May 20, 2024 • 63 mins
Austin joins the show for the 3rd time. We discuss life after the NFL, what training and diet looks like when it isn't 'necessary' for your job any longer, forward thinking as a pro athlete to what goals and aspirations will be after the playing days are over, entrepreneurship and owning his hunting lodge which he plans on becoming more hands on with, dance recitals with his daughter, Iowa wrestling and Ben Kueter being a 2 sport athlete, coaching high school football for his hometown, and a whole lot more!
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Visit TheWashedUpWalkons.com for all of our episodes, merchandise, and more!
If you love the show and want to show support, tell your friends! And, check out our exclusive content at Patreon.com/washedupwalkons where you can find extra podcast episodes, exclusive merchandise, Merch discounts with every tier, private Walkon discord channel access, and more!
Find us on social media @washedupwalkons
Visit TheWashedUpWalkons.com for all of our episodes, merchandise, and more!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Congratulations, you just found yourself themost entertaining, undisputed number one I will
podcast in the space to Wash Upwalk Ons. Today, we bring on
Austin Blythe his third time on theshow, to catch up with the boy
about dad life, more insight intoa post NFL pro athlete career. We
talk about entrepreneurship, wrestling, dancerecitals, and a whole lot more.
(00:21):
Enjoy the show, Let's have aday, Let's jump Welcome into the Washed
(00:52):
Up walk Ons Podcast, Episode fivenineteen. I don't know. I've got
four eighteen almost one hundred to thedot Austin that we had you on last
year. Uh you keep asking meback, I'm an old, washed up,
uh retiree. You're you're perfect forthe show. Anybody that will oblige
and and who has experienced and willcome on the show. I well,
(01:17):
quite honestly, it's because last weekI gave you a text about the about
something else, and then I waslike, I wis Chev'm back on?
Like I if I ever talked toa former teammate and I don't, at
least in my position, I don'tthrow the hey you should come on our
podcast, then I feel like it'sa missed opportunity. Are you sitting in
the uh in the man cave rightnow? No, this is my office.
(01:37):
I thought about going down in theman cave. But you know,
I got that Hawks by Million flaghung up. I don't know if I
sent you a picture, But didI get it? Did it? Did
it get there? Oh? Yeah, it's a picture? Need it?
Need it? I? Uh?You want to know something cool? Actually,
did you watch? You guys watchedthe Full Court Press? Uh?
So for anybody listening, probably aton of you have already watched it.
(01:59):
Four part doc you series on Caitlinand a couple other players from last year's
season. Uh. That opens thatthing opens up in episode one and they're
kind of showing all the hype ofCaitlin in the last two years and they
show the game day shot where likebasketball game Day came to Iowa City for
the Iowa Indiana game, and rightthere at the bottom of the screen on
(02:23):
the documentary Hawks by a Million Flag. Wife. My wife was like did
you see it? And I waslike what She's like, your flag was
up there? Like now you haveto send a cease and desists so you
can get some money, Like,hey, we need to WAT revenue from
this documentary used our flag. We'regonna need some royalties on that. Hey,
Peyton Omaha Productions, come on.Yeah, do you know Peyton?
(02:43):
You were in Indianapolis for a nowhe was gone, so I had I
had Andrew as my quarterback. Soand he's gone too. Yeah, he's
more gone than Peyton though. Yeah. Can anybody find him? Does anybody
know where? I don't even know. Somebody asked me the other day,
is he in Indianapolis? I don'tknow. Well, he he rode up
to that preseason game or whatever oris it Thursday night football or something.
(03:05):
He was like way skinny and justliving life. Yeah. I know he's
got a couple of kids now,a couple of daughters. I think so,
dude, he how long was hein the league? For? Five
years? Yeah? Six years?Maybe signed a massive I mean he what
what was he was a top draftpick coming out of college. Yeah,
and then number one did he signa second deal? Yeah? He signed
(03:25):
the second deal, and I thinkadd to the right the headlines with that
was, uh, you know,I think he didn't make him pay it
back. Ers did not make himpay it back. Correct, he walked
with it all huh, yeah,yeah, I mean he did. I
couldn't be totally wrong, but hehe did it right. Man, he
(03:47):
did it right. Do you ever, I mean you played what seven years,
so I guess I mean you walkedaway. Yeah, you could have
sat out and kept trying to DefinitelyI did not. I was not Andrew
Luck. I was not in therehab room every day every game, you
(04:09):
know, in the morning, afterpractice, before practice. That wasn't me.
So I know, I think Iremember a story that he told,
like he was just in tears abouthow much pain he was in and just
daily weekly he'd take pills on pillsand you just couldn't do it anymore.
That was not me. It wasn'tin next stuff too, like not not
(04:30):
some injuries. Yeah, it wasn'tlike him being you know, a baby
and being banged up like he wassignificantly injured. Have you guys ever hurt
your neck for like an extended amountof time? No, thank god.
So I do CrossFit, which involveshandstand push ups, which means you're going
up and down on your head,and before I was experienced enough to do
(04:55):
them at the rate I was tryingto do them a competitively. I had
one where I kind of like Ididn't brace right and I just came down
and just like crunched myself, andI would say for for two weeks I
could not I couldn't turn it eitherway like without searing pain down my back.
(05:16):
And then for probably another two weeksafter that it was real like,
you know, it just gradually cameback. I'm surprised you never had any
neck stuff of not anything from football. I've been dropped on my head a
couple of times in wrestling where itwas like crunch like exactly like you just
described, and it's a you know, the zing down the arm and yeah,
(05:42):
not good. So I think,what's that? Go ahead? Yeah,
I mean it's kind of a ironicthat, you know, I played
a professional career in football and neverhad anything snake with my neck there.
Not only that, but you played, I'm I mean, you're literally ramming
your yeah into somebody on every play. Yeah. I don't know. There's
(06:03):
guys that lead with their helmets,but man, I don't know how.
I just have no nerve endings left. I guess I don't know. They
can't yeah, or brain cells.I mean, yeah, do you ever
worry about that? Some Yeah.Gosh, there's times, you know,
Kylie tells me stuff and I'm like, I don't remember that. Well that's
(06:23):
I think that might just probably bepretty normal. But I think all I
think all men out there have sufferfrom some of that because I didn't as
you know, I didn't take verymany hits. And uh, sometimes my
wife is like, you know,we talked about this, right, Yeah,
yeah, I do not recall.Okay, well that gives me some
uh you know, some hope.It's embarrassing when that happens because I don't
(06:44):
have an excuse. Yeah you do. You played, Come on, buddy,
you know exactly what I did togive me some credit here. No,
that the wrong show for that,that you've come to the wrong place.
Drake and Kevin would be, it'dbe disappointed in you. Yeah.
You mentioned wrestling our guy Spencer Lee. He's going to the Olympics. Yeah,
(07:05):
I mean that was big time.I know he I think he had
think it was funny. His toughestmatch was probably his first one, wrestling
that number one seed from China.Can get China guy? Yeah, yep.
And then I think his finals matchwas what fifty seven seconds or something
like that. Yeah. I think. I think he only had one difficult
match and it was the China Yeah. Yeah, and then uh, you
know, Zan Rutherford got it donetoo to qualify all six weights for the
(07:27):
US and the Freestyle Games. Sosome good representation, A big deal right
around. I don't follow, andI know Grant doesn't either. We don't,
really, we don't. This isn'ta wrestling podcast, so I got
I mean, you're a wrestling guy, though, you still follow all that
stuff. Yeah. I tried to, especially now that I'm done, like
I've got the time to kind ofinvest. I watched the trials a little
bit, and then I think itwas just this last weekend, wasn't it
(07:53):
that he qualified? Yeah? Yeah, it was really recently. It was
during graduation really, Yeah, soI missed. I missed some of it
from because of Callie's dancer sitles.So I'm a first year dance Dad.
Tell me about that, because that'sprobably in the future. I'm doing all
the things, you know, allall the retired dad things. So this
(08:13):
is this weekend. I don't knowwhy it was over Mother's Day weekend,
but it's every year over Mother's Dayweekend. Much of the chagrin of mothers
everywhere. Again. Yeah, forreally she was. We did a daddy
daughter dance, so she was pumpedabout that. So, you know,
that's why I didn't want to watchsome of the wrestling this time around,
but I was able to watch thetrials, So footwork's still good. Then
(08:35):
for the daddy daughter dance, wereyou were you prepped and ready? No?
Luckily she's just in preschool, soall I really had to do I
had to, you know, kneeldown, stand out, pick her up,
toil her. And that was prettymuch the essence of the dance.
Not too much one two, three, four counting. You know. So
I said, through a lot ofdancer sitles growing up with my sister,
how long are these ones? BecauseI remember, like in my mind again
(08:58):
I was like eight, but Iwho was under the impression of these shows
were four and a half hours long. Yeah. So luckily the preschoolers had
the first session, it was onlyan hour and a half. Oh yeah,
we were out of there. Butthat Saturday, I think they started
at we started at ten, andthen the last session didn't even start until
seven thirty. Oh yeah. Well, and here's the thing, is,
(09:18):
like, so one of three brothersso I never had to deal with that.
I didn't either. Yeah, yousame for you. But I have
cousins. Actually shout out to mycousin Kennedy, who is going to be
on the Iowa dance team next year, which is a really like wow.
(09:43):
May even possibly from what I understand, it could be possibly harder to be
recruited to be on the dance teamthan it is the football team. I
can imagine I think that. Imean, from the looks of it,
I think they only take like sixor seven girls that the company spot.
