First, tell me about your coaching work at Raw Talent in Columbus and how you got started with that?
I do speed and strength training and football-specific skills work. Raw Talent started really in Cleveland in 2005 – by Mark Harris. Mark trained me, Denzel Ward, Shaq Washington, Connor Cook and others. We expanded to Columbus and that’s where I work from.
What coaches helped shape the way you approach your work with athletes today?
Mark – especially on the training aspect. I learned a lot about technique and style from him. Looking back in college too, Coach Meyer taught me a lot about why he did things and how to do them. I watched what he did to prepare and liked a lot of the “isms” he had. He knew how to make things make sense by being pure and blunt. You couldn’t run from things with him – you had to go through the fire to build yourself up. He used to tell us “Some do, some don’t.” He’d have his thumb up at do and down and don’t. There were no gray areas with him – you had to choose whether you were going to do it or not.
You also wrote a book on mindfulness – what inspired that?
Basically after I decided to stop playing I had to get my mind right. I was feeling confused and not sure of myself outside of football. Football was what I did for years. The book was something I came up with really to calm myself down – and I decided to share it with others.
Stepping back – were you surprised to be drafted by the Steelers in 2015?
It was a good surprise. I went to Pittsburgh on a pre-draft visit and had s good sense of how they saw me. They told me they liked my leadership and physicality when they watched film on me. I spoke with Coach Tomlin and Kevin Colbert and a lot of what we talked about was just about life. It helped me to understand how they saw me. They thought I could play cornerback in the NFL.
Who helped mentor you on and off the field when you got to Pittsburgh – and how so?
William Gay – he was my locker partner – he was right next to me. He was a vet when I got there and when something happened he’d tell me why it happened. He was like a second coach out there for me.
What did he help you with most?
Off-man coverage. I studied the way he played. He and Asante Samuel – if you want to understand how to play off-man coverage those are the two to watch. Willie’s focus was amazing – he was so cerebral. He wasn’t the best athlete but he was so smart. I studied how he played off-man. You usually have to be a crazy athlete to play off-man but he showed me how he did it too.
What are some of your best memories of your time there?
Oh the rookie show in camp! We got some of those guys good. Me and Bud copied Willie and Joey Porter. I did Willie’s touchdown dance and Bud walked down the aisle pretending to bully guys like Joey did – exaggerating everything of course.
Another one was us all freestyling before bed check. Me, AB, Le’Veon of course and other guys. All of us doing it 15 minutes before bed check, and Gie {trainer Garrett Giemont} even came in and did some which was hilarious.
What happened after that season?
After that loss to Denver Coach Tomlin told us he wished we’d be playing another week in our team meeting but that was it. I went back to Columbus in the offseason to finish classes.
You played for nine different teams across three leagues. How difficult is that – how do you work through that change as an athlete and human being?
It’s hard, I won’t lie. It’s unusual. Everything was sporadic. You never really knew anything. They were all pro leagues – you could be cut at any time. It was a lot of flying and driving and it played a lot of mental games and tricks on my mind after a while.
You see guys walk through the locker room and you wonder if they are coming for you. It was mental chaos, really.
You can’t prepare for it. After a while it just becomes the way things happen. It becomes part of the game after you’ve been through it enough times. That’s actually what started me to write the mindfulness book. It helped me to keep my mind right. A lot of guys go through it ok, and some guys don’t come back from it. I chose to go up. That’s life – you gotta live.
Do you watch the game today – who do you root for and any thoughts on how the game is developing since you were in the NFL?
I don’t cheer a lot of other teams now. I do like Lamar Jackson – I’m a fan of his and was glad to see him get the MVP. I intercepted him so now I have some good stories to tell!
It’s funny. I liked Ben too. He didn’t really talk to me until like week 12 – that’s the way it should be. I was a rookie. I never told him but I watched him get drafted when I was in fifth grade. Being on the same team with him was surreal to me. Willie Gay too – I was in eighth grade when he was drafted. James Harrison was from my city. And Vick… Being around all of those guys – the experience being there with them, watching them as kids and now they were my teammates. It was a crazy experience for me.
Read more by former Steelers via the book Steelers Takeaways: Player Memories Through the Decades. To order, just click on the book:
