception). So now looking ahead to a possible professional career, did you have the same mindset that you had heading into college? That you just needed that chance? Or did you feel that now that it was a bigger jump it would be a lot tougher to impress scouts?

JB: Yeah it was kind of … it was an interesting situation because I was never, never thinking of the NFL. Never, never, never, never. My dreams was of a 26-foot long jumper. My dreams were to go to the Olympics. If there was any chance to do that, I wanted to go to that. And that’s where my heart was and football was just something to do to prove everybody wrong.

Even when I became a starter I was like, “Oh, I’m a starter, OK.” So I started and like you said, I didn’t have the most auspicious career at all. To be honest, I had the most unimpressive college career. I broke my arm my junior year. I twisted my ankle badly my senior year. And so I wasn’t thinking NFL until Bob Toledo, who was my offensive coordinator, he came up to me when Lew Barnes, Lew Barnes was the receiver in front of me. He was probably two inches shorter than me. He was drafted by the Chicago Bears.

And Bob Toledo comes up to me and says, “You know what, you’re going to get your shot.” And I go “Shot? For what?” He goes, “To the NFL.” And I go, “Yeah, right.” Then I saw Lew get drafted in the fifth round by the Chicago Bears and I started thinking, “Wow, maybe I could play in the NFL.” And that was the first time I started thinking of the NFL. But even then I wasn’t totally committed to that until I got invited to the NFL Combine, which is really kind of a mystery in itself because I was not a super college player, but I got invited to the combine and you’re going to test me on how far I can jump and how fast I am? I tested fine.

So then I became this mystery player. This track guy who could catch the ball and run and I knew there was an outside shot that I would get drafted. And I was drafted by the Cleveland Browns. But the turning point for me was getting drafted in the middle of my senior track season, where I’m gearing up for the nationals. I qualified for the Olympic Trials in long jump. I go to rookie camp and I tear up my ACL in the Browns rookie camp. So that was the beginning of my NFL career.

LL: Wow, that’s amazing. One would think an injury would be the beginning of the end of an NFL career. You talked about how you had so much focus on the Olympics and how football was never really at the forefront.

So I have to imagine that at that moment, even if it was the beginning of the NFL career, how tough was it to know that you weren’t going to be able to go on and compete at the Olympics after that injury?

JB: Yeah, that was a blow. That was a blow because I knew I hadn’t even hit my potential. I was hitting low 26s and I’m a long jumper and I was getting a lot of big long jumps of 27 feet that were fouls. And that’s always an indicator that a long jumper is ready to go to the next level. So I knew that I was ready to go further.

But because I tore up my knee, I never finished my senior track season. And I’ll never know how I would’ve done. I don’t know how I would’ve done or how I would’ve performed at the trails. That mystery of not being able to finish really kind of haunted me, but I had to kind of change my mindset and say, “Hey, the reality is you can’t do track. What’s your plan B? The NFL.”

So all my focus went towards the NFL. Went towards getting healthy, getting bigger and learning how to play the game at the professional level.

LL: I would say the NFL is not a bad Plan B but you said you were kind of haunted by not ever knowing what you could’ve done. How long did that stay with you?

JB: Well probably to this day (chuckles). You know I love track. It was my first love. If I had never tore up my knee I don’t really know I would’ve played in the NFL. It wasn’t about the money. It was about doing something you enjoy and I really enjoyed competing in track and I was moving up the ranks as a long jumper. I would’ve loved to see how far I would’ve gone. And so for years and years that was always something that stuck with me.

But fortunately I’m a professional. I realize you can’t dwell on the past. You can’t let that stop you from your future. So as I focused more on the NFL, it was more like, “OK, first year I’m on IR. Let’s use this as a blessing, what can I get out of this first year?” I had no pressure to play. All I had to do was get healthy, understand the system, understand how to play at that level. And that’s what I did, Jose.

And that was, quite frankly, a blessing in disguise. I got bigger. I really got more prepared for that second year when it was time to get on the field.

…….

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from Lost Lettermen.com and I’m being joined by NC State’s Chris Washburn the third overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft. Chris thanks so much for joining us. My first question for you is we know you’re in Dallas working at a mortgage company. Could you talk about how you got started there?

Chris Washburn: Well I had to do something after basketball. So I was dating a young lady that was in the (inaudible) field. She taught it to me a little bit. I was able to go into a job with a little bit of knowledge and they hired me. Maybe because of my background in basketball. Nevertheless, I got hired and been doing it now for nine years. (inaudible)

LL: Could you talk about, I know that you’ve been sober know for ten years. Could you talk about, I know there have been many trips to rehab that failed. How were you able in June of 2000 to finally put drugs behind you?

CW: I really just got sick and tired of it. Some people when they do drugs die. Some people who do it end up in a penitentiary. And some people like myself, by the grace of God, are still able to stay functioning among society. I just ran to the end, it just ran its course. I got tired of doing it. I wasn’t getting high no more, the high wasn’t fun no more.

I got tired of being broke, borrowing money, owing people money. Every time I went to jail it was because of drugs. I finally matured I guess you could say. It’s sad to say at 35 I finally woke up. But if I knew then what I know now, I would’ve never been in this situation.

LL: I know that you recently spoke to a group of high school students about not making the same mistakes you did. How are you able to now speak about your past history with drug abuse where it seems like no one’s really heard from you in about ten years?

CW: The first thing was because I was maintaining myself. It’s hard to come out and tell folks about something if you’ve never been through it. And my thing was I’ve never been a … type of person where I tell you something and I’m doing something different. Even when I was doing drugs, I told folks I was doing drugs. It was a known fact.

So when I fell off the scene. I had my trials and tribulations; I did a little jail time. But when I came back and I finally got serious it was just a matter of time before I actually feel confident enough to come back out, feel confident enough that a slip was not right around the corner, because I was not going to end up going back in jail and end up doing it all over again.

I was just at the point that after 10 years I was clear away from it. So again it give me a chance now to go back and maybe tell kids before they have to get in a situation like I was that I just started, just a drink of beer and it progressed all the way to, I would say losing $100 million.

So they learn something from that.

LL: Now I read your mother said that you should keep her address in your coat pocket so that when police found your dead body they would know where to return it. What was it like when you own mom said that to you?

CW: Well you have to understand the whole story. Just that morning I called and I had been doing that the last four or five months, where I call twice a day. And in the morning she would send me $1,000 and in the evening she would have to turn around and send me another $1,000.

Now in doing this I would tell her I need some money and in the evening I would say, “I lost that money, I don’t know where I put it. Could you send me another?” So I had to always keep covering a lie with a lie. And I guess she just got to a point where someone told her that your son is really using drugs for a long time. She didn’t want to admit it just like I didn’t want her to know I was a drug user.

But she got to the point where she was tired of sending that kind of money on a daily basis for almost six months. Then this one time she was like, you know what, I’m not sending you any money. So what you do is just put your name and address in your pocket, so when those dope boys end up killing you they know where to put your body.

And it was a wake-up call because at that point in time I was still like, well that’s my money, because I had already given up power of attorney over everything that I had at that point in that time. So she was just looking out for me. But what that did was it made me more of a person –I was doing these drugs but at that time I could afford hotel rooms and changes of clothes and all that. But when she stopped that money from coming, at that point in time I had to live on the street. Eat out of trash cans because I didn’t have any income coming in. (inaudible)

LL: Now I know that you were homeless at some point in the mid-90s, like you said, eating out of trashcans, what years were those that you were homeless in Houston?

CW: I went to the penitentiary between ’91, got out at the end of ’92. Did about six month and went back on a violation. After I came out of the penitentiary again, I was homeless anywhere between, I would say…even when I got out of the penitentiary because my wife left me, in between ’92-’93 and when I got back out again I started doing the same thing. So I went form like ’94 to almost ’97.

Then in that point in time I moved back to North Carolina.