I was going to walk in someof the some of the great school girls
this weekend, you know, Ican I can imagine, uh, And
(10:05):
this Kennedy. So Kennedy's she's likethe goat. She's one. Like I
don't. There's four hundred and sixteendivisions, at least from what I can
tell, and there's all and there'syou know, there's sixteen different types of
dance. So there's a lot ofchampions. But my cousin is like a
goat. She's one state of whateverher division was for the past like three
years in high school. And I'mglad that she's going to be hawk because
(10:26):
there were other options on the table, I think, but she would like
my mom as her aunt would likewalk you know, live stream her dance
recitals over the past few years andthey go all day and then you come
back and you have another one ifyou do it all, and then you
have and then you have a groupdance yep, and then there's a do
(10:48):
and then there's and there's you andyou and a partner doing ant and like
like, can you do you getto go home? Can you can you
run to the subway down the streetand grab a sandwich? Is there any
reprieve? Because from what I hear, it's just some of the worst,
Like you just what do you do? Yeah? I mean, like I
said, luckily, I only Iwas only there for an hour and a
(11:09):
half. And yeah, but you'rebut you're you're screwed. You're you're getting
You're gonna get deeper and deeper.Maybe well that's the thing. Might just
encourage like, hey, you know, like, uh, let's else this
year volleyball? Basketball, Yeah,something that has a time limit on it
or an Indian limit. Do theylike sports? The kids like sports?
(11:30):
They do? Yeah, Actually we'redoing We're in the midst of a wrestling
camp this week with Reeds. Sois that like in Iowa City. No,
it's actually just the high school one. So are you helping with that?
Yeah? I mean it's really justlike after school daycare like you know,
but so it's pretty basic. It'sgood though. It's fun is watching
(11:52):
Spencer Lee and uh and the Hawkswrestle. Does it make you you ever
want to get back out there onthat? Oh? Yeah, I love
I love it. There's a there. We got a couple of heavyweights in
the Wallingsburg room in high school thatI was to roll around with a little
bit this year. And then I'veactually I got a good relationship with the
(12:13):
athletic director down at Central Impella.Oh yeah, I've gone down there in
that room a little bit to rollaround there. And then I've never I've
never had the opportunity to go intothe hour room. But I'm sure I
could probably make a couple of callsand see what what that's all about.
But I would probably get mocked,you know. I don't think just going
around to different like Iowa local gymsand wrestling the first person you see,
(12:37):
can we turn it? Yeah?But we could turn this into a I
don't know I have a lot oftime on my hand. Make it a
pay per view, Well yeah,let's just make it a walk on thing
like wrestle Austin blythe right, andyou just show up and they just line
up one by one, we taketheir money to all right, you got
sixty seconds do your worst, youknow, I mean, you just you
(12:58):
just pinned any from you know,twelve year olds who think they're you know,
big stuff all the way to likefifty year old dudes who think they're
gonna like beat up some old iawhawkeyelignmentand you're just laying guys down. Right,
Hey, you got to scratch thatcompetitive bitch somehow, And I can't
think of a better way. Ithink it's a great way. I don't
think you would get I know we'vehad you on twice before now we've talked
(13:20):
about it before. But like,I mean, you were recruited to wrestle.
Yeah, it was good at ahigh level, and you were like
pretty decent in high school. Likedidn't you like did you win three times
or four? Yeah? Three timechamp, one time runner up? Man?
You know, is that runner upstill eat you to this day?
(13:41):
I don't know. I didn't haveIt's not like it was a close match.
I mean, the guy that Iwas wrestling with really, like,
is it freshman year that you runaround? Yeah, freshman year and I
was fifteen. There's a little lesssting to it then, yeah, not
even shaving yet, you know,sure so, but no, I uh,
I didn't have you know, I'dcommitted to football to play football prior
(14:05):
to like any serious wrestling talks happening. But I remember after my true after
my true freshman year, you know, the shakeup happened with Rhys Morgan uh
switching over to D line coach andthen Brian being hired. And you know,
I I didn't have like a orfrom what I remember a super fun
(14:26):
first year playing football. I knewfootball is probably what I want to do.
I wasn't going to give it upby any means as far as in
high school. No, in collegeokay, okay, And like I knew
I wasn't going to give it up, and I was going to play football
throughout college. But you know,part of me wondered what would happen if
I'd tried to do both. Youknow, ultimately I didn't do both.
(14:46):
I just the way that runs therespring football. It's you know, the
NCAA National Championships are that last weekof March, and that's to typically Iowa
spring break, and then right afterspring break the io football program starts their
spring ball. And I can't imagineCoach Doyle and Coach Farience not giving me
(15:09):
shit for you know, being beingthere and a willing participant. They won
a spring ball, so like thebreak would be non existent. I would
have been brutal. I don't knowhow Keeter's doing it, Like well,
I was just going to say,we've got it. We've got some guy
who's trying, I know, andit's impressive, Like I mean, if
(15:31):
what are your thoughts on that?It seems like he's thriving, you know,
when he committed to do it comingout of high school. I to
be honest, I wasn't sure thathe would be able to, Like I'm
still not you know, jack ofall trades master and none type of thing,
but just because of what it entails, especially at IOWA, like I
know how that room's run and theculture that they you know, instilled into
(15:54):
into their wrestlers, and then obviouslybeing part of the football program, I've
first first hand experience knowing what thatthat's about, and to put the two
together, like if he goes throughit and this success, like that's one
both as you know, as Idon't. I don't even care if he
ends up being a major contributor oneither team. If he runs the gamut
(16:18):
and does both for four or fiveyears, he's either the toughest son of
a bitch that's ever been born orboth sides were like, hey, we'll
cut it back intentionally for you,but I just don't see that, like
I know that. So we talkedto Brody Breck too, who was doing
baseball and football. Obviously, baseballphysically wise, is not nearly as demanding
(16:45):
as the second sport of wrestling,But even Brody said that, like that
that eight week period where baseball startsto ramp up, but you but you
know what that eight week period entailswhen you start the spring semester for IOWA
football, it's that like grind inthe weight room before the spring break.
(17:07):
He said his body was like shuttingdown. Yeah, I can imagine.
And he got to the point wherelike he really tried not to like make
excuses or like ask for like toget out of a lift because he had
to do both. But there wasat one point where he got back from
a baseball something like a like theirpreseason scrimmage that they had from somewhere.
(17:29):
It was like three am by thetime he got back to his dorm room
and they had a he had towake up at five point fifteen for a
football lift. And he was likeand he was like, hey, Ray,
I can't make it, Like youcan't do this. So Keeter and
I don't what was the extent ofof of how important Keeter? What you
(17:51):
know? I know, the heavywas our heavyweight affected by all that gambling
stuff. So Keeter got more actionthan Yeah, I think so. I
mean I'm not like super keyed intoyou know, the inner workings of the
program, but I don't think heprobably would have gotten near the matches he
would have gotten, you know,two three matches something like that. But
then he's probably three deep if youknow Cassiope, that doesn't happen to him
(18:15):
with the gambling stuff. So Ithink what he got this year was invaluable.
I think, man, just he'she's an explosive athlete. Like I
think he'll be just fine, youknow on the wrestling Matt you know,
I haven't been able to watch himplay football, but just the two different
(18:37):
kinds of conditioning and shape you haveto be in for football and wrestling.
Like football it's for six second burseof energy and then you're off for thirty
seconds, you know, and thenwrestling it is seven minutes plus of just
hammering on each other, like gettingpunched in the face, trying to hold
(18:57):
the guy down, trying to getout from under a guy, trying to
take a guy down who doesn't wantto get taken down. Like the expenditure
between the two sports are entirely different, So having to train himself for those
alone, like you said, ifhe does that for four to five years,
aside from all like how successful heis is just impressive and impressive in
(19:18):
itself. In your opinion, canyou can you reach your potential in one
of the sports if you're trying todo both, I would say no,
that's what I that's my opinion,and so far, like I mean,
from what I've saw, and againI'm by no means a wrestling expert,
but what I've what I saw fromhim on the wrestling mat, like he
(19:42):
could easily do what he wants todo on the wrestling mat So I mean,
that's what they're saying, is theysaid, I mean, there's they
kind of called him like probably oneof the maybe if not the best talent
we've picked up in the wrestling programsince Spencer came in. I would probably
agree. And and looking at thefootball side of things, I think it
(20:03):
helps that he plays linebacker, andwe've had we had two of the best
in college football who are now bothreturning again for this upcoming season, so
it's kind of giving him a couplebuffer years to really get acclimated to the
football side of things too. He'snot thrown in the fire right away over
(20:26):
there. And I would have togo back and check how many how many
reps he got on special teams.I guarantee he played some special teams last
year, probably like punt return orsome low key stuff like that, So
we haven't needed him at linebacker.It just seems like it just seems like
it's impossible if you're spending the amountof time to also play another Division one
(20:49):
sport, that that time couldn't bespent getting better at the other one.
Yeah, And I mean by thetime football seasons, like if you have
a success successful year in football,it's January. Yeah, you're playing in
New Year's Bowl game, and thatseason, I mean the wrestling season is
(21:10):
half over, yeah, at leasta third over. And supposedly he's going
to wrestle at the weight that heplays football at, like two fifty to
fifty prob. Yeah, And Iwould guess that's what Kirk Leet from Penn
State, the champion from UH fromthis year, probably wrestled that. I
think he weighed in. I remembergoing to the Penn State I would meet.
