First, I know you’re involved with the NFL Alumni Association – what is the focus of the association right now?
The NFL Alumni Association is the oldest one for retired athletes in sports. It was started in concert with NFL owners – its logo became the NFL shield. We operate independently of the NFL and we now have 39 chapters. I’m the president of the Baltimore chapter.
Our focus is on health and wellness. The CBA offers good single-solutions for players but we want to be additive for players to help them live a longer, healthier life.
What are some of the big projects you are focusing on?
One example is the new platform we have – the Huddle for Health. Through that we’ve done things like work with the CDC to raise an awareness campaign for players to talk to their doctors about the Covid vaccine, to help them make a decision if it’s right for them.
We run the hub and spoke model – what’s good for the players is good for everyone. If we can help a player at the local level, even if they aren’t a Hall of Fame player, they are someone the community knows. They live there in that community and can offer some influence on health issues – people listen to them.
For example we did a Huddle Study. We know that cardiovascular issues exist in our locker rooms – 70% of NFL players are African American. We did our own study on cardiovascular health with Legacy Health Strategies – a group run by former NFL kicker Rolf Benirschke. If we can determine health issues in this kind of professional way then the players we work with become advocates for the community on things like heart health.
This was your start with ownership. I have cardiovascular issues in my family – it’s an important issue to me. We held a number of events with players over 2022 to learn the symptoms of strokes and heart health. In each one we identified someone with hypertension or more immediate issues where they were taken to the hospital right away. Players that attend these events then go back and tell their families and churches – they become ambassadors.
We also have a wellness challenge run by Dick Butkus – he’s the captain of the program and speaks to his personal journey to find the right heart-healthy environment for yourself.
We care for our own, kids and the community and are always looking for new partners.
You were a heck of an athlete coming out of high school – you played a number of sports and different positions on the football field. How did you end up as a punter?
I stumbled my way in really. I knew I wasn’t a guy that was going to be drafted into the NFL. I was the perfect example of trying to do all you can and being active. I grew up in a small town and was a decent athlete – I could play on the different sports teams. But I wasn’t someone you could compare to an NFL-level athlete. I had other gifts so I did all I could in different sports including basketball.
A lot of people tell kids to individualize – to become the next soccer star or something. But those journeys aren’t a straight line usually. I was the backup punter in high school until my Senior year when the starter pulled his hamstring. I finished off the year and got better as the year went on. I wasn’t All-State or anything but I got better.
I got a scholarship to play basketball at a two-year college – that was my plan. But after those two years I knew I’d have to go find another college. My high school coach told me that Arkansas State wanted me to go in for a visit and see if I could make the team as a walk-on punter. I decided for some reason that that was what I was going to do. I was going to challenge myself. I knew I had good hands and good hand-eye coordination and felt that plan had more upside.
You ended up playing for almost every Steelers rival – Cleveland, Baltimore, Cincinnati… but not the Steelers! Was there a team you loved playing for most?
In ’98 it was an awesome division. Jacksonville, Tennessee, Cleveland…we all took turns beating each other up. That was real contact football – the rest of the league was playing a different kind of football. Those were intense games.
The respect I have for the way Baltimore maintained the structure of it’s organization – it was very similar to Pittsburgh in terms of stability. Baltimore just moved a couple years before from Cleveland and Modell had Ozzie Newsome, Phil Savage and Shack Harris there. They had a great backbone to that organization just like the Steelers did.
That 2000 Ravens Super Bowl team was special. No one else I played for had that “oneness.” All the right players in the right positions with guys like Ray Lewis, Ogden, Woodson and Tony Siragusa. Tony was so important to that team – it was sad, his recent passing. It coalesced us when he passed – brought us back together a bit. Guys like Tony were the linchpin to the team – they made you laugh but got on top of you and held you accountable. I played for a lot of good teams and locker rooms but not like that.
Marvin Lewis in Cincinnati – you could see the culture he was bringing to the team. He was changing the culture and really developed their scouting department. The scouting department wasn’t much to speak of before him. Marvin took a lot of what he learned from Brian Billick and built his own culture around it. Marvin was more hands-on from a player engagement perspective than Brian. Brian was hands-off on Sundays. He told us he got us to the point where we knew what we were doing now it was up to us to do it. Marvin was more engaging – he was my favorite coach to play for.
How was Brian so successful with that team?
Brian was a master at deflecting media attention. He changed the culture in Baltimore from Ted Marchibroda. When he first got on the scene there you could tell. The most important meeting of the year is the first one the coach has with the players. It sets the tone and delivers the perspective of the coach for the season. That message needed to be clear and distilled over weeks. Brian was a master of that. It’s interesting now when you see his coordinators like Jack Del Rio and Mike Smith coaching elsewhere, you can see the threads of Brian Billick’s style of coaching in them.
What are some of your best memories of those Steelers rivalry games?
My most stark memory was from our first game in Baltimore in 1998. The first game of the season was against Pittsburgh and the stadium was hyped. The offense started and went three-and-out. At that moment I went out and I see my old buddy from Arkansas State, Carlos Emmons, lining up over center and waving his hands, looking at me. I hadn’t seen him since college. That stayed in my head.
Well, then the long-snapper snaps the ball and it skids two times before it gets to me – it was a terrible snap! It went though my legs and I just remember chasing the ball. That set the tone – Pittsburgh crushed us.
I was a young player then – it didn’t sit well with me. That’s when you find out if you can recover well on the mental side of the game. As a coach told me “You can screw up once. But don’t do it twice!”
Were there guys you enjoyed going up against even as a punter?
Games were always a defensive battle – field position and the kicking game were always so important. For me, I’d watch Josh Miller crush some high, soaring punts and wonder if mine looked like that!
Is there a fraternity of sorts between punters across the NFL?
Josh and I had the chance to hang out years later. Matt Stover and I are still good friends. But for the most part when I talked to other punters it was mostly business conversations. In the NFL you’re CEOs of your own destiny – that’s how you feel. When you get to free agency that’s how you have to operate. We’d talk about free agency and wish each other good luck. But it wasn’t a lot of closeness with the other guys – especially when it comes to him being a former Pittsburgh player!
What advice would you give others trying to punt at the NFL level?
Whether you aspire to be a kicker, punter or other player – even in college – you never know who is watching you. You don’t know how you’re viewed by others. After 2002 I was a free agent and I didn’t know if other teams would be interested in me. But Jay Hayes called my agent and asked me to go to the Vikings for a visit. He had just moved to the Vikings from the Steelers. I asked him why me when I got there, and he told me that I was always consistent and tough when Pittsburgh played us. I didn’t have any idea he was watching me like that.
Lastly – was the dislike between Baltimore and Pittsburgh more of a blow-up fan thing, or was it real from your perspective?
Oh it was authentic dislike then. I’m not sure about now but you could see it when it culminated in Bart Scott. It was a game in 2019 – penalties were going against Baltimore and Scott got a personal foul call against him. That’s when he threw the flag in the stands. You could see then that the disdain was real. It started in ’98 – it was real. There was no hiding it. I still remember Hines Ward’s smile. There are still a lot of guys unhappy about that smile he always had on his face!