LL: So then what happened between the years of ’97 and 2000 when you finally got clean?

CW: Well what happened was there were teams overseas still taking chances on Chris Washburn. They would send me some money I’d come over and play a little bit. A lot of times I was out of shape. Wasn’t putting the effort back in. I really lost the taste for basketball. It’s kind of real hard to get that taste back when the best league that you were in has banned you, so everything you seem to come up on is second best.

And so I just lost the thrill of basketball. I was going overseas and nobody could really see me play. I had put some weight on. So at that time basketball was really a secondary thing. Drugs were still a big part … I’m still trying to come to grips with me (inaudible). So I’m a few months on, I’m a few months off.

So again it came down to I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.

LL: Could you talk about the health effects your drug use has on you today? You’re only 44 years old but the recent article on you in the Charlotte Observer makes it sound like there’s some profound effects on your body from the drug use.

CW: I don’t know if it’s not especially from the drugs. I just stopped running up and down the court and got fat. You could look at Charles Barkley and see you don’t have to use drugs to gain a little weight. Yeah, at 44 I stop playing ball and I put on maybe 100 more pounds than what I should have. But I’m at least glad to be here. I remember articles in the ‘80s that said I would be dead before I was 25 and that’s just how strong I was with the drugs. So for me to just be alive at 44 and even better now than back then is just a blessing.

……

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m currently being joined by Ohio State’s Dennis Hopson, the 1987 Big Ten Player of the Year and the No. 3 overall pick in the 1987 NBA Draft. Mr. Hopson, thank you very much for joining us today.

Dennis Hopson: Thanks for having me.

LL: Now you were drafted in 1987, you played your last NBA game by 1992 and then went on to have a long career overseas, but when media publications always look at past drafts, they always like to throw around the term busts and label guys as NBA busts.

Did you ever think that was a fair label for yourself or any other player that has been drafted in the past that they look at the career, they look at the number and they look at the years played and they say that guy is an NBA bust?

DH: I won’t comment on anybody else but myself, but people are going to say what they want to say but if they look at Dennis Hopson, my career average is ten point something a game. Now I could’ve stayed in the NBA but I made the mistake by listening to an agent when I had guaranteed money on the table.

When I was in Sacramento, and you can talk to the general manager at the time, they offered me a contract, but it was just for a year because they had signed Walt Williams and they had money that was going out. So they didn’t have the money to sign me to a multi-year deal. So it was my fault that I didn’t take the money. I put my future in the hands of an agent and I probably shouldn’t … I’m not going to say I probably shouldn’t have done it, I shouldn’t have done it at all.

My first advice to a guy that is going to any professional sport and he’s working with an agent – you make sure you tell the agent what to do, don’t let that agent tell you what to do because he’s working for you.

But to get back to your question is, with the guaranteed money on the table, I’m here mulling around not taking it and you can call (former NBA player) Brad Sellers about this, I’ll never forget, because he called me every hour on the hour telling me I should take the guaranteed money. OK, but not doing that caused me to go overseas because they ended up signing somebody else in my place. That caused me to go overseas and once you go overseas, you get stuck overseas because now the season over there starts a little bit earlier than the NBA. So what do you do? Do you turn down guaranteed money to stay here in the States or do you take that guaranteed money that they have on the table over in Europe?

So I was going with the guaranteed money (in Europe) and I kind of got trapped over there. But I had guaranteed money over there on the table. Actually I averaged 10 points, seven points a game in Sacramento that last year in like 18 minutes a game playing with Mitch Richmond. So I did have guaranteed money on the table. I just messed up by putting my NBA future in the hands of an agent.

LL: You say that you messed up and you also say that you should’ve taken the money. So in just terms of your basketball career, would you say that’s the biggest regret that you have related to your basketball career?

DH: That’s the biggest regret that I have. I left New Jersey averaging almost 16 points a game. Led the team in scoring. People fail to realize that. Me and Bill Finch didn’t get along. Bill Finch trades me away. Then he trades me to Chicago. And I knew what would happen in Chicago because I’m playing behind the best player in the NBA game and I saw what happened to Sedale Threatt and Sam Vincent when they played in Chicago.

So going there playing spotty minutes, all the confidence that I had built in New Jersey just kind of went backwards because of playing behind Michael Jordan, which was a great opportunity just being there. I got an NBA Championship, but being traded there I think Bill Finch was trying to do me in by sending me to a place like that instead of sending me somewhere where I had the opportunity to build my confidence and continue to play well like I did in New Jersey.

And once leaving from New Jersey, I got traded to Sacramento and I started to pick it back up again. I’m not going to … I’m not going to … first of all. A player just doesn’t become a bad player over night. There’s no such thing as that. No such thing. In professional sports, it’s all about timing and the right situation. That’s what happens with some of these guys that people feel that aren’t as successful at the pros as they were in another level. It’s all about timing, being at the right place at the right time and playing for the right team and the right coach.

……

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by NC State’s Chris Washburn, the 3rd overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft.

Now I’ve read in some places that your SAT score in high school was a 470, other places it was a 420. What exactly was the score and how in the world did you finish in 20 minutes?

Chris Washburn: You gotta understand I think back then there was not an exact number that a person would need in order to get a scholarship. So I got some bad advice, “Just go in and take the test, you’re already in school. There’s nothing that can be done to you.”

So when you go in everybody else is trying to take this test so that they can get accepted in some way. I’d already been accepted so I had to take the test as a formality. So when I go in I just see a bunch of dots and all that so all I have to do is start filling in the dots.

It wouldn’t have taken me 22 minutes if it was just circle the A, B or C questions. I would’ve been done faster than that. But because I had to do the dots, it took 22 minutes. Now I think even back then if they had said, “Chris you need an 800 or a 900 on the test,” I would’ve gotten that. Because school was never a problem for me; you never heard anything about my schooling until after the 420. And again you grade a person by something you never even took.

So I was there, my body and presence was there because being from a small town, I didn’t have someone go and take the test for me. I had to go in there physically and do it. And again, when everybody is taking 30 or 40 minutes I’m sitting over there thinking about how I’m going to do my autographs and all that in college because I’ve already finished my whole test.

LL: Another thing that just kind of makes your jaw drop when you read this is that you went to rehab and relapsed 12 times. How in the world is that possible?

CW: Because you have to understand that 10 of those times I got out I had my drug dealer come out and pick me up from the airport or from the drug place and he was either a cousin or a family friend (inaudible). So before I even got home the drug dealers always got me a hotel room and as soon as I got out of rehab, I’d go straight to the hotel. And at that point I’d be off drugs 60 or 90 days. It’s time to party now.

So I was a young kid at that point in time. I didn’t know how to have fun without using drugs. Now I understand that the real people that are having fun out there are not using drugs.

LL: One last question for you. A lot of people ask us you were drafted right after Len Bias, who died the day after the draft of a cocaine overdose. How did you not take that cautionary tale and say, “Well I got to stay away from this stuff”? How were you still able to become addicted to it?

CW: Well he died two days after the draft. We were drafted on a Tuesday and he died on that Thursday. But what it did was I did stop. That was in June. I didn’t really start using drugs until middle preseason, when we started playing.

What had happened was I (inaudible) and being a rookie I was having to carry veteran’s bags. (inaudible) And you tell a kid every time you want something he has to (inaudible). Now I’m at the top of my profession and I’m winning things now against the vets and you’re telling me I can’t have these things. But no one ever sat me down and told me these are steps you have to go through being a rookie.

When I went to Golden State, I was on an old team. These guys had wives and kids and were family men. So after practices when I’m looking for somebody to hang out, my teammates weren’t the ones to look for because they were going home, they were already doing other businesses. I was 19. My mind didn’t think like that.

So I had to go out and find people that were doing things that I thought were fun. It’s just that bad thing was in California in the ’80s – drugs were popular because it was new. So I came out and nobody knew the addiction would be long term. But now these kids have resources and a lot of these resources Chris started. But I had to be the guinea pig. Somebody had to start somewhere and unfortunately I was the guinea pig.