I think he wig into like twoforty something. So wow, as
(21:33):
he right there right yeah, rightthere in the ballpark. You know when
Steve so those guys just win withspeed, yeah, and just I mean
they're strong and they're explosive. SoI mean it's a different different breed than
when I than and I wrestled.It was bigger guys, stronger guys.
But now it's just kind of likea blend it just man. And to
think he's playing linebacker two fifty,I I mean, if he's if he's
(21:56):
carrying that weight well, which hedoes. Yeah, see he's got a
frame on him. Play six,what three or four? I was gonna
see if he's six four grant checkhow what the keyter is on the football
roster? I mean to me,I mean, what was Campbell? Campbell
was kind of the same. Iknow Campbell live. I think two forty
two. Yeah, it's hard toimagine not that listed at six. Yeah,
(22:21):
he's heavier than that. It's hardfor me for me to imagine that
they don't put his hand in thedirt and make him like a stand up
end Russia or something like that.Yeah, especially if he can translate his
explosiveness on the mat to kind ofposition on the field. Yeah, on
the edge going against tackles. Imean, I mean, I'm definitely rooting
for must but I've become a fanjust watching him. I didn't really know
(22:44):
him in high school watch him inhigh school because I was doing my own
thing. But now that I'm backand like I said, have some time
to yeah, invest in Oh.I was like I was able to watch
it, watch his matches and itI mean, he's I'm excited to see
how he can do. It wouldbe so cool if he was just dominating
as a heavyweight and then also startingat lineback like you, it would just
be an insane story wrestling has alist of it's six five wrestling profile.
(23:12):
I don't think. I don't thinkhe's for heavyweight. And interestingly enough,
there's another one from Nebraska that's doingit, Hutch Marker or whatever. Yeah,
yep, and he's he's the heavyweightfor them. Yeah, and yeah,
they call him the polar there.They can't put all white unit tards,
(23:33):
by the way, that's just criminal. That's what what do you call?
I don't know, they don't theydo. Look they do look like
leotards from the dance recital that Blake. Yeah, we uh, I mean,
can we not get something better that? These dudes cock and balls are
just they're just everywhere, especially ifyou're especially if you're well and dowed.
(23:56):
I mean you're running out there.It's just like, what do we like
gotta be comfortable in your own skin, Tyler. I guess there's some like
flow wrestling events that have gone awayfrom the traditional single and kind of gone
like, you know, MMA shortsand or can we just wear like some
(24:18):
tight compression shorts underneath the singlet?I mean guys usually do. There's is
there a rule that you can't Someof these guys certainly are not or are
just working with something that I'm unfamiliarwith, probably both like, yeah,
same, you mentioned, uh,you mentioned you have more time on your
(24:38):
hands. What what does a dayin the life of Austin blythe look like
these days? Is it weird too? Is it weird to you're talking about
it's funny because I'm experiencing the samething as a dad now. M And
you go from and I don't knowhow much you struggle with this or not,
but you go from this identity ofan athlete like it's all about me,
right yuh, in my career andI'm trying to be like this,
(25:03):
you know, it's masculine football player, NFL this stuff. And now you
find yourself on the weekend pulling upto the auditorium for an hour and a
half of you know, Frozen DancerSitle Like, do you do you find
do you ever sit back and realizethat contrast and think, man, what
it's crazy how life changes in tenyears. Yeah. I think I've never
(25:26):
really struggled with it, because,you know, I think the fun part
for Kylie and I was we chosewhen we were when you're retired, you
know, it was a it wasvery much a family decision, and so
I kind of had time to acceptthat and sure kind of think about what
life would look like when I didhave more time at home and all that
(25:47):
good stuff. So that part Ihaven't really struggled with, but it definitely
has been a transition of like,all right, I don't have to carve
out two hours of my day togo train and do speedwork and condition and
all that stuff. I don't haveto do that anymore. So but like
my restaurant mentality and my athlete mentality, like I struggle with that a lot.
Like if I don't get a workoutin whatever however it shakes out thirty
(26:11):
minutes, forty five minutes an houror whatever, I get some severe anxiety
like, oh god, I skip, I missed a workout. I can't,
can't be But it's been fun.I mean, you know, right
now, we took a year tojust kind of you know, be us
and shall yeah, regain some timeas a family and travel and do some
(26:32):
other things and just be around forthe kids too, and Kylie and let
her kind of do her thing.If you know, I really tried hard
to if something comes up for her, to allow her never to have to
say no to any kind of socialevent or travel or anything like that,
because she gave up a lot oftime for me to do my thing.
And you know, it's just it'sbeen a lot of fun transitioning into this
(26:56):
phase. And you know, movingforward, we have that we have the
Hunt Club and Parnell the Lakesy AcresPheasant Club, and so kind of transition
into that role a little bit morekind of doing the front office day to
day stuff and and you know,developing relationships with the people there, which
is you know, part of thereason why I decided to buy it with
with Kurt, my father in law. So looking forward to this fall.
(27:19):
So how's that going. It's good, it's good. We uh, you
know, just do you feel likeI'm more? Do you feel it?
So, so explain it. Explainit a little bit for the people,
like what's that? What's the product? If you want to if someone was
going to come to you, guys, it's it's it's like, yeah,
there's some job for a hunting weekend, right, yeah. Yeah. If
somebody calls us up and says,hey, I want to come out,
(27:41):
and you know, I want toget a hunt, and so we set
you up with a guide or youknow, if you have your own bird
dogs that you want to come outand use the field. We we put
out some birds. Typically it's abouta handful of four or five birds a
person, and you come out,you get a hunt for three hours.
And the nice thing about us,we're a license preserve, so we can
hunt from September first March thirty first, and there's a it's a no limit
(28:04):
bird hunt where typically if you're goingto hunt during you know, designated hunting
seasons in the winter, you're onlylimited to three birds. So with us,
you can come out and shoot asmany birds as you can see and
you can hit you know, sometimespeople hit less than less than others,
which is okay, just keeps peoplecoming back. So but we have a
(28:26):
beautiful sixteen bedroom lodge that we canhost people in. And like I said,
getting to meet people from Ohio,from Atlanta, from Michigan, from
They'll come in from all over huhoh yeah, from South Dakota, from
you know, Missouri, Indiana,like everywhere people come and it's fun getting
to build those relationships and you know, see what, see what they're about.
(28:48):
So how many how many places likeLegacy Acres are there in Iowa,
there's actually quite a few. Iwouldn't have guessed as many when we first
started, but kind of doing recenton, you know, when we first
started setting our prices and in packagesand stuff like that, there's probably you
know, ten to fifteen that youknow you've searched pheasant preserves in Iowa and
(29:11):
you know, get a list ofall those places. So not all of
them do it quite like we do. You know, I think we're kind
of unique because of our accommodations weput it. Yeah, that sounds that
sounds insane, Like is the goalto be like the premiere one? Yeah,
for sure. And I think youknow, for me and Kurt especially,
like I don't know why you'd doanything if you didn't want to be,
(29:33):
you know, the top dogs.So really striving to be kind of
an all around place. Like wejust hosted a fundraising event a couple of
weekends ago, went really well.We've done several graduation parties, a ton
of family unions in the summer,and it's just a great place. Like
good, good scenery, you know, the rolling hills, good sunsets,
good sunrises, all that good stuff. So it's just a good place and
(29:57):
you're gonna take a you're going totake a or hands on roll with that
as you get further into retired lifehere, Yes, do you feel like
that's holding that operation back a littlebit? Without you? It fully hands
on every day, not necessarily me, but with another set of hands,
it's definitely going to help kind ofexpand our capacity and our capabilities for hosting
(30:22):
more people and just you know,figuring out different ways to bring people to
the property and marketing it. Youknow, because when we first started,
we were really like a six monthbusiness, you know, like I said,
September to March is really when weoperated, and then we would have
to figure out, you know,how to stretch the dollar and make it
work for the six months that wedidn't host hunters. But now with the
(30:42):
lodge, like I said, we'vegot graduation parties, we've done a few
winter receptions, we've got book thelodge out as like a as a building
basically. Yep, yep, Imean, it's it's ridiculous. I mean,
we've got tons of pictures on ourwebsite and some people are you know,
there's at this point there's a waitlist and people are booking. Hell
(31:03):
yeah, especially in the summer.It's dude, that's sick. Yeah,
it's good. It's you know,people are calling now for later on in
the summer. It's like, sorry, the weekends are filled. So that's
also a good problem to have.And you know, I'm excited to see
where we can take it. Didyou plan on? I feel like it's
the the way of the the professionalathlete is sort of something in the entrepreneurial
(31:30):
space like that probably probably less ofa common occurrence to get a professional athlete,
especially someone who had a what I'llcall a long career, a longer
than average career for sure, andhas you know, done well, collected
some resources and and you know,set themselves up a little bit for I
(31:52):
was going to say the afterlife,but that's not dead. The after professional
life. It's it's hard to imagineand you hear it sometimes, but like
people going into like a normal deskjob after that, like there's just not
a lot of reason and so mostguys like open a business or start a
company or do something. You know, was that something that was always did
(32:14):
you ever think about that when youwere playing? Yeah, for sure,
before you ever bought this place,Yeah, you know, you kind of
think about your plan for what yourlife will look like afterwards. And I
think initially I thought I'd go backto the university and do something in alumni
relations or what's your care communication styles. So I mean I internshipped, you
(32:40):
know, at the Universe of Foundation, where you developed those relationships with alumni
and ultimately asked them for cash,so more money. Yeah, I don't
know if that's really where I wouldhave went, but somewhere, you know,
helping with the football program, eitherwith kind of what Ben has done
(33:01):
now with like the Legacy Hawk stufflike I think I would have enjoyed that,
because I've always enjoyed the relationship partof anything that I've done. But
no, I didn't really this didn'treally come about, or you know,
thinking about doing my own thing orbeing an entrepreneur didn't come about until this
opportunity to present itself in twenty eighteen. And I think the reason people,
(33:23):
especially NFL guys or just athletes ingeneral, kind of move towards that space,
the entrepreneurship space, is because atleast for me, you know,
my schedule and my day to dayfor eight months out of the year for
the last seven years has been dictatedfor me, like to the minute.
Yeah, you know, you wakeup, you go to meetings or lyft
at seven, you go to meetingsat seven fifty, you eat lunch between
(33:45):
this and this time, and thenafter five forty five six o'clock at night,
you're free to do whatever you want. But you go home and you
have all you want to do issleep, right, Yeah, I mean
you go home, if you havekids, you take care, you help
your wife to take care of yourkids, and go to bed, and
you do it all over again.So I think that's probably why people kind
of gravitate towards that space. Andfor me, yeah, it's two.
(34:09):
With the career that I did have, I've been able to kind of or
I was able to choose kind ofa passion projects. Well, that's the
other benefit of being a professional athlete. You're smart with your money. I
mean, athletes all over the placeare making insane money. You now have
resources to kind of get into whateveryou want, which helps a lot,
(34:30):
right, Like a lot of thelarge barrier entry for a lot of people
in starting a business is like,yeah, I'd like to do this,
but I need two hundred grand tokind of get it off the ground and
I don't really have the ability totake a loan out for that. Yeah,
definitely. So, I mean it'sbeen it's been a lot of fun,
and it does give us some timeto kind of build legacy into what
(34:52):
we really truly envision it being.Yeah, making your own schedule is sick.
It's oh yeah, like the workon stuff when you want to work
on something is the best part aboutwhat I do now, And yeah,
it's it's it's nice to not havesomeone telling you where you need to be
(35:13):
as Yeah, you mentioned, uh, well, is there anything else that
you see yourself getting into? That'swhere I was going to go with that.
Next is it does has this sparked? Like you know, Josie obviously
is our buddy from our our class, and he's got the uh we're talking
about business ideas with him all thetime. We just had Ward's bachelor party
(35:34):
in Vegas this two weekends ago,and I think we spent like an hour
talking about how we're going to openOutlaws Steakhouse in Iowa City. There you
go, We've been talking about OutlawsSteakhouse for like seven years now, and
the like the six of us aregoing to go in on it. And
that's what we said, We're goingto talk to Nate because he's already in
the restaurant business in the area.It is not a joke. It is
(35:58):
like a legitimate possibility that we eventuallylook into this. Did you pitch to
him buying a lacrosse him? Idid not pitch to him buying the Denver
Outlaws next cross team. But well, Black, I have a idea for
you now, then for your nextbusiness adventure. Buying a lacrosse team you've
picked, You've piqued my interest.Are they profitable? Is that a good
(36:21):
investment? Grant? I don't thinkit's a bad one. I don't know.
I don't think. I've always lovethe idea. Obviously, the super
hip hypothetically, I don't think itwould ever become a reality. But someone
bringing a sports team to Des Moines, Yeah, you know it's a smaller
market, but it can't be thatmuch smaller than an Indianapolis, you know,
(36:44):
or a Minneapolis you know. Iknow there's cities around those and stuff
like that. But man, Imean, if you bring a pro team
to Iowa, how hard these fansride for like their universities, especially if
you can give them one singular proteam. I mean, well, what
league do you want? Like,what kind of what team do you want
(37:05):
there? If I don't know fora long while here, while Caitlin was
still at Iowa, they're like,hey, here's an idea. Give the
w NBA two or four expansion teamsthis upcoming season. Give des Moines one
of them, because not only doesIowa support women's basketball, but Drake does
(37:25):
a great job. Des Moines supportsDreda and Iowa State. They're a top
ten women's basketball team going in thenext year, and they've always supported their
women's basketball team like you have thefans. Give des Moines the first pick,
let them draft Kaitlin, bring herback home. She could live literally
live in her childhood bedroom, playfor the des Moines whatever and uh and
(37:49):
have a team in the dub Butbut yeah, it would be sick.
I mean it is small. DMoinn is small. I get it.
I just think the fandom, theIowa fandom in general, just for the
Drake fans, the Iowa State fans, you and i and Iowa fans like
you get all those, like allthose groups of people rooting for one team
(38:10):
together. Yeah, I mean youhave I know plenty of people that buy
season tickets for the Vikings, theBears, the Chiefs, you know,
like that would be that would bethe dream. The ultimate dream is they
put an NFL team in Des Moines. It would be so sick. Yeah,
(38:30):
but we do have the Barnstormers.Yeah, there you go, get
the Barnstormers. We have the IowaWolves their G league team. What Wolves
for a second? Okay, Wolves, Wolves, the Wolves? What Cubs?
The Cubs? You know the Cubs, all those are sustainable, So
(38:50):
I mean you give them a proteam? Come on, now, feels
like it could work. You mentionedbefore, you know, you don't have
to train now two hours a day. But you and I were going back
and forth a little bit earlier thisyear, and I, by the looks
of it in your face, Ithink we might have made some progress on
(39:12):
you losing a little weight. What'sthe what's the body athlete journey been like
post career? Now? What whatdoes like a day of nutrition and workouts
look like for you? Yeah?So, I mean I was always a
guy in the league. I've alwaysbeen a generally bigger guy, like always
been the bigger, the biggest sonin the family, big boned, yeah,
(39:37):
right, And you know, Imy biggest fear after I was done
playing is how I would go skyrocketin the opposite direction, right, so
right, and uh, you know, the wrestler and me probably would never
let that happen. But we're justthe discipline, you know, the will
power to you know, stay relativelyfit. But anyway, you know,
(40:00):
after I was done, I Ijust I stopped lifting heavy lifting heavy.
I started trying to maintain the musclemass and just kind of lean out.
But now, for the first sixmonths, I was a big peloton guy,
bite guy. So and then Istarted resistance training again, and oh
(40:21):
my gosh. When I started back, I think, I you know,
I started benching. I was likehitting like one eighty five like ten times,
and I was struggling on the tenthrep, you know, like it's
just funny how fast it goes.Oh yeah. But then now training again,
you know, I do kind ofI've sent you some of the workouts
that I've been sure now like across between cardio and CrossFit and some some
(40:45):
weightlifting thrown in there. What's thescale look like? And he says,
I'm about two seventy. I haven'tstepped on the scale in a long time.
You don't look too seventy in theface. Man, Yeah, well,
I mean I just want to feelgood really, like I really.
I mean the goal weight would beif I could, if I could ideally
(41:06):
get down like two fifty. Butyou know, I enjoy going out with
Kylie or friends and you know,socially being having fun doing all that stuff.
So I don't know if that goalweight is ever achievable without like six
months of consistent strict dieting and theworking out. You know, I kind
of work out to work out forpleasure, you know, so, but
(41:29):
we don't. I try to workout five times a week, and you
know, I think again, likelike I mentioned, it's some of that
anxiety. If I don't get likefive workouts in, you know, Kylie
gives me such a hard time,Like You're going to be fine, you
will live, Like you don't needfive workout if you don't want to work
out today. No, but it'sjust like it's hardwired and it's really hard
to reverse it. Well, Ithink it's something where you need to get
(41:52):
a workout. I think it's somethingtoo like it sort of does become I
mean, I'm a psycho, right, I'm on the far side of things.
I am absolutely someone who like,especially if I was just going easy,
like, there will come a timefor me where it's like, I
am just going to work out forforty five minutes to an hour a day,
and I will need that every singleday, even if it's like one
(42:15):
day an hour of walking or something. Right, Yeah, I don't like,
I think you should move your bodyat minimum thirty minutes of walking every
single day. There should never bea day where you just don't do anything,
including go for a walk. ButI think for a lot of people
it gets to the point where it's, like you said earlier, the sort
(42:35):
of the mental jitters and energy oflike you can physically start to feel it
in your demeanor, in your moodif you don't get a workout in and
so it's like at that point itstarts it does start to become unhealthy the
other way where it's like if youdon't have some outlet to get that out,
then you start to be less ofa of what you know, the
(42:59):
best version of Austin blythe could be. So it's like you got to go
in the if you got to goto the gym for forty five minutes and
do whatever you got to do toget it out, Like that's that's a
better spot to be than like,oh I can't make it into the gym
more than once a week, youknow. Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
I think it's funny how many guysyou know you said you probably wouldn't
(43:22):
let yourself get there, whether itbe the wrestler mentality that took takes over
just like the general like you know, desire to be fit and healthy.
I think it's amazing how many guysdon't have that that that play professional sports.
Like you are not the only orthe first, by a long shot
(43:44):
former teammate that I've had who hascome to me now six seven years after
playing and been like, hey,could I get some tips on this?
Could you write? Like like MarshallI think came to me before his wedding,
like sixty days before his wedding,is like, hey, I need
(44:05):
to look great on wedding day,Like give me some asshole Like he's an
he's an asshole, right, he'sbeen skinny his whole life, muscular toned,
but like he even came to meand was like, hey, can
you write me a program for thenext two months for my wedding, and
I was like, yeah, sure, And I like I've had plenty of
other guys be like, hey,like what are you doing, And like
(44:29):
I tell him, well, youdon't want to do what I'm doing,
but like we could definitely get youin the right spot. And like some
guys just like they do it asa necessity as part of the job,
and then afterwards they don't want totouch another weight. Ever. Yeah,
it's like, oh, I don'tknow if you want to swing that far,
Like you're going to figure out thatyou need to do something. Yeah,
Like I'm somewhere in the middle,like I don't think I'll ever put
(44:51):
you know, five point fifty onmy back again or no reason to right,
Yeah, but two twenty five topush the you know, to push
the state a little bit and keepyour legs strong, that is importantly.
Yeah. Absolutely, It's funny yousay that, You're like, you don't
want to do what I do.I I've seen I've talked to James Farans
a little bit and he's he's kindof he's went way down, like he's
(45:13):
I think he's down to like undertwo fifty maybe really and uh, you
know, I'm like, dude,you look great, Like what are you
doing. He's like, you don'twant to you don't want to do this.
He's like he's fasting. He's onlyeating for like six hours a day
and he's cramming everything into the sixhours and he's eating. He's at like
eighteen hundred calories. And I'm like, dude, oh no, thanks,
(45:37):
nope. Well, I'm gonna look, I'm gonna look just like this.
I'm gonna eat what I you know, we went Yeah, we went over
your die a little bit too.It you weren't eating a whole lot either.
Yeah, to be honest, likea lot more than James though.
Yeah, oh my gosh, thatis unbelievable that Britt looks great. Though
he looks great, it's paying off. Yeah, I know that. That's
(46:00):
the thing is is as a coachnow, Yeah, especially as the season
gets gone, there's a lot ofthings that work. But there's no reason
to do anything if you're not ifyou don't plan on making it lifelong,
Like, if it's not sustainable,you shouldn't be doing it. So you
should always we should always be strivingto like find our what works best forever.
(46:22):
And that six hours of eating windowand only being at eighteen hundred calories
as a dude, as a guywho is two hundred and fifty plus pounds
and an athlete, like he waseighteen hundred calories man, that's yeah.
I mean there's one hundred and twentypound women who run races and don't even
(46:43):
lift weights who eat eighteen hundred caloriestoday. Yeah. Yeah, So it'll
be interesting to see where he settlesbecause I can't imagine him. I'd love
to talk to him about it.Yeah. We Actually it's funny we've I
don't know if it's just because it'sKF suns or whatever, but we've never
had Steve or Brick on the podcast. Shouldn't get them together, and I
would love to just be oh god, that would Actually I'm not even sure.
(47:05):
I've only ever seen me. I'mnot I wasn't part of the line
room where the you know your guyslike friend group, but I've only ever
seen them together like once or twice. Yeah, and they're obviously both individually
create a player characters on their own. Ye. I can't imagine them.
I can't imagine. I can't imaginethrowing Brian into them. Those three yeah.
(47:30):
Oh man, I just remember Jamesand Brian were in the same room
as player coach for that first yearBrian was in Iowa City, and it
was I mean, it was afine dynamic. I think they both understood
James as professional as it gets.So yeah, it was it was fine.
But like you know, Brian wouldlet him have it just as you
(47:51):
know, just as bad as anybodyelse. And it was it was fun.
I mean it was fun. Ohyeah. Yeah. And then when
Steve got in there, it wasbecause the age gap between Brian and Steve.
Yeah, I don't know what itis officially, but it's a it's
a pretty wide wide gap. Iwould guess it's got to be I would
guess fifteen years or so over fifteenyears. Yeah, So it was an
(48:15):
interesting dynamic dynamic with both of those. But having Steve and James on the
same podcast, that would be fun. You should try and make that work.
God, we got to. We'dget a lot of listeners. Would
it's eleven years by the way,because you're curious. Nice eleven Okay,
Bronco legend though, James Farence WorldChampion, Yeah, Bronco and Patriot legend.
(48:37):
Yeah, you talk about mostly Broncolegend, but agerance that guy had
in his career. I mean hisI remember his first year out he was
working part time at Randy's carpets andlifting and staying with it. I mean
it's crazy and he had. Yeah, I mean, got to get him
on here to tell that he wouldbe a very good, very good podcast.
(49:00):
Yeah, we gotta. I gottareach out to him. Our goal
for the summer now is is LisaBluter now that she just retired. Dude
blown away by that? I itwas on anybody's radar, right, I
was. I immediately saw it andlike I was like, no, no,
no, And Jan Jensen is likeit almost feels like a copy and
(49:22):
paste sort of deal. But it'sjust like but then you think about it,
right, and it's like, asa coach, you probably want to
try and go out on top asmuch as you can. As a player
in anything, it doesn't even matter. Forget sports, if you're a CEO,
if you're a like it would beit would be nice to go out
when you're winning. Yeah, butit's hard because if you're winning, why
(49:45):
would you stop winning? Right?And Bluter just coached the greatest scorer in
all of the sports history went toback to back Natties. It's not going
to get better. Yeah, it'ssimply not going to get better. The
odds. I mean, it could, I guess, but the odds say
(50:07):
it's not. And she's she's retirementage. I think she's in her low
sixties. Yeah, it is kindof crazy, like the I feel like
the pillars of the coaching tree orstaff at Iowa are in my mind her
and fran Is getting up there asfar as ten goes, Blueed, Lisa
Blueter, the Brands, and thenkf like most three like and now one
(50:30):
of them is gone, Like whatkind of dominoes are we going to see
over the next Well, I'm surethe Brands probably have quite a few years
left in them. It feels likethey could coach till they're one hundred and
forty years. Yeah, no doubt. And I don't think they'll ever die.
You're probably right. I don't.If there's people on that are going
to live forever, it's the Brandsbrothers. Yeah, you're probably right.
Death fears that I mean after he'sgetting up there like he was sixty when
(50:53):
when we were in yeah, andbeen on a college a fair fair amount
of time, now, sure havethey? They talk about it every year
now, I mean, especially withall the stuff that's happened the last few
years, not to mention the niL stuff, the entire changing the landscape.
But like every year now is kindof like a is this I can't.
(51:14):
I can only imagine what it's gonnafeel like for like you and I
when KF when that when that postgoes out about KF that he's done,
because oh yeah, I absolutely willwhen he gives his last press conference,
right and you know email, Ohyeah, I I would I'll have to
(51:35):
go. Yeah, as a memberof the walk on media. Yeah,
absolutely not as a former player,but as a walk on media. No,
he wouldn't let me. I'm worthlessas a former player. I'll never
be. There's no way, I'mnot. I'm I'm not on the list
of being brought back as like aformer former captain or honorary captain. No,
(51:58):
it absolutely is true. There's there'sguys who are there, guys aren't,
and there's a year a half andI'm a have not And that's okay.
I'm just a podcaster. Now,it's okay. I'm just I'm just
a full time stay at home dad. Now pretty much. Well, you're
wearing the Williamsburg jacket. And Ithink I saw something I was going to
do research on this podcast, likewhat new topics should we talk about with
(52:19):
Austin. I think I saw somethingabout you joining the Williamsburg staff last fall
for the football team. Yeah,tell me about that. It was a
lot of fun. You know.I always knew that I wanted to get
back into coaching, and I wasn'tgoing to that first year just to kind
of fully take every thing off myplate, no commitments whatsoever. But you
(52:39):
know, my father in law,Kurt being the head coach, I was
quite sure how to say no tohim or just tell him he never really
asked, but or just tell himlike, you know, I don't think
I'm going to be a part ofit this year. And you know,
luckily I decided to be a partof it because we were able to help
Kurt win his first state title.Did they win the title? They did?
(53:02):
Oh my god? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We have to extremely
talented football players this year, oneof them being Derek Wise. Coffee is
going to be a hawky next year. Is he insane? He's an incredible
athlete. He's like one of thosedudes. He's not like gonna fly,
He's not gonna wow you with likesuper speed or agility or anything like that.
(53:23):
But like, the thing that reallyimpressed me with Derek was just him,
like his intangibles. Like he's likehe's like Josie just being a gamer
or CJ. Like he really remindsme of figuring out a way to get
the job done. Like on threeis going to write an article about how
he's sneaky athletic here in like threemonths. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(53:44):
I mean like so for instance,I mean, we he was playing wide
receiver, tight end tight for usas the season started and our quarterback ended
up twisting his ankle getting hurt andhad to sit a few games, and
Derek moved to quarterback because he hadplayed that early in Jesus, early in
his high school career. And theI mean by the end of the year,
he's just slinging and he's running in, he's he's you know, handing
(54:07):
it off like he's doing and youknow we're probably you know, i mean
without him, and then some ofthe other guys, uh that we had
a receiver or some speed speed guys, you know, and I'm not sure
would have gotten this first one,but he'd been really close. He got
second I think three times, andthis is a four state championship game.
Man. They finally got it donefor him. So the uh, you
(54:30):
know, we had the we hadthe Pulson's on last year at some point
and they obviously live in Colowna nowand they were trying to recruit it.
They were trying to recruit us overto the area. Uh huh. They're
like, hey, we can ourgoal and they were totally serious about it.
They're like, we're gonna try andget all the guys who still live
in Iowa or anybody who will comeback to just come and populate the Colowna
(54:50):
Williamsburg like this eastern Iowa that spotis, you know, part of the
state, and just build like statechampion ship football teams and in all sports
teams with all of our kids.And I was like, you know,
it doesn't sound like a bad idea. Oh yeah, I'm all in.
You know, that's a great idea. I love it. And he mentioned
you when he's when he's he's like, yeah, they got blythe right there.
