First, can you let me know what you’ve been doing with yourself since you retired from the NFL?
I’m pretty much doing several different things. I’m coaching now. I’ve done some coaching fellowship programs with the Cardinals and 49ers. And I was the offensive line coach for the collegiate bowl.
I also own a few businesses – one dealing with financial education. I work with everyone from business owners to every day American helping show them how to take control of their money using different financial products. Helping them to obtain wealth.
Any coaching influences that affect the way you are as a coach?
I definitely have a number of different influences. They start all the way back with my high school coach – Coach James. He was a legendary high school coach for Carter High School in Dallas. I learned a lot from him- about life and understanding how to achieve your goals and the implications behind it. Working hard and having the mindset to put you above the rest.
The biggest takeaway from him – and I know it sounds like a cliche’ – is that if you have an aspiration to be great – just go do it. A lot of people – a lot of women especially, not to sound sexist, tell me you have to have a plan B if pro ball doesn’t work out. But I looked at it like, football is my plan. If I had a plan B, I wouldn’t put a 100% into Plan A.
Any others?
My college coach – Brown and my offensive line coach – they’d always yell about “Monotonous regularity!” Doing it so much you become a master of it. If you keep doing things over and over it becomes permanent.
The biggest thing professionally was with Mike Tomlin. He’d use to tell us “Iron sharpens iron.” That resonated with me – it was from scripture. That made me realize there was a deeper faith-based approach. Tomlin was from the Dungy coaching tree. That helped show me there was a higher being allowing you to have greatness.
It was a pot luck of ideas from a lot of different people. It helped me with my own philosophy as an offensive line coach. I learned to show players why they do things. A lot of coaches tell you to do things their way- they way they told you to do it. But by giving them the why you get more from your players. Giving them the reason gives them a certain amount of trust in you. Like they say, teach a man to fish, you feed them for a day, teach them to fish, you feed them for life.
I realize now that coaching helps me to fulfill my purpose. To empower people. My ability to communicate the things I’ve learned to young people helps them to prosper. Not to sound arrogant, but I know the offensive line. I’ve gotten messages from kids who got scholarships thanking me for how I’ve helped them. That’s a testimonial to me fulfilling my purpose.
Stepping back to the Steelers – why did you decide to go to the Steelers in free agency?
Me and Tomlin just were like guys that saw things the same way. We both liked guys with chips on their shoulders. My career was short-lived in Detroit and I felt like I had much more to offer. But the Detroit organization’s goals didn’t marry with mine. Tomlin saw something in me. He said they were high on me in the draft and was on their radar and they wanted me to be a part of things now.
They had a certain military-type order in Pittsburgh’s organization which made it successful. It transcends to ownership. They have good people that speak to you like human beings. It was phenomenal – you could have a conversation with the owner who didn’t talk to you like a peasant. Dick LeBeau asked me how my mother was and remembered little details. He treated you like you were the only person in the room. It was a positive coaching experience that led to a certain culture that led to winning.
And you played in a Super Bowl. How surreal was that experience for you?
As crazy as it sounds, and I’m not trying to minimize the Super Bowl, but it was like any other game. The game is the simple thing. Its the same 11 people in front of you and the same scheme you ran.
The big stages never bothered me. I guess I’m a cool cat. I appreciated it of course. And it was a great moment of course. If would have been even better if we won. The pain hits you hard. When you see the confetti falling and it’s not for you. That resonated the most wth me. I think that’s the reason why I want to coach now. I won a national championship. Now I want to win a Super Bowl.
Any fun memories of your time in Pittsburgh?
Tomlin loved competition. In the meetings rooms, on the field, and in the locker room. We had pool tables. shuffleboard, card tables, ping pong tables… Between meetings there was time to play and it’d always be competitive. We used to have tournaments for pool and we’d break it down by brackets – by colleges. My locker was right next to the table and there’d always be people talking noise to each other.
Well, the pool tournament came down to the final two people – me and Charlie Batch – who we called Chuck, He was talking noise to me, and then did this trick shot at the end where he hit the ball, and it spun and curved before it hit the eight ball in and he won.
Well, I pretended to start tripping out, yelling “He beat me!” then I knocked all of the balls in the pockets and yelled for a redo. I was acting like a sore loser and getting him riled up. There was some money on the line! Finally he saw I was kidding and told me he was going to get me back for it.
Well, later on we’re in the meeting room with the quarterbacks and offensive linemen. Chuck’s a big prankster – maybe the biggest one on the team then. We’re all standing up in front of our chairs and Charlie’s in the back, stretching as we’re waiting on Ben, Dixon and the other guys to come in. Finally they do and Charlie tells me to get a rookie to put the screen up. He’s standing behind me and I’m not thinking he’s about to do something, but as I go back to sit down he slowly pulls the chair out as I’m sitting. Well, I do this super slow fall, and it’s really embarrassing. And he records it all. I sat slowly and I fell over slowly, and knock over all the juice and the table. Everyone’s laughing, even the coaches.
You’d think a quarterback would be smarter than to prank an offensive lineman!
Right! Well I told him it was the blitz period next in practice and that’s I’d be real sure to protect him in practice now!
That’s the kind of fun we had between games. Stuff like that happened every day. It was a great culture and we had great people. I never felt that kind of spirit on other teams. Everyone was just locked in on winning,
Tell me about that and how Tomlin helped create that culture?
He was even-keeled. He was his version of Tony Dungy, hands down. He’d say the standard is the standard, let’s play November football, let’s play AFC North football, yada yada. He was serious but he wasn’t an asshole. We’re professionals and he treated us like human beings. He was intent on having his house in order.
We’d have guys that would get in trouble. He’d tell them if they messed up once that’s strike one. If they did it again they were gone. He was very engaged in the mood of the locker room and would address things without being invasive. He’d fix and address what needed fixed but he allowed the players to be the leaders and had a leadership board in the locker room that I sat on.
Tell me more about that – what things got resolved on those boards?
The biggest things were about how players were feeling – what concerns we had. We talked a lot about schemes – about football. What protection schemes the offensive line felt most comfortable with.
We’d also talk about off-the-field issues. For example, some guys wanted a family day, so he made that happen and on Saturdays during walk-throughs players could have wives and kids attend. They were often HR-type conversations. He let us handle a lot of them internally. It became our team. It wasn’t a dictatorship.
You were new to the team – how were you selected to a leadership spot?
I guess he saw the qualities I had. That’s a great question. I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but there’s a difference between being a captain of the team and a leader. I don’t care about being recognized as a captain. I think he realized that when I spoke people listened to me. The values that were instilled in me growing up he recognized. It was a badge of honor. I’ve been a leader of my household, in the community, and of my offensive linemen.
After two seasons in Pittsburgh you left in free agency. What happened and how hard was that for you?
The toughest thing was Kevin Colbert and I didn’t have our visions of my time there mesh together. No hard feelings. I just saw a greater value in myself than he did. It’s my life and I wanted to drive my own life. My dad told me “Son, it’s your red wagon. You can push it or you can pull it.” That’s how I viewed my career. I felt I should have had a bigger role and Kevin didn’t see it that way. No love lost. Ramon Foster was my guy and I hoped they win it all.
I’ve learned there’s no such thing as a smooth mountain. In Detroit, it was the first time I was ever fired. I thought “Damn, that hurt.” But you get over it. You believe in yourself and you move on. You learn from it.
I was bitter at first leaving Detroit. But by the time I left Pittsburgh and went to Chicago, it was just business. I thought, “OK. Cool.” when I left Pittsburgh. I got my stuff and moved on. “Best of luck to you guys. I get it now. It’s a business.” I have businesses too and have had to let people go. Sometimes, you just have to part ways. It’s not personal.
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