LL: And when exactly did you start using cocaine?

CW: I started using cocaine right before the draft. Maybe a month before the draft. Tried it with a friend and I immediately liked it. They went on and doing their thing and they ended up dying from it. It’s a few people, in the beginning when I tried it, there was only three people left. Two people are already dead. It was just shocking but it was something I already liked and immediately liked when I first tried it.

……

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Kentucky’s Sam Bowie, the 2nd overall pick of the 1984 NBA Draft.

Now people find this very interesting. You’ve been a very outspoken huge fan of Greg Oden because you know what he’s going through. What’s it like for you, having gone through what you went through in Portland, to see people calling him a bust at age 22 and one of the biggest busts of all time already?

Sam Bowie: I’ve never met Greg personally but I’ve always followed him and the fact that he’s had the setbacks that he’s had and me being there prior to him and going through similar situations as far as injuries. I feel like I complicate the situation for him even more because he’s getting a taste of people who were disappointed that obviously Michael Jordan was available and for them to select me. None of us knew he’d turn out to be the greatest player, in my opinion.

But at the same time injuries are something that none of us can control. I wish I would’ve stayed healthy and had the opportunity to enhance my chances to bring a championship to Portland and physically I wasn’t able to do that. When I look at Greg and I hear the comments that him and Bowie flip a coin in regards to a disappointment and being a bust.

Greg is unfortunate in the sense that he’s had these injuries, but it’s got to be tough on him. Regardless of the amount of compensation one’s receiving, you still have pride, you have dignity and you want to perform. And he hears all the ridicule that he’s getting, and as a human being it’s got to be difficult.

LL: Does it bother you when people talk about your career in Portland? Sports Illustrated named you the biggest NBA Draft bust of all time. Do you want to say, ‘Hey, you’re leaving out the gruesome injury in 1986? Or do you want to defend yourself? Or do you let it go at some point?

SB: I’d be lying to you … there’s a small part of you that wants to stand up, roll your sleeves up, dig your heels in and represent yourself. But the majority of me, absolutely not. I personally feel elated that my game was to the point that someone thought worthy of me to be the second pick and I don’t feel like I have to apologize by any means.

I always feel that the man upstairs (inaudible). So it’s all pre-determined for me. Like I said, there’s a small part that you want to debate and defend yourself, but I can honestly say that now I’m really comfortable and really happy and it was what it was.

LL: Now I want to ask you a little bit about your time at Kentucky. People remember your last game was the 1984 Final Four versus Georgetown against Patrick Ewing. You guys were up seven at the half. Then in the second half Kentucky goes 3-33. How much does that still stick with you, how close you were to a national championship?

SB: I used to joke with Patrick Ewing throughout my pro career about him walking around with my NCAA championship ring because I still believe we were the best team in the country that year. We had beaten Houston early in that year and that’s the team that Patrick and them wound up playing for the championship after they beat us.

But I always joke with Patrick that that deal of going 3-33, you’ll never see that again and that was a fluke situation, it occurred. We look back on it now and, like I said I’m 49 years old, and there’s one game that I will never, ever be able to figure out and it’s that game out in Seattle.

But it was very, very disappointing as a senior never getting the chance to have an opportunity to win an NCAA Championship again. It was devastating.

…..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from Lost Lettermen.com and I’m being joined by Loyola Chicago’s LaRue Martin, the first overall pick in the 1972 NBA Draft.

You were definitely in a unique situation in Portland in that you didn’t play much in your first year and then in your last year they brought in Bill Walton, and that’s some stiff competition. But I know the criticism that people have made is that it seem like you did put enough effort for being the first overall pick. Do you think that’s a fair criticism?

LaRue Martin: I don’t think that’s fair at all. My third and fourth year Lenny Wilkins started giving me me more playing time and of course Bill was a great player. I played against Bill in college. I’ve known Bill my whole life. He’s a fine gentleman.

But it’s a business. Let’s face it. The NBA is a big business and you have to put forth the effort and that’s why I never gave any negative criticisms toward the media. I just kept my mouth shut and just soaked it all in.

LL: What’s it like for you every year when people call around the draft time, as we’re doing now, and ask you about the big guys that don’t work out like a Michael Olowokandi or a Greg Oden, it appears at least so far?

LM: Oh I get numerous calls. I got newspapers calling me up about a little interview or whatever but I’m just very honest with them. I don’t knock any coach. I had Jack McCloskey my first year and maybe he wasn’t the person that I wanted to coach. Bob McAdoo came up the same year, don’t forget.

Then don’t forget Jack was from the Carolina area, I think Wake Forest at the time, and he knew McAdoo more than he knew with me. But the Trailblazers chose me because of what I did in college and that’s the way life is. You have to move on in life.

LL: One of my favorite stories I’ve heard about you was the time you dunked on Wilt Chamberlain and he didn’t take too kindly to that. Could you explain what happened there?

LM: Yeah I had the opportunity … I got a little playing time that day and had a chance to dunk on Wilt Chamberlain and he stated to me, “LaRue, you’re a good guy but never embarrass me like that again.” (laughs) And that was the moment of my life and as a matter of fact in my home today I still have a picture of me against Wilt Chamberlain. And I tell people this today: OK, you criticize me for my basketball talents. OK, I didn’t get enough playing time. My job to myself and for my family was to turn something negative into a positive situation.

When I go out here and talk to all these kids in high schools and colleges about my professional career, I let them know the truth. And there’s nothing to hide. I’m the No. 1 draft choice. But take that negative and move it into something positive because everybody is not going to make it in sports. That’s the bottom line.

LL: Another question I had for you is a lot of people wonder why you didn’t try more comeback attempts at the age of 25. I know you had the calcium in your right leg that was a serious injury. What it because of injuries that you didn’t come back or did you decide to move on?

LM: I went to the Mayo Clinic a few years ago. They thought I had cancer. I was bleeding inside the leg a lot and it turned into calcium deposits and they sent me to the Mayo Clinic and I was scared myself. I didn’t know if I was going to wake up with a leg or not.

But after basketball was such … I took it too hard. I was hurt, I was really hurt. Believe me, being a young man and being called the worst draft choice in the nation and people laughing at you, I had to move on in life. I really had to move on in life. And a lot of guys just taught me back in the day – Nate Thurman, Jeff Perty, Bill Walton, all my friends. And that was just the way life was and I moved on.

LL: What was it like for you to be driving around a UPS truck in Portland? Was it really tough that people would recognize you and I’m guessing some jokes made?

LM: It was tough but you know something, I’m more than a man. My job was to be very humble. Never let your pride get in your way. Because if you take a look today … I belong to the National Basketball Retired Players Association and I was sitting on a panel with Julius Erving and a couple of the other guys about careers.

Today these guys are making a crazy amount of money. But if you ever take a look at their resume: Most valuable player, I scored so many points. Understanding what this corporate world is all about, it’s a shame. It’s a shame what’s going on here today.

We’ve all been through it (inaudible), you don’t know how the money is going. You have no business sense, you have no business savvy. And it’s a repeat, repeat, repeat every year. I look back and I made mistakes in my life. I’m not perfect but I learned from my mistakes. That’s what I was saying: You take a negative and make it into a positive.

LL: Last question for you. What do you think of people saying there’s a “Curse of the Blazer Big Man” with injuries to you, Bill Walton, Sam Bowie and now Greg Oden? Do you chuckle at that or do you think it’s just absurd?

LM: I never think about that, no. To be honest with you that never came to my mind at all.

LL: What’s your thought about Greg Oden’s injuries? Do you think he can come back from this?