(55:14):
Yeah. I was like, Idon't know Man was a great place
to raise a family. It islike no, but you're seriously, you're
right, like there, I can'tthink Williamsburg if you're thinking small town like
and there's a lot of great smalltowns in Iowa, but Williamsburg or something
like Colowna, like that's up thereon the list. There's not a lot
of bad things going on in thoseplaces. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean
(55:36):
Walkee's all right too, but it'sit's bigger. I mean yeah, uh,
Walkee's like a big Williamsburg. Ithink, yeah, I like it.
Like you were you like O linecoach? How like how did that
go? How did you feel youfeel comfortable in the coaching role? Yeah?
I did? You know, Ithink for me, I had a
lot of good experiences with great coachesover my career, so yeah, you
(55:58):
know, I had a lot ofgood examples to try and learn from.
And being a part of a good, solid group on the old line,
great kids, good group of seniors, and then a good group of young
guys that just came to work everyday and you know, didn't say boo
about it. So it was fun, a lot of fun. I'm looking
forward the next fall. It makesit easy absolutely, well, we well,
(56:20):
grant, I guess you got anyother questions. I don't, Yeah,
no, I can rip some.I'm curious, So you played in
the greatest regular season game of alltime back in twenty eighteen with Rams Chiefs,
like fifty four to fifty one.I'm curious what that's like, is
an offensive line or an offensive linementof playing it, because in my stupid
brain, I'd be like, oh, you guys are scoring it. Will
you must be like like you're onthe sidelines, like, oh, this
(56:43):
isn't that hard at all. Butthen also on the other side, defense
is getting scored on a lot,so it's like, oh, shoot,
we got to get back out there. I'm just curious, like what's that
like? In the game? Islike, are we extra tired all the
time? Like what's happened? Yeah? I think coaches do a great job
of getting guys ready week to weekand even before that, getting in shape
for those types of games, youknow, because everything at that level is
(57:07):
elite, the best of the bestat ever position, and those games.
That game especially was a lot offun because we were executing at such a
high level that year, especially offensively. We knew we could score points as
long as everybody kind of executed theirrole, and gosh, that game will
never forget. We were supposed toplay yeah, Mexico City and Lady Gaga
(57:31):
ran a concert like the week before. I just ruined the turf. So
luckily for us, that game gotmoved back to LA and the Coliseum and
it was just it was a tonof fun and something I'll never forget.
It's one of my favorite game balls. I love the I love the extra
component there that the reason you guysmoved it back was because Lady Gaga ruined
(57:52):
the field. Yep, that's incredible. Yeah, it was. It was
wild. How much faster do youfeel in the color restuerses, Like,
give me a forty right now?I'm four six immediately? Yeah, you
know, I think I was officiallyclocked at five three something. I'd probably
run on like five to two.Here we go, there we go.
So then I did I wanted toask you this last time. I didn't
(58:15):
get a chance to. Have youever asked Pete Carroll for a piece of
gum? I have not have youever seen someone do it like get it?
I don't even know where he getsit, doesn't It's not like you
can see like the you know,the block of gum or whatever in his
pocket. Like, who, he'sjust been chewing one piece of gum for
forty years now, might be.I think the best thing about KF is,
(58:36):
uh, like the three packs ofgum and his locker when we would
roll in on game day. Yeah, it's like, Grant, do you
remember anything? It was like hubabove or whatever it was right, yeah,
yeah, and it was a lot. I don't remember if they I
think they put whole packs in there. Yeah. Handedly stay in business because
of them, and like so soGrant. The uh, the managers would
(59:01):
set up the game day locker roomfor us, so you know, your
helmet and everything's hung in the rightspot and mouth guards put. I mean
it's it's pretty meticulous. The managersare insane. Uh, they do unbelievable
work. But then they would alsolike set up the coaches lockers and like,
if you're the headman, you getwhat you want. So KF right
(59:23):
there in his locker on the topshelf, his gum was ready for game
day and uh man, he Imean KF goes after a gum hard as
fuck, I mean flavor in thefirst place, and he probably runs it
out of flavor in about two anda half minutes. He's just on the
(59:44):
sideline. It's the way he getshis energy out. How he stays so
thin at a you know, atan elderly or elderly age. That and
the fact that he worked out withcoach Doyle every day in the weight room.
It's probably probably a combination caff workout in the ca keis No,
No, I don't think. Ithink he puts gym clothes on. He's
(01:00:06):
got a shower in his office.That that can't be true. Oh,
it absolutely is true. Are youserious? Yeah? I only went in
there one time. I sat thereone time. Shower No, no,
in his office one time, justrunning there with a towel. He's trying
to break down film coach. Theshowers are full downstairs. I'm like,
(01:00:30):
I'm gonna get a quick one here, all right, clue. I it
was. I went in there toget told that I was not being put
on scholarship. So that was andhe said, hit the showers. Yeah,
it was, Uh, it waslike it was it was like the
compliment sandwich. You know, hey, we we love what you're doing for
(01:00:53):
us. You played great last year. It was after my first year of
starting. So they he's like,she's not gonna be out. There's the
numbers. It's the numbers. Theshit clue, you know, mcaren Crosston.
They've been great for us a yearolder. We wish you could give
you a scholarship, but just justjust not the numbers. This here,
(01:01:14):
okaick. We love what you're doing. Keep working hard, put you on.
Eventually, I'm just sitting there like, fuck man, we're in the
middle of camp at this point.No, but uh, we appreciate you
coming back on. We'll uh you'ruh your your guest. That consistently we
have a couple guests who are justlike, yeah, come on, We'll
(01:01:35):
just keep bothering you until you youdon't. I'm always down. Well,
keep it joined being dad and allthat. Uh, all that free time,
I know, it's that time isthe best in the world. It's
awesome. I stood out in thedriveway today for forty five minutes and uh
we just got like a little tykest ball thing trying to get my daughter
(01:01:57):
to swing the bat and she justshe thinks it's hilarious just to knock the
ball off the tea with her hand. Thank you. Because why not.
Yeah, it's and it's a greattime. So hopefully, hopefully the fans
enjoyed the awesome blythe episode, thirdedition of austome blythe on our show,
and we'll be back again next weekwith another episode, hopefully another cool guest.
I'm gona try and get Mitch King. I think, for uh you
(01:02:20):
would be a great guest. He'sbeen on the he's been on the list
for a while. He does advertisementswith us now for his insurance, so
we need to have him on ouractual guest. But we'll be back then.
Hey, thanks for listening to theshow. If you want more,
you can check us out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube by
searching washed Up walk Ons. Andif you're interested in supporting the show,
head over to patreon dot com slashwashed Up walk Ons, where you can
(01:02:42):
find bonus podcasts, merchandise, andother cool perks. Best part, half
of your subscription benefits the kids atUI Children's Hospital. We'll see you next
time. Hawks by a million.Poun pun pun pun pun pun pun pu
Congratulations, you just found yourself themost entertaining, undisputed number one I will
podcast in the space to Wash Upwalk Ons. Today, we bring on
Austin Blythe his third time on theshow, to catch up with the boy
about dad life, more insight intoa post NFL pro athlete career. We
talk about entrepreneurship, wrestling, dancerecitals, and a whole lot more.
(00:21):
Enjoy the show, Let's have aday, Let's jump Welcome into the Washed
(00:52):
Up walk Ons Podcast, Episode fivenineteen. I don't know. I've got
four eighteen almost one hundred to thedot Austin that we had you on last
year. Uh you keep asking meback, I'm an old, washed up,
uh retiree. You're you're perfect forthe show. Anybody that will oblige
and and who has experienced and willcome on the show. I well,
(01:17):
quite honestly, it's because last weekI gave you a text about the about
something else, and then I waslike, I wis Chev'm back on?
Like I if I ever talked toa former teammate and I don't, at
least in my position, I don'tthrow the hey you should come on our
podcast, then I feel like it'sa missed opportunity. Are you sitting in
the uh in the man cave rightnow? No, this is my office.
(01:37):
I thought about going down in theman cave. But you know,
I got that Hawks by Million flaghung up. I don't know if I
sent you a picture, But didI get it? Did it? Did
it get there? Oh? Yeah, it's a picture? Need it?
Need it? I? Uh?You want to know something cool? Actually,
did you watch? You guys watchedthe Full Court Press? Uh?
So for anybody listening, probably aton of you have already watched it.
(01:59):
Four part doc you series on Caitlinand a couple other players from last year's
season. Uh. That opens thatthing opens up in episode one and they're
kind of showing all the hype ofCaitlin in the last two years and they
show the game day shot where likebasketball game Day came to Iowa City for
the Iowa Indiana game, and rightthere at the bottom of the screen on
(02:23):
the documentary Hawks by a Million Flag. Wife. My wife was like did
you see it? And I waslike what She's like, your flag was
up there? Like now you haveto send a cease and desists so you
can get some money, Like,hey, we need to WAT revenue from
this documentary used our flag. We'regonna need some royalties on that. Hey,
Peyton Omaha Productions, come on.Yeah, do you know Peyton?
(02:43):
You were in Indianapolis for a nowhe was gone, so I had I
had Andrew as my quarterback. Soand he's gone too. Yeah, he's
more gone than Peyton though. Yeah. Can anybody find him? Does anybody
know where? I don't even know. Somebody asked me the other day,
is he in Indianapolis? I don'tknow. Well, he he rode up
to that preseason game or whatever oris it Thursday night football or something.
(03:05):
He was like way skinny and justliving life. Yeah. I know he's
got a couple of kids now,a couple of daughters. I think so,
dude, he how long was hein the league? For? Five
years? Yeah? Six years?Maybe signed a massive I mean he what
what was he was a top draftpick coming out of college. Yeah,
and then number one did he signa second deal? Yeah? He signed
(03:25):
the second deal, and I thinkadd to the right the headlines with that
was, uh, you know,I think he didn't make him pay it
back. Ers did not make himpay it back. Correct, he walked
with it all huh, yeah,yeah, I mean he did. I
couldn't be totally wrong, but hehe did it right. Man, he
(03:47):
did it right. Do you ever, I mean you played what seven years,
so I guess I mean you walkedaway. Yeah, you could have
sat out and kept trying to DefinitelyI did not. I was not Andrew
Luck. I was not in therehab room every day every game, you
(04:09):
know, in the morning, afterpractice, before practice. That wasn't me.
So I know, I think Iremember a story that he told,
like he was just in tears abouthow much pain he was in and just
daily weekly he'd take pills on pillsand you just couldn't do it anymore.
That was not me. It wasn'tin next stuff too, like not not
(04:30):
some injuries. Yeah, it wasn'tlike him being you know, a baby
and being banged up like he wassignificantly injured. Have you guys ever hurt
your neck for like an extended amountof time? No, thank god.
So I do CrossFit, which involveshandstand push ups, which means you're going
up and down on your head,and before I was experienced enough to do
(04:55):
them at the rate I was tryingto do them a competitively. I had
one where I kind of like Ididn't brace right and I just came down
and just like crunched myself, andI would say for for two weeks I
could not I couldn't turn it eitherway like without searing pain down my back.
(05:16):
And then for probably another two weeksafter that it was real like,
you know, it just gradually cameback. I'm surprised you never had any
neck stuff of not anything from football. I've been dropped on my head a
couple of times in wrestling where itwas like crunch like exactly like you just
described, and it's a you know, the zing down the arm and yeah,
(05:42):
not good. So I think,what's that? Go ahead? Yeah,
I mean it's kind of a ironicthat, you know, I played
a professional career in football and neverhad anything snake with my neck there.
Not only that, but you played, I'm I mean, you're literally ramming
your yeah into somebody on every play. Yeah. I don't know. There's
(06:03):
guys that lead with their helmets,but man, I don't know how.
I just have no nerve endings left. I guess I don't know. They
can't yeah, or brain cells.I mean, yeah, do you ever
worry about that? Some Yeah.Gosh, there's times, you know,
Kylie tells me stuff and I'm like, I don't remember that. Well that's
(06:23):
I think that might just probably bepretty normal. But I think all I
think all men out there have sufferfrom some of that because I didn't as
you know, I didn't take verymany hits. And uh, sometimes my
wife is like, you know,we talked about this, right, Yeah,
yeah, I do not recall.Okay, well that gives me some
uh you know, some hope.It's embarrassing when that happens because I don't
(06:44):
have an excuse. Yeah you do. You played, Come on, buddy,
you know exactly what I did togive me some credit here. No,
that the wrong show for that,that you've come to the wrong place.
Drake and Kevin would be, it'dbe disappointed in you. Yeah.
You mentioned wrestling our guy Spencer Lee. He's going to the Olympics. Yeah,
(07:05):
I mean that was big time.I know he I think he had
think it was funny. His toughestmatch was probably his first one, wrestling
that number one seed from China.Can get China guy? Yeah, yep.
And then I think his finals matchwas what fifty seven seconds or something
like that. Yeah. I think. I think he only had one difficult
match and it was the China Yeah. Yeah, and then uh, you
know, Zan Rutherford got it donetoo to qualify all six weights for the
(07:27):
US and the Freestyle Games. Sosome good representation, A big deal right
around. I don't follow, andI know Grant doesn't either. We don't,
really, we don't. This isn'ta wrestling podcast, so I got
I mean, you're a wrestling guy, though, you still follow all that
stuff. Yeah. I tried to, especially now that I'm done, like
I've got the time to kind ofinvest. I watched the trials a little
bit, and then I think itwas just this last weekend, wasn't it
(07:53):
that he qualified? Yeah? Yeah, it was really recently. It was
during graduation really, Yeah, soI missed. I missed some of it
from because of Callie's dancer sitles.So I'm a first year dance Dad.
Tell me about that, because that'sprobably in the future. I'm doing all
the things, you know, allall the retired dad things. So this
(08:13):
is this weekend. I don't knowwhy it was over Mother's Day weekend,
but it's every year over Mother's Dayweekend. Much of the chagrin of mothers
everywhere. Again. Yeah, forreally she was. We did a daddy
daughter dance, so she was pumpedabout that. So, you know,
that's why I didn't want to watchsome of the wrestling this time around,
but I was able to watch thetrials, So footwork's still good. Then
(08:35):
for the daddy daughter dance, wereyou were you prepped and ready? No?
Luckily she's just in preschool, soall I really had to do I
had to, you know, kneeldown, stand out, pick her up,
toil her. And that was prettymuch the essence of the dance.
Not too much one two, three, four counting. You know. So
I said, through a lot ofdancer sitles growing up with my sister,
how long are these ones? BecauseI remember, like in my mind again
(08:58):
I was like eight, but Iwho was under the impression of these shows
were four and a half hours long. Yeah. So luckily the preschoolers had
the first session, it was onlyan hour and a half. Oh yeah,
we were out of there. Butthat Saturday, I think they started
at we started at ten, andthen the last session didn't even start until
seven thirty. Oh yeah. Well, and here's the thing, is,
(09:18):
like, so one of three brothersso I never had to deal with that.
I didn't either. Yeah, yousame for you. But I have
cousins. Actually shout out to mycousin Kennedy, who is going to be
on the Iowa dance team next year, which is a really like wow.
(09:43):
May even possibly from what I understand, it could be possibly harder to be
recruited to be on the dance teamthan it is the football team. I
can imagine I think that. Imean, from the looks of it,
I think they only take like sixor seven girls that the company spot.
I was going to walk in someof the some of the great school girls
this weekend, you know, Ican I can imagine, uh, And
(10:05):
this Kennedy. So Kennedy's she's likethe goat. She's one. Like I
don't. There's four hundred and sixteendivisions, at least from what I can
tell, and there's all and there'syou know, there's sixteen different types of
dance. So there's a lot ofchampions. But my cousin is like a
goat. She's one state of whateverher division was for the past like three
years in high school. And I'mglad that she's going to be hawk because
(10:26):
there were other options on the table, I think, but she would like
my mom as her aunt would likewalk you know, live stream her dance
recitals over the past few years andthey go all day and then you come
back and you have another one ifyou do it all, and then you
have and then you have a groupdance yep, and then there's a do
(10:48):
and then there's and there's you andyou and a partner doing ant and like
like, can you do you getto go home? Can you can you
run to the subway down the streetand grab a sandwich? Is there any
reprieve? Because from what I hear, it's just some of the worst,
Like you just what do you do? Yeah? I mean, like I
said, luckily, I only Iwas only there for an hour and a
(11:09):
half. And yeah, but you'rebut you're you're screwed. You're you're getting
You're gonna get deeper and deeper.Maybe well that's the thing. Might just
encourage like, hey, you know, like, uh, let's else this
year volleyball? Basketball, Yeah,something that has a time limit on it
or an Indian limit. Do theylike sports? The kids like sports?
(11:30):
They do? Yeah, Actually we'redoing We're in the midst of a wrestling
camp this week with Reeds. Sois that like in Iowa City. No,
it's actually just the high school one. So are you helping with that?
Yeah? I mean it's really justlike after school daycare like you know,
but so it's pretty basic. It'sgood though. It's fun is watching
(11:52):
Spencer Lee and uh and the Hawkswrestle. Does it make you you ever
want to get back out there onthat? Oh? Yeah, I love
I love it. There's a there. We got a couple of heavyweights in
the Wallingsburg room in high school thatI was to roll around with a little
bit this year. And then I'veactually I got a good relationship with the
(12:13):
athletic director down at Central Impella.Oh yeah, I've gone down there in
that room a little bit to rollaround there. And then I've never I've
never had the opportunity to go intothe hour room. But I'm sure I
could probably make a couple of callsand see what what that's all about.
But I would probably get mocked,you know. I don't think just going
around to different like Iowa local gymsand wrestling the first person you see,
(12:37):
can we turn it? Yeah?But we could turn this into a I
don't know I have a lot oftime on my hand. Make it a
pay per view, Well yeah,let's just make it a walk on thing
like wrestle Austin blythe right, andyou just show up and they just line
up one by one, we taketheir money to all right, you got
sixty seconds do your worst, youknow, I mean, you just you
(12:58):
just pinned any from you know,twelve year olds who think they're you know,
big stuff all the way to likefifty year old dudes who think they're
gonna like beat up some old iawhawkeyelignmentand you're just laying guys down. Right,
Hey, you got to scratch thatcompetitive bitch somehow, And I can't
think of a better way. Ithink it's a great way. I don't
think you would get I know we'vehad you on twice before now we've talked
(13:20):
about it before. But like,I mean, you were recruited to wrestle.
Yeah, it was good at ahigh level, and you were like
pretty decent in high school. Likedidn't you like did you win three times
or four? Yeah? Three timechamp, one time runner up? Man?
You know, is that runner upstill eat you to this day?
(13:41):
I don't know. I didn't haveIt's not like it was a close match.
