Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men. On any given Sunday, one in seven men watching an NFL game will be diagnosed with this disease, but the odds increase to one in five if they are African-American and one in three if they have a family history. These are stats that no one wants to see up on a scoreboard.
I spoke to pro football Hall of Famer and prostate cancer survivor Michael Haynes about his partnership with an early detection campaign called Know Your Stats and his career as one of the best defensive backs in NFL history. Listen to the full interview here.
On the last NFL rule change to benefit the defense:
I don’t think they even take the defense into consideration when they make rule changes – they take you guys, the fans! You guys are the ones they are considering. It’s like, how can we make our game more exciting? How many fans love a 7-3 football game? I know how important that is. I feel the anxiety and the energy in those 7-3 battles. But today, if a team can’t score 21 or 28 points, something is wrong with that offense. The coach may be fired, his job may be in jeopardy. Anyway, it’s a different game, but I still love the game.
I guess. The rule changes have changed the game so much. A lot of people are not aware of the importance of the rules and how they affect the game. There was a time when the hashes were wider. And when the hash marks were wider, it was very rare that a running back would rush for 1,000 yards. Floyd Little of the Denver Broncos, I recently had a conversation with him about this, and he shared the story that he was the 13th running back in history to rush for 1,000 yards in a season – it was a huge, huge milestone. Today, it’s not a huge milestone. Now, it’s almost commonplace for a guy to rush for 1,000 yards as a running back. So, that created a huge difference in the running game.
Mo Vaughn knows why you don’t remember him. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
“I didn’t really take any shit from any reporters. I just basically told it like it was,” the former American League MVP told me. “And I think that overlapped what I actually did.”
I spoke to Mo about his new clothing line, MVP Collections, his success as an entrepreneur across multiple industries, and how statistically he is the best hitter in the history of the Boston Red Sox. Listen to the full interview here.
Since you retired, you’ve started several different businesses – a trucking company, a real estate and housing company – and this is your latest entrepreneurial effort. Why have you been able to keep all your money when so many professional athletes go broke?
“Really, I look at needs. When I got into transportation, I looked at that as a fail-safe business. When I got into housing, the need was obvious. I’ve been very fortunate to have good partners. People that are trustworthy and know what they are talking about. I’ve got a lot of good ideas, but you’ve got to get with good people. Whatever is new and coming up, I’ve always tried to stay on top of that. And MVP Collections is an extension of that – I think there’s a need and a market for this. I go out and I look at certain styles – denim style, coded jeans – and they really weren’t there for big guys. And I was just thinking about how guys who need a two, three, four or five x jeans – 38 to 50 sized waist – had nowhere to go. So I was able to price point this thing: $58 bucks for a premium T, $208 for premium denim. It’s a lifestyle brand that’s affordable for the average guy.”
When Odell Beckham Jr. says he made 2015 NFL All-Pro cornerback Josh Norman “relevant” thanks to their battle during week 15 of the 2015 season, he sounds like a jilted ex-lover.
To watch the footage now, coupled with Beckham’s endless quotes since then (a sign in itself that he was bested that day, like an ex-girlfriend who can’t move on with her life), it becomes obvious what happened: Beckham, for possibly the first time in his life as an athlete, ran into a player that was better than him, and he didn’t know how to handle it.
As Troy Aikman said during the broadcast, “Norman has owned [Beckham] in this game.”
“People have been underestimating me since high school. And I don’t mean that in the cliched way. I had to walk-on to even play in college,” Norman told me in an interview for DiscoverBoating.com.”That by itself was so much work. And I have just continued to work from then on.”
Norman was an All-State football player in South Carolina but received zero scholarship offers and eventually walked on at Coastal Carolina, a school that boasted only two prior NFL draft picks in its history.
I asked Cam Newton to teach me how to dab and this was his response.
In the first 15 minutes at the official after-party of the 2016 ESPYS, I shook Richard Sherman’s hand, met former Lakers’ player/coach Byron Scott and told him he got a raw deal after his recent firing, and got a selfie with former Detroit Pistons “bad boy” John Salley. The Spider’s body was made for selfies:
Jayson Tatum and Sydney McLaughlin took home the hardware last night as they were named Gatorade Male and Female Athletes of the Year for 2016. We were on hand at the L.A. Hotel in downtown Los Angeles for the festivities hosted by ESPN’s Sage Steele. This prestigious award for high school athletes has been an annual tradition since 1985 (when it was know as the Player of the Year Awards), and this was our fifth year covering this fun event. The event was attended by sports stars including Cam Newton, Karl-Anthony Towns, Todd Gurley, April Ross, Abby Wambach, Landon Donovan and Matthew Stafford.