LM: You know he’s a young man. Heck, I’m 60 years old. He’s a young man. He’s really going to have to take a look and see whether or not he’s in it for him or not. Coming from college is a different ball game and going to the professional league, it’s tough man. You’re going to get knocked around, beat up upon, jumping. He’s going to have to take a look at his body and maybe he’s going to have to seek a professional or physician on if his body can really take it or not.

Maybe he can’t, I don’t know.

LL: I know Sam Bowie says he keeps an eye on what Greg Oden is doing because he cheers for him because he knows what he’s going through. Is it tough for you to watch Greg Oden go through the same things you went through?

LM: Yes it is. I feel sorry for the young man. I do. He seems to be a very humble individual, too. And you have to forget about one thing. Don’t let your pride get in the way. Your body is just a big machine and some people can take it and some people can’t.

You look at Earl Campbell. It’s sad to see him like that. It’s very sad. It’s just something. Like I was saying, Greg is going to have to be his own man and see whether it’s in him or not. If not, move on in life. Go into the corporate world and see what opportunities are out there. He has his degree.

……

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Arkansas’ Joe Kleine, the No. 6 overall draft pick in the 1985 NBA Draft. Mr. Kleine thank you very much for joining us today.

We have the NBA Draft coming up pretty soon and you yourself were a lottery pick in the draft. You have experience with the lead up to the draft, knowing that you’re going to be drafted somewhere. Could you talk about what it’s like as a college student, you’re done with your college career and now you’re anticipating being in the NBA Draft.

Joe Kleine: Oh, I mean, it’s another kind of step. Everything is new. The whole draft process is a new process. So everything that is involved with it is new. And when you get with your team and into the NBA the steps are all new to you.

So once again you’re learning a trade and learning a way of doing things that is different than the way you did it before. So it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of perseverance and you gotta have a lot of belief in yourself because there’s a lot of times you’re going to get knocked down those first couple of years.

LL: You had a 15-year career in the NBA. Not very many players can say they were in the league for that long. What would you say is the secret of being able to stay in professional basketball?

JK: You have to have some level of talent. The NBA doesn’t keep guys around because they like you. You have to bring something to the table that helps the team, enhances the team’s chances to win. Whether it be your work ethic in practice, there has to be something that the coach feels you have.

And you have to have talent to go along with that. You have to have a heck of a lot of perseverance. You gotta be able to deal with things when they don’t go your way. And you gotta be extremely motivated, very dedicated and disciplined.

LL: Knowing the hard work that goes into being a professional basketball player and being successful and know that teams just don’t keep guys around, that you have to be a good athlete: does it upset you when you see publications like Sports Illustrated label yourself or other players as draft busts when your career is over?

JK: Oh yeah. I mean they don’t know. If you’re not an NBA All-Star, they label everyone a bust. You can only have so many All-Stars every year. And so much of it is the organization you go to. If you go to a good organization right out of the block or if you’re an organization that struggles and changes coaches and changes players, changes everything constantly, it’s difficult.

There’s a lot of other factors into it. The easy thing to do is to say he’s a bust. Anybody that plays in the league 10-15 years is not a bust. It’s impossible. It’s a player that was able to bring something to their profession that was played at the highest level. There is no higher level. And they had success at the highest level.

To say someone’s a bust is how you sell publications. Negativity sells more than than when you spin things in a positive nature. So it is what it is. People write what they write. Fifteen years in the league is 15 years in the league and to me if I’m going to be labeled a bust playing 15 years at the highest level of competition in the world, then I’m a bust and I’m glad I’m a bust. (laughs)

LL: There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Final question: of your 15 years, is there a particular accomplishment your most proud of after having played in the NBA?

JK: I think I was a hell of a good teammate and a hard worker. I wanted to win and I was willing to do anything it took to win. I gave it my all every day in practice and every game. And, you know, I have no regrets. I left on my terms and not very many guys get to do that, so I was very fortunate.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Kentucky’s Sam Bowie, the second overall pick of the 1984 NBA Draft. Could you talk about what it’s like living back in Lexington, Kentucky. Obviously it’s a Mecca of college basketball and horse racing. You have so many good memories there.

Sam Bowie: Yeah very much and I may be biased but this is the basketball Mecca of the world really. Basketball is a way of life here and the fact that I was fortunate enough to come through here and have some success and the commonwealth has really embraced me and my family.

And it’s been a beautiful lesson in Lexington, Kentucky – hospitality wise. People are extremely friendly and courteous. Your dollar goes a long way. But we just know that our children are blessed to be around the community that we’re around.

LL: Now a lot of people know that your daughter Gaby is a rising star in basketball and is in seventh grade. What are the chances she ends up in the Kentucky blue?

SB: Well I’m always going to visualize and dream (inaudible), but at the same time, I’ve never been a parent to push my child in any direction. She’s going to have to make that decision and it’s awful early as a seventh grader for us to visualize that as a possibility.

But I always tell my children to set your goals high and you can achieve the goals you strive for. But it would be a beautiful thing to see her play for the lady Cats.

LL: Could you talk about what it’s like, the hospitality in Lexington where you’re remembered for all your stuff at Kentucky as opposed to the guy picked ahead of Michael Jordan in the’84 Draft.

SB: Yeah they’re loyal fans. I’m 49 years old and left this college as far as the basketball is concerned in ’84, and they still feel as though I was the one who came in last year. They love their ex-ball players as much as their current ball players and as I mentioned earlier, hospitality wise they always talk about Southern hospitality. And I’m from Western Pennsylvania but Kentucky is a very warm and very kind people in this area. So it’s been a beautiful setting for all of us.

LL: Did you have a little bit of flashback this year in the Elite Eight when Kentucky was just rolling through the Tournament, everyone thought they were going to win and then they just couldn’t hit a shot (in the Elite Eight), similar to what happened in ’84.

SB: Good point. Excellent point. As I watched that this particular year with Calipari’s team it was very reminiscent of what occurred with (inaudible) and that was very, very close to what occurred to us out there in Seattle years ago.

LL: What was your best memory from your time at Kentucky?

SB: Just when I look back the overall situation as an outsider coming to Kentucky, there’s not one individual game that I performed in, but just the way the commonwealth embraces and hugs and grabs and wants to be in the inner circle of Kentucky basketball. You have to go through it to understand what I’m saying, but as a former player, people live and die with this Kentucky basketball. I guess just the love for the game itself is amazing.

LL: Last question for you: John Calipari has reached out to a ton of players since he’s gotten to Lexington. How much have you spoken to him since he got there a year ago?

SB: Quite a bit. He’s a wonderful ambassador of our university. Obviously his recruiting speaks for itself. His basketball knowledge is second to none. So he was the one who contacted me. I had never met him through my basketball travels and he contacted me. Wanted to personally introduce himself and from that day on, he’s kept in contact and he’s the type of guy that says he needs us to get it done, not him. As a former player it’s a beautiful thing.

LL: Does it bother you to see all the controversy about academic scandal and the Eric Bledsoe thing comes out. What’s going through your mind when you see all that and people wonder if he’s going to stay or go. Does that bother you?

SB: Yes it does but the fact that I’ve been in the limelight at the professional ranks, at the top of one’s profession, you understand that there’s always going to be detractors that try and pull you down and always try and bring up the negatives. And I’m like the vast majority here. I hope that those are just allegations. That there’s no truth to what is being said as far as any illegal deal, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Ohio State’s Jon Sanderson, member of the 1999 Final Four team. Mr. Sanderson thank you very much for joining us today.

You were able to make it to the Final Four in 1999. What was that experience like being able to reach the pinnacle of college basketball?

Jon Sanderson: I mean, what a tremendous team accomplishment. You’re talking about a group of guys that, before the year there weren’t very high expectations. (Inaudible) Great work ethic, great leadership, great coaches. It was just kind of a perfect puzzle for making that run and having a great Big Ten season. Finishing second in the Big Ten. (inaudible)

Memories I’ll never forget. Unbelievable experience. And the guys, they deserved it. We deserved it. We worked hard and we were able to knock off Auburn who was I believe the No. 1 team in our bracket, and St. John’s in the Elite Eight to get us to the Final Four.

LL: Now you mentioned you have the memories and you guys worked hard for that and that’s something that’s never going to leave you. Unfortunately, according to the NCAA and sanctions, that Final Four officially didn’t happen.

Does it hurt you that there’s that asterisk next to that Final Four season even though you have those memories of how tremendous the experience was?

JS: It obviously does. There was so much hard work and dedication and teamwork that went into that. That is tough. It’s tough to have the asterisk next to it. It doesn’t change what we accomplished and it’ll never be forgotten. No one is ever going to forget that. That’s all we have to hold proudly, I guess.

LL: I know you’ve had plenty of years to think about it and understand that this is something that will never be forgotten, but when you were younger and the decision first came out, what was your initial reaction when you heard that Ohio State had to strike that Final Four from the record?

JS: Shocked. I had no idea that any of those things were happening. So shocked I would say was my initial reaction, and I was at the time I was with Clemson basketball. And I believe we were making a run in the NIT. We were in New York, I believe when I found out, and I got some calls for interviews. Just shocked.

LL: Myself having been in and around U of M when you had their own sanctions and people just talking about what it means to strike some things from the record and whether it was worth it. Have you ever thought that was a proper action that the NCAA takes, just in general, by taking games or tournaments off the record? Did you always feel that there were other ways that the NCAA could punish programs without punishing the individual athletes?

JS: You know that’s a question that’s very difficult for me to answer. No. 1 I have never spent a lot of time thinking about how the NCAA works and I don’t even want to comment on that. The only thing I can focus on is the here and now and like I mentioned to you, the memories that we had on that team, it was just something that will never be forgotten. So that’s all I can focus on.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Purdue’s Matt Mitrione, who defeated Kimbo Slice in UFC 113.

About your Purdue days and your NFL career. You had a stand out career at Purdue. Went to the Rose Bowl as a defensive tackle and then you only had one year in the NFL. Why did you decide to hang it up after just one season? I know you had some injuries but why not try and come back from that?

Matt Mitrione: Well you know there comes a time when you gotta be honest with yourself and if you’re just not good enough anymore, you’re just not good enough anymore. I had a number of surgeries. I came back active after them. I was active with the Giants. I was under IR protection with the Giants in ’03, I was out ’04 and then in ’05 I had to go back to Europe to show that I was A.) healthy and B.) I wasn’t the wild seed that I was when I was young, that I was drunk like I used to be.

So I went to NFL Europe, did well over there and showed them that I was a good citizen, a good team player. Then I was active again with the Vikings in ’05 and then I was a bubble guy. Things went south for me, they needed a lineman and they cut me to make room for it.

My son was born the following week. My wife and I gave them until week 10. So we gave them a month to get me back and when that didn’t happen I started looking for a new job. I have unlimited options. I have a college degree, I’m a pretty creative guy, I’ve got a good head on my shoulders. So my wife and I decided it wasn’t worth letting other people decide where our paycheck comes from.

LL: So is this when you decided to launch the company EDEN, or had you already started that?

MM: No, this is when we decided to start working on Eden. I had spent a lot of time studying human performance and whether it’s (inaudible). I spent a tremendous amount of time studying that. I was telling myself that if I’m going to try and train an athlete to be as high caliber as possible, then I need understand all the variables that go into that. So one of the main variables as far as performance goes is nutrition.

So I started dealing with nutrition and I found I really fell in love with it. I really enjoy the science of nutrient timing and when to ingest what and how to ingest it and what by products are made from this, this and this. So it’s more the chemistry part versus the physiological part. So that’s when we started Eden. It took us a year and a half to come up with a formulation for our recover product.

LL: Could you talk about how working with supplements and your company Eden has helped you in training for UFC?

MM: It’s tremendous actually. A huge amount it’s done for me. The reason being is that the high level of activity that we do is (inaudible) activity. Where your body just cannot sustain that level of activity. And as a result, whenever you (inaudible). Well, you’re not going to build any muscle; you’re going to completely deteriorate your body depending how long you stay in (inaudible). So I just started doing research on the safest most efficient way to make your body build on it versus staying in a detrimental state.

So what I found is that my body responds really well to the out of the (inaudible) activities that we use and I can see why. Through all the research that we’ve gone through and studies that we’ve read and tried to help out with and that the science speaks volumes to me and my body responds to it well.

LL: And how’re you able to juggle doing a UFC career and running a business? Those both seem like full-time jobs.

MM: They’re definitely full-time jobs. They most definitely are. But I have a brother-in-law who is very helpful in regards to EDEN. I still oversee quite a bit. With Eden, when it comes down to the manufacturing and the printing of the labels, the information that’s on the labels and designs and stuff like that. As far as the fulfillment of orders and the collections of accounts. Because we usually work with larger training facilities.

I’m not very hands on with that because that’s very tedious stuff but as far as training. Training is a full-time job but I have time to oversee things most of the time.

LL: Last question for you. A lot of people picture these UFC fighters running around Las Vegas and Los Angeles living these bachelor lives. But you’re actually living in Indianapolis with a wife and two kids, expecting your third child, which congratulations by the way. Could you talk about what you’re doing in the Midwest and raising a family as opposed to what most UFC fighters are doing?

MM: Well, I’m a Midwestern boy. I was on the radio with an ESPN guy named Dan Le Batard the other day and he was making fun of me for not wanting to go down to Miami and party and hang out with a bunch of chicks. And I’m already married to the most beautiful woman I know. I don’t need to go anywhere else and find trouble. I can find plenty of what I want in Indianapolis and in the Midwest. The Midwest speaks to me and has always treated me very, very well. I’m fortunate enough to just sit in for the most part here all of my life and I’m thankful for it. My wife and I love Indiana and love the Midwest.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Washington State’s Mike Utley, the founder of the Mike Utley Foundation, which provides funding for research, rehabilitation and education for people living with spinal cord injuries. Mr. Utley, thank you very much for joining us.

Mike Utley: Jose it’s great to be here my good man.

LL: Now Mr. Utley you suffered your injury Nov. 17, 1991. You start the foundation Jan. 2, 1991. The time period between the injury and when you started the foundation; what was that like for you?

MU: It was a life changer. Let’s put it this way; Nov. 17, it was an instant where my life was changed. I’ve been hurt before. It was devastating because I could not rehabilitate myself to get back on the football field. That’s what was changed. Not the injury. But being able not to come back for (football). That is what changed completely and from that point on …

The reason we started the Mike Utley Foundation is that there was no place for my family, my friends to go and say my friend got hurt. What are the ABCs of starting to (go to) a rehab center, what kind of surgeries, what long term, what short term, what are the goals? What should we do from getting attention from social security and money coming in? What not to do with insurance, how to settle, how to work with them.

The ABCs of someone newly getting hurt, this is why we started the Mike Utley Foundation. It’s imperative that people get information, unbiased information, on how to move forward from this devastating injury.

LL: From what I’ve read, you knew right away that this injury wasn’t any injury that you’d suffered on the football field (before). How long did it take you to go into a mode where you really wanted to start this foundation?

MU: There’s a difference between when I wanted to start the foundation and what I knew as an athlete. As an athlete, when I got hurt from my leg to my shoulder to my hip to my ribs, from the beginning I knew I could come back. But this injury was totally different because what happened was I could not get myself off the football field. This time I knew muscular wise I could not come back and play again. So that was the difference.

It was the afterwards when I came out of my second surgery and that doctor said, “Son, you’ll never walk again.” I told him to get out of my room, don’t tell me you can’t do something. From that point forward is when I started talking to my parents and a couple of the ball players. There was no place for them to go to get information. That is when from my parents, to my agent, to my close friends around me is when we started to (say), “You know what, something needs to be done.” That’s when we started the Mike Utley Foundation.

LL: As an athlete who is so used to coming back from injuries, especially in a sport like football where that’s such a part of it, coming back from injury. How scary was it for you when it set in that you weren’t going to be coming back from this injury?

MU: When people asked me were you scared I say no. It was tougher to go battle somebody like Ray Childress, (Mike) Singletary, William Perry “The Fridge” and some of these other fellas. That is, the word being sacred, it comes down to it where I’d never been here before, I don’t know what to expect but what I do know is where I am at as an athlete, this is where I want to go tomorrow and then the next day and the next day.

It had nothing to with how far in the future was I going to be paralyzed. Am I going to walk again? What I had to do was where I am now and where I’m going to go tomorrow. That’s what I think about.

LL: Did being an athlete, do you think that helped you out in the initial stages versus someone who might suffer a spinal cord injury who has never been an athlete?

MU: No, Jose. Good question. My statement to that is there are 28 NFL football teams. There are 28 right starting guards. Three years of Mike Utley’s life he was a starter in the National Football League. He was one of the 28 best men in the world. If someone was better than Mike Utley, one of the 28, they would’ve been there. But Mike Utley at that point in time in his life, he has earned the right to be one of the 28 best men. That’s with quarterbacks and receivers and anybody else at that time, there’s only 28 starting right guards and I was one of them.

So what that means is I’ve earned everything I’ve ever gotten. If I want something, I’ve got to earn it. The words “got to earn it.” Got to earn it means a lot to me. And if I want something after I got hurt, I earned it. Nobody ever gave me anything as an athlete when I was on the football field, when I was in the weight room, when I ran and know coach was yelling at me, barking at me, cursing at me. There was nobody there. I’ve earned it. And this is the same situation.

Now you put yourself in the situation where you have physical therapist, occupational therapists, weight trainers, nutritionists. Yes, I had access to those. But those were the people I had access to before I got hurt. Now I utilize what I did then, who they are, what I got from them and this is who I picked. I chose, Mike Utley chose to be this is where I wanted to go.

LL: Now I understand the Mike Utley Foundation is a big part of it but how do you as an individual, how do you transfer your own personality, which is clearly a very strong one, to other people who suffer spinal cord injuries and are a little scared immediately after the injury?

MU: That is a perfect question and I will give you the answer. My wife, Dani Utley, is the best person to get you from point A to point B. When you first (talk) with the friends, the family. Everybody’s around … because when you get hurt people make emotional decisions.

When I played as a football player, I made business decisions on the field and off the field. Now when someone says, “What do I do?” and they’re one year post injury, this is where Mike Utley is at his best. This is no time to sit there and cry about spilt milk. That is over with.

Now it’s time to step up. You need to learn about nutrition, you need to learn about, bowel bladder and skin, the three rules you cannot break as a spinal injury. Every adversity has rules. You have cancer, you have, whatever you’re facing, and spinal cord-bowel, bladder and skin – you can attack the situation, learn as much as you can. You get yourself in as an athlete into the weight room, you work with a nutritionist. If you don’t know one, you go find one and you go find people to get you into the weight room and you demand more out of you than what you had in the past.

These are the same things I did as an athlete and these are the same things I do to this day. You earn the right to be where you want to be. Your reputation as an athlete, your reputation as a man, as a woman, as an employer, as an employee, will precede you in everything you do.

Just make sure your reputation is what you want it to be. Guy or gal, student or not, in high school. Wherever you may be. Your reputation is what you make it and what you do today. It will precede you tomorrow but you have to earn it today.

LL: Has there ever been a moment where you have to metaphorically slap yourself in the face and tell Mike Utley I’ve got to get up this day, I have to do this this day, I can’t feel sorry for myself?

MU: Oh absolutely. This is the deal. This injury, this spinal cord injury is an every single day to deal with. I wish I didn’t get hurt but wish is water under the bridge. What you have to do is what’s coming in front of you. Every single day I make a conscious decision to set my alarm at 5 AM every single day. Now, is there days that are harder to get up? Absolutely. Are we human? Absolutely. Are we tired? Absolutely. We have other things that we have to do ? You betcha.

But it is who you are and your character by what you get done today will propel you tomorrow. I’ve been with my wife for 12 years as a football player back in ’89 when I was drafted, Eddie Murray and a lot of these other fellas said No. 60 is for 60 minutes. I pushed myself every single play. I pushed myself to be accountable when the team won, what did I do to make this team a better team? When the team lost, what did I do to make sure Mile Utley was prepared for this game? After that what did I do, not do to give my defensive first team a better look during scout team. These are the things, what could Mike Utley do better for tomorrow? And that’s what I do.

Be accountable for your actions and what you plan on doing for the future.

…

For more information on the Mike Utley Foundation and how you can donate you can click here to visit the website.

For information on the Mike Utley Golf Outing happening June 28, click here.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Duke’s Bobby Hurley, the two-time NCAA champion and NCAA all-time assists leader, now an assistant coach at Wagner College in Staten Island.

I want to ask you about Duke. Obviously they’re back on top being the “evil empire” with another national championship. A lot of guys don’t remember that when you beat UNLV in 1991, you were kind of the darlings for knocking off UNLV, undefeated at the time.

What was it like at your time there to go from 1991, being the darling of college basketball to by 1993 everyone wanting to see you get knocked out of the Tournament by Cal?

Bobby Hurley: Yeah I just hear a lot of the reference of the evil empire and I just don’t really buy into that. I just know how Coach K runs his program over the years. He’s done it the right way. There’s never been really any allegations of wrong doing. He’s recruited guys the right way. He’s brought people into the program that have won at a high level and he’s done it over a number of years.

I just think he’s one of the treasures of college basketball. I’m happy for him. I’m happy to see him get to the top again. They worked really hard at what they’re doing, they’re very good at what they’re doing and they have a lot of support. I guess we’re a little bit polarized in terms of how you look at Duke. You have a feeling whether you like them or you don’t, I just don’t think you can knock all the success and the fact Coach K’s done it the right way there.

LL: Now Coach K is legendary for bringing in former players as assistants. What was his reaction when you told him you were going to join your brother’s staff at Wagner?

BH: Well he was probably that I wasn’t asking him for a job. He’s someone that I plan on using if I have questions and if I can get some knowledge from him as I move forward in the business because he’s one of the top people in college basketball.

So I definitely plan on having a lot of conversations about basketball, about my new job and I’m sure that I can learn a lot from him. But he was happy for me and I’m sure that he can realize how close our family is and that it could be a good opportunity to get involved here with my brother at Wagner.

LL: Now with Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith coming back, people are already talking about back-to-back titles like you did in ’91 and ’92. What would be the biggest piece of advice that you would have for the Duke players to try and repeat?

BH: It’s difficult, no doubt about it. You’re looked at a little bit differently when you’re a defending national champion. There are some key players that are returning that’ll be targeted more by opposing teams. But they’re also getting some pretty good player coming into the program. Kyrie Irving is going to be tremendous there. He may end up redefining the point guard position at that school. I think from everything I’ve seen from him and all the people I’ve talked to, he could be special there.

So they’re definitely going to be one of the 10 or so teams that you look at the start of the season that you think will be contending for a championship. And they’re going to have to deal with some added pressure and a lot more media pressure and scrutiny and people wanting to discuss them defending the championship.

LL: Which players do you keep in touch with the most from the ’91-’92 teams. A lot of people assume that you and Christian Laettner were best friends because you were the two most recognizable players but you’re almost polar opposite personalities. Do you keep in touch with him a lot?

BH: I’ve spoken to Christian. We talked after the team won against Butler and we spoke. I saw a bunch of the guys last year at the (inaudible) Academy, an event that Duke runs each year and a lot of former players return. So it’s good to see a lot of former guys. So I talked to Grant (Hill) over the years. I went and saw a game earlier this year. They played while I was still in Florida. So I try and stay in touch with the guys as much as we can but we’re all busy and have our own lives and schedules.

LL: Is it just mind boggling to you to watch the Western Conference Finals and Grant Hill is still playing basketball at that level?

BH: Yeah, I can’t believe that he’s still doing it. It makes me feel horrible to be honest. I just can’t imagine at this age still playing at this level and being able to compete at that kind of level because I know what my body feels like on a daily basis.

…….

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Ohio State’s Jon Sanderson, member of the 1999 Final Four Team. Mr. Sanderson thank you very much for joining us today.

Jon Sanderson: How you doing Jose? It’s great to be on your show.

LL: I’m doing very well, thank you very much. The first thing I have to ask and just have to get out of the way. You are an Ohio State guy. You’re working at U of M. Have you ever given any of the coaches and players crap being an Ohio State guy?

JS: Have I been given? It’s funny, I’m asked that a lot about the whole Ohio State and Michigan thing. And, you know what I tell everyone is when you work in the business and you’re a coach, whether its basketball strength and conditioning or football or any of these sports, to get to the Big Ten level is such an honor.

This is an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. It was such a great job. It’s such an honor to be here and you really have to look past things like rivalries and things like that. People have been, especially friends and family, have gotten on me a little bit over the last year but it’s all in good spirit, it’s all in good fun. And they all have respect for the decision I’ve made and it’s worked out great. It’s been great so far.

LL: Well you’re certainly right. Whether it’s at Ohio State or Michigan or any Big Ten school, that is a great opportunity to have. Now on football Saturday when it’s Michigan-Ohio State, do you have a little Scarlet and Grey on you for the day, even if you’re wearing Michigan gear?

JS: Not a chance. (laughs) It’s so important to be fully invested in your university. It really is. And I fully support the program and I have so much respect for Mike Barwis, the football strength coach. So no, I’m 100 percent Go Blue and that’s really important for me.

LL: I know there’s a little pang in the hearts of Ohio State fans everywhere but I’m sure many of them understand. You know this is your second season as the head strength and conditioning coach with the basketball program, but it’s the first time you’ve had a full summer with the team. How have you been able to take advantage of that and what’s that been like spending a full summer with the team in the offseason?

JS: The biggest difference was when I was hired last year, I came in at the end of June and like you mentioned had a partial summer. So this year the biggest difference is the spring time. Once the season is over, having that extra five weeks of spring to develop; (because) most of our guys still go home for the summer. So I never get a full summer with these kids but the extra five weeks makes a big difference.

It’s so hard because no matter where you’re at during the season, we’re focused on endurance, injury prevention and playing games. We have 20 hours a week, that’s the rule. That’s very little time to put into strength and conditioning in season and that’s the way it should be. So I think the extra few weeks this year is going to make a big difference.

Our guys are going to make tremendous progress in the weight room and develop strength and power, speed and quickness, all these qualities we’re training them for. So I think it’s going to make a big difference for our guys and we’re young. So we need to. So we need all the extra time we can get because we’ll be one of the youngest teams in the country next year.

LL: Another interesting aspect is during this time of the year you’re the only official coach that’s legally allowed to work with the players. Do you feel a little pressure that you’re the only one that can work with these guys and get them ready for the upcoming season? Or do you like the fact that there’s a time period that you’re the only one working with these guys, working on more strength and conditioning stuff rather than basketball stuff?

JS: I love it. Our coaches don’t love it but I do. I love the fact that I can really focus on developing them physically. And we don’t have to compete with being sore for practice. So they don’t have to go to practice after workouts so I can really hone in and make them better athletes.

So I don’t know if I initially felt a lot of pressure. I put a lot into my job and do the best I can. So I think that if you, just like an athlete, if you work hard and give it your best, good things are going to happen. And that’s how it feels as a strength coach. We give it our best to help these kids and develop them.

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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Cal’s Hardy Nickerson, currently the head football coach at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, California. Mr. Nickerson thanks for joining us today.

Going back a little bit further now to your playing days at Cal. While you were there the best record that you guys had put up was 5-5-1. You guys weren’t exactly tearing up the (Pac-10). As a player as highly talented as you were in college, how difficult was it for you to never really play for a college football team that was competing for a national championship every season?

Hardy Nickerson: Well, I mean it was challenging at times. Sure, you want to be in bowl games and you want to play … you want to be on New Year’s Day playing a game. At the same time I had a great experience. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I had a great coach who believed in me in Joe Capp and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I had a great time. I met my wife there and we have three beautiful children. I got an education and got a chance to learn from some of the best people in their field. I think it was a great experience. I’ve had great opportunities since then. I had a great experience and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

LL: In your four years there, what was the most difficult moment for you while playing football at Cal?

HN: I don’t know. Of course you want to win more football games. Everyone wants to do that. But for me, probably … Whenever you’re a senior and you’ve played your last game, you always look back and say “Man, what could we have done?” or, “What could’ve been?” I think that’s the toughest part.

And that’s probably for everybody when they play college football or even high school football. When that final gun sounds and you’ve played your last play, you always look back and think, “Man, I wish I had one more.” That’s my answer to that question (chuckles).

LL: Now you’d gone from Cal and moving on to Pittsburgh and by then the Steelers are such a tradition in the NFL, such a winning tradition. And you have so many cases in the NFL where it’s kind of the reverse where you go from a college that’s winning all the time to a pro team that’s just horrendous. And you had so much success in the NFL.

What was that like to go from not having a great a college career in terms of your team winning to be a professional and being on very competitive teams for a lot of your career?

HN: You know what, it all depends on the player and what the player wants to do and what the mindset of the player is. Whether you are on a team that’s a perennial winner to a team that hasn’t won in a long time … when I was in Pittsburgh we had some lean years. But we were able to fight through it, we had some good players. Guys who were tough and refused to give in to circumstances and same thing in Tampa when I got there.

We hadn’t won or had a winning season in I don’t know how many years. And they hadn’t had a Pro Bowler in 16 years prior to when I got there and I got there and became a Pro Bowler and All-Pro. So it’s all about the mindset of the player and what the player wants to get done and that kind of attitude, and stuff seems to filter to the team and all of a sudden you have something special.

And that’s how things went when I was in Pittsburgh and that’s how things went when I was in Tampa Bay.

LL: Last question: the time period right after you get drafted but before you hit your first rookie camp. If someone had come to you and said at the end of your career you’ll have five Pro Bowls and you’re going to be named to the NFL’s 1990s All-Decade Team. How do you think you would’ve reacted to that?

HN: I’d be like “Wow, that’s great!” (laughs) “What me? That’s going to happen to me?” (laughs) That’s kind of how my reaction was as I went through it. Surprised with every Pro Bowl I made and excited about it. Some guys were like, “Man, you’ve been there already, what are you all excited about?”

My expectations going into the league was to play six or seven years, if I could. First year was to make the team. Second year was to become a major contributor and a starter, which I did. Third year was to lead the team in tackles, which I was able to do. Fourth year was lead the team in tackles and be a major contributor on the team.

Then beyond that, when I got to year five I thought if I could get to ten years that would be great. That was my goal. And so I was able to go well beyond that and as the years piled on I just was thankful and kept working hard and kept doing what I had been doing.

…….

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and our very own Scott Parry speaks with Stanford’s Troy Walters, the 1999 Biletnikoff winner and member of the 1999 Pac-10 Champions. He’s currently the offensive coordinator at Indiana State University.

LL: How is it being back in your hometown in Indiana?

Troy Walters: It’s good. I really can’t consider Indiana my hometown. Although I was born in Bloomington, I only lived there three years so it really doesn’t feel like home. But I guess it’s home in the sense that I played for the Colts for four years so I’ve established a lot of friendships and relationships during that time.

So it definitely feels good to be back and actually our training camp is in Terre Haute, Indiana, so I’m familiar with this area.

LL: Now that you’ve moved into the coaching aspect of your career, how would you say it differs from actually playing and is it hard to make that transition from always playing and always being in the action to now sort of having to control everything from the sidelines?

TW: Well I’ve always known that I wanted to get into coaching ever since I was little. My father was a longtime football coach. I always dreamed that after I played football I’d get into coaching. So it really wasn’t a hard transition.

This side of the profession is all about teaching the kids how to play ball. And I think as a player you kind of take for granted everything that coaches go through. The long hours they put in. The preparation, the playbooks, the scripts. All the work and planning that just goes into practice that you take for granted as a player that now I see as a coach; it’s difficult. It’s long hours. I appreciate what coaches go through now that I’m one of them.

LL: In reference to your college career, you had a very storied career at Stanford and out of all the great things you accomplished there, what is your fondest memory of playing there?

TW: Probably my senior year as a whole. We entered the season picked to finished eight in the conference. We lost our first game to Texas, I think it was 63-17. People counted us out and so forth but Tyrone Willingham, our head coach, said we had a champion in the locker room and we went on that season and won the Pac-10 championship and went to the Rose Bowl. And I even played my last year as a collegiate in the Rose Bowl.

So that was a year I’d always remember and to cap it off I won the Biletnikoff Award. It was just a special season.

LL: Moving from college to the NFL, what was the biggest change in sort of the style of play and the toughest thing to transition to playing at the college level and succeeding at the NFL level?

TW: I think for me the toughest thing was mentally. You go from being the man, the star, the focal point getting all the reps to now in the NFL being No. 4, No. 5 receiver, not getting a lot of reps but still expected to come in and produce. That was the toughest part of it. You know guys are biggest, faster, stronger, but it’s really the mental approach knowing that you go from being the star to now taking less reps and still being responsible for learning the offense. And when you do get those one or two reps, you gotta make the most of it because it’s the only reps you’re going to get.

LL: Looking back at the Stanford football program now in comparison to when you played. They’ve been having some recent success and had a little struggle there in the middle. But how do you like where the program is going in the future and do you think they’re going to be a successful program?

TW: Yeah, they’re headed in the right direction. Coach Harbaugh has done an outstanding job in turning that program around. They had some tough times a couple years ago and he’s come in and laid down a great foundation. They’re working hard. There’s a lot of energy and excitement. He’s bringing in not only good students but also good players and it’s showing on the field.

You know Toby Gerhart, the runner up in the Heisman and he’s bringing in caliber football players to go along with the caliber students that Stanford recruits. So they’re definitely on the right track and I’m excited for my alma mater and wish them well this upcoming season.

LL: One final question. Currently you’re a coach at Indiana State. How long do you sort of expect to stay in that role and in regards to Stanford – have you ever dreamt of working with them? What are your sort of future coaching plans looking ahead? Would you ever try to get back with Stanford or stick around here with Indiana State for awhile?

TW: You know you take it one year at a time. I’m here at Indiana State to help this program win games and not only that, but to help the kids that I coach not only be great players, but also great men and great students.

So I really don’t look too far ahead in the future because if you do, then you don’t know what’s going on now. So right now we’re focusing on this upcoming season. We finished 1-10 last season but we’re excited about this upcoming season. The guys are here working out. So I’m excited about the prospects going forward.

Stanford is a great institution and a great program and anyone would be foolish if they didn’t say they’d like to coach there. But if that happens great. But right now my focus is on Indiana State with this upcoming season.

……..

Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m being joined by Notre Dame’s Rick Mirer. Mr. Mirer thanks very much for joining us.

You currently own the Mirror Wine Company. Could you talk a little bit about how you got into the wine making business?

Rick Mirer: Well it was basically a hobby turned business. I had interest in wine years ago as I traveled around the country. I met a lot of people and one thing led to another, basically. And I took what I was doing in my spare time basically and turned it into a full time thing and it’s been a lot of fun.

LL: A lot of people love wine. How do you go from having wine as a hobby to actually going into the win business? It seems like it’d just be easy to sit back and enjoy wine.

RM: Well, yeah, it would be easy just to keep it simple. But I did enough time in the Bay area and spent time in Napa and just met a lot of interesting people and had opportunities and once I saw the right one, I jumped on it and I live in San Diego so it’s a pretty easy deal, up and down the west coast to cover some territory with where the pretty important wine regions are.

And I just decided that it was something that I could do that would be fun and productive and challenging, and it’s been all that.

LL: The moment that you decided to go forward and have your own wine company, did you have any reservations?

RM: Not really. Obviously there’s an investment involved but basically we’re very small and we call on our friends to sort of support the initial part of this just to get us off the ground. It’s been a couple of vintages now. It’s been kind of a lot of fun to meet other people in different markets and go and introduce the wine and go talk about it and explain a little bit of the background.

But the partnership with my winemaker Ron Lawson is great. He’s in Napa full time. He’s always there when we need something up north. I’m kind of covering some other spots around Southern California and other places. And really not much hesitation getting it going, just the timing probably wasn’t optimal with the way the economy has been. But thank goodness we’re small and it’s just been a lot of fun to learn more about the business and have fun doing as we’re getting the thing off the ground.

LL: You mentioned Rob. How did you meet him and what was it about him when you met that you realized, you know what, this is the guy I really want to go into with this?

RM: Well we had a mutual friend who was the third partner in the deal. A friend named Jeff Smith, who has another brand that he’s very involved in and it was just a great opportunity for me being the new guy I knew Jeff through years of travel around Napa and San Francisco and he introduced me to Rob and we just kind of hit it off. We had the same idea of what to do with this brand. We want to keep it small. It’s a fun thing. We’re taking it very seriously but we’re having a fun time doing it.

Now Rob and I talk three times a day on just the details and introducing more wins and just getting to different markets and different restaurants and there’s been no friction. It’s just been an interesting thing to … as a collector you know what it’s like to buy. But now I get it all the way through and the business side of it and it’s what I expected but it’s interesting to learn every single day.

LL: Was there anything that really surprised you once you started your business and the whole business of selling wine?

RM: Not really. The pace that some people play at it is a little bit scary. Everything takes longer than it should but that was predictable and for us, so far so good. Everything has been cool, I have other buddies doing similar projects and it’s just been fun to compare notes and trade wine and just kind of keep up on what’s going on around all over the globe. There’s wine everywhere in the world. So no matter where you go, there’s a way to try what the local wine might be and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.

LL: You’re not the only athlete that’s started their won wine company. Is there something about the wine business that attracts athletes in particular or do you think it’s the idea of running their own business that attracts athletes and ex athletes?

RM: I don’t know. It seems like there are a lot of guys but there’s probably a lot of people in different industries as well and when you lump them together, there seems like a common thread there. But I think the fact that we travel as much as we do. And I appreciate food and nice restaurants and just wine shows up at all those spots no matter where you are. That’s what kind of got me.

But being able to relax and kick back is kind of probably what all the guys appreciate. From the collector’s who just have stuff in their house or the people who go out looking for the trophy wines in the big restaurants, anything in between is fine, too. There’s just a lot. When you travel around all corners of this country you experience different things and it’s fun to think back on all the spots and all the restaurants.

I love the collection of wine that we have from our past and we’re just building on it now to make the best juice we can in the future.

LL: What has been so far, since you’ve started the business, your favorite part about having a wine business?

RM: I suppose meeting people. I wasn’t trying to meet people. That wasn’t really the initiative, but you have a common interest obviously when conversation comes up and you never know where that might lead. I’ve met a lot of interesting characters. Had a lot of fun conversations.

So I suppose the friendships I’ve developed in the short time I’ve been doing this is probably the most fun of the whole thing. It’s satisfying to hear people’s reaction when they appreciate the wine. And what’s funny is that friends early on didn’t really factor in that they might like it. So the responses were, “It’s actually good.” So that was kind of fun because that was the point, and we appreciate the support, and we do hear people enjoy it and that’s always going to feel good to hear.