I mean, the guy that Iwas wrestling with really, like,
is it freshman year that you runaround? Yeah, freshman year and I
was fifteen. There's a little lesssting to it then, yeah, not
even shaving yet, you know,sure so, but no, I uh,
I didn't have you know, I'dcommitted to football to play football prior
(14:05):
to like any serious wrestling talks happening. But I remember after my true after
my true freshman year, you know, the shakeup happened with Rhys Morgan uh
switching over to D line coach andthen Brian being hired. And you know,
I I didn't have like a orfrom what I remember a super fun
(14:26):
first year playing football. I knewfootball is probably what I want to do.
I wasn't going to give it upby any means as far as in
high school. No, in collegeokay, okay, And like I knew
I wasn't going to give it up, and I was going to play football
throughout college. But you know,part of me wondered what would happen if
I'd tried to do both. Youknow, ultimately I didn't do both.
(14:46):
I just the way that runs therespring football. It's you know, the
NCAA National Championships are that last weekof March, and that's to typically Iowa
spring break, and then right afterspring break the io football program starts their
spring ball. And I can't imagineCoach Doyle and Coach Farience not giving me
(15:09):
shit for you know, being beingthere and a willing participant. They won
a spring ball, so like thebreak would be non existent. I would
have been brutal. I don't knowhow Keeter's doing it, Like well,
I was just going to say,we've got it. We've got some guy
who's trying, I know, andit's impressive, Like I mean, if
(15:31):
what are your thoughts on that?It seems like he's thriving, you know,
when he committed to do it comingout of high school. I to
be honest, I wasn't sure thathe would be able to, Like I'm
still not you know, jack ofall trades master and none type of thing,
but just because of what it entails, especially at IOWA, like I
know how that room's run and theculture that they you know, instilled into
(15:54):
into their wrestlers, and then obviouslybeing part of the football program, I've
first first hand experience knowing what thatthat's about, and to put the two
together, like if he goes throughit and this success, like that's one
both as you know, as Idon't. I don't even care if he
ends up being a major contributor oneither team. If he runs the gamut
(16:18):
and does both for four or fiveyears, he's either the toughest son of
a bitch that's ever been born orboth sides were like, hey, we'll
cut it back intentionally for you,but I just don't see that, like
I know that. So we talkedto Brody Breck too, who was doing
baseball and football. Obviously, baseballphysically wise, is not nearly as demanding
(16:45):
as the second sport of wrestling,But even Brody said that, like that
that eight week period where baseball startsto ramp up, but you but you
know what that eight week period entailswhen you start the spring semester for IOWA
football, it's that like grind inthe weight room before the spring break.
(17:07):
He said his body was like shuttingdown. Yeah, I can imagine.
And he got to the point wherelike he really tried not to like make
excuses or like ask for like toget out of a lift because he had
to do both. But there wasat one point where he got back from
a baseball something like a like theirpreseason scrimmage that they had from somewhere.
(17:29):
It was like three am by thetime he got back to his dorm room
and they had a he had towake up at five point fifteen for a
football lift. And he was likeand he was like, hey, Ray,
I can't make it, Like youcan't do this. So Keeter and
I don't what was the extent ofof of how important Keeter? What you
(17:51):
know? I know, the heavywas our heavyweight affected by all that gambling
stuff. So Keeter got more actionthan Yeah, I think so. I
mean I'm not like super keyed intoyou know, the inner workings of the
program, but I don't think heprobably would have gotten near the matches he
would have gotten, you know,two three matches something like that. But
then he's probably three deep if youknow Cassiope, that doesn't happen to him
(18:15):
with the gambling stuff. So Ithink what he got this year was invaluable.
I think, man, just he'she's an explosive athlete. Like I
think he'll be just fine, youknow on the wrestling Matt you know,
I haven't been able to watch himplay football, but just the two different
(18:37):
kinds of conditioning and shape you haveto be in for football and wrestling.
Like football it's for six second burseof energy and then you're off for thirty
seconds, you know, and thenwrestling it is seven minutes plus of just
hammering on each other, like gettingpunched in the face, trying to hold
(18:57):
the guy down, trying to getout from under a guy, trying to
take a guy down who doesn't wantto get taken down. Like the expenditure
between the two sports are entirely different, So having to train himself for those
alone, like you said, ifhe does that for four to five years,
aside from all like how successful heis is just impressive and impressive in
(19:18):
itself. In your opinion, canyou can you reach your potential in one
of the sports if you're trying todo both, I would say no,
that's what I that's my opinion,and so far, like I mean,
from what I've saw, and againI'm by no means a wrestling expert,
but what I've what I saw fromhim on the wrestling mat, like he
(19:42):
could easily do what he wants todo on the wrestling mat So I mean,
that's what they're saying, is theysaid, I mean, there's they
kind of called him like probably oneof the maybe if not the best talent
we've picked up in the wrestling programsince Spencer came in. I would probably
agree. And and looking at thefootball side of things, I think it
(20:03):
helps that he plays linebacker, andwe've had we had two of the best
in college football who are now bothreturning again for this upcoming season, so
it's kind of giving him a couplebuffer years to really get acclimated to the
football side of things too. He'snot thrown in the fire right away over
(20:26):
there. And I would have togo back and check how many how many
reps he got on special teams.I guarantee he played some special teams last
year, probably like punt return orsome low key stuff like that, So
we haven't needed him at linebacker.It just seems like it just seems like
it's impossible if you're spending the amountof time to also play another Division one
(20:49):
sport, that that time couldn't bespent getting better at the other one.
Yeah, And I mean by thetime football seasons, like if you have
a success successful year in football,it's January. Yeah, you're playing in
New Year's Bowl game, and thatseason, I mean the wrestling season is
(21:10):
half over, yeah, at leasta third over. And supposedly he's going
to wrestle at the weight that heplays football at, like two fifty to
fifty prob. Yeah, And Iwould guess that's what Kirk Leet from Penn
State, the champion from UH fromthis year, probably wrestled that. I
think he weighed in. I remembergoing to the Penn State I would meet.
I think he wig into like twoforty something. So wow, as
(21:33):
he right there right yeah, rightthere in the ballpark. You know when
Steve so those guys just win withspeed, yeah, and just I mean
they're strong and they're explosive. SoI mean it's a different different breed than
when I than and I wrestled.It was bigger guys, stronger guys.
But now it's just kind of likea blend it just man. And to
think he's playing linebacker two fifty,I I mean, if he's if he's
(21:56):
carrying that weight well, which hedoes. Yeah, see he's got a
frame on him. Play six,what three or four? I was gonna
see if he's six four grant checkhow what the keyter is on the football
roster? I mean to me,I mean, what was Campbell? Campbell
was kind of the same. Iknow Campbell live. I think two forty
two. Yeah, it's hard toimagine not that listed at six. Yeah,
(22:21):
he's heavier than that. It's hardfor me for me to imagine that
they don't put his hand in thedirt and make him like a stand up
end Russia or something like that.Yeah, especially if he can translate his
explosiveness on the mat to kind ofposition on the field. Yeah, on
the edge going against tackles. Imean, I mean, I'm definitely rooting
for must but I've become a fanjust watching him. I didn't really know
(22:44):
him in high school watch him inhigh school because I was doing my own
thing. But now that I'm backand like I said, have some time
to yeah, invest in Oh.I was like I was able to watch
it, watch his matches and itI mean, he's I'm excited to see
how he can do. It wouldbe so cool if he was just dominating
as a heavyweight and then also startingat lineback like you, it would just
be an insane story wrestling has alist of it's six five wrestling profile.
(23:12):
I don't think. I don't thinkhe's for heavyweight. And interestingly enough,
there's another one from Nebraska that's doingit, Hutch Marker or whatever. Yeah,
yep, and he's he's the heavyweightfor them. Yeah, and yeah,
they call him the polar there.They can't put all white unit tards,
(23:33):
by the way, that's just criminal. That's what what do you call?
I don't know, they don't theydo. Look they do look like
leotards from the dance recital that Blake. Yeah, we uh, I mean,
can we not get something better that? These dudes cock and balls are
just they're just everywhere, especially ifyou're especially if you're well and dowed.
(23:56):
I mean you're running out there.It's just like, what do we like
gotta be comfortable in your own skin, Tyler. I guess there's some like
flow wrestling events that have gone awayfrom the traditional single and kind of gone
like, you know, MMA shortsand or can we just wear like some
(24:18):
tight compression shorts underneath the singlet?I mean guys usually do. There's is
there a rule that you can't Someof these guys certainly are not or are
just working with something that I'm unfamiliarwith, probably both like, yeah,
same, you mentioned, uh,you mentioned you have more time on your
(24:38):
hands. What what does a dayin the life of Austin blythe look like
these days? Is it weird too? Is it weird to you're talking about
it's funny because I'm experiencing the samething as a dad now. M And
you go from and I don't knowhow much you struggle with this or not,
but you go from this identity ofan athlete like it's all about me,
right yuh, in my career andI'm trying to be like this,
(25:03):
you know, it's masculine football player, NFL this stuff. And now you
find yourself on the weekend pulling upto the auditorium for an hour and a
half of you know, Frozen DancerSitle Like, do you do you find
do you ever sit back and realizethat contrast and think, man, what
it's crazy how life changes in tenyears. Yeah. I think I've never
(25:26):
really struggled with it, because,you know, I think the fun part
for Kylie and I was we chosewhen we were when you're retired, you
know, it was a it wasvery much a family decision, and so
I kind of had time to acceptthat and sure kind of think about what
life would look like when I didhave more time at home and all that
(25:47):
good stuff. So that part Ihaven't really struggled with, but it definitely
has been a transition of like,all right, I don't have to carve
out two hours of my day togo train and do speedwork and condition and
all that stuff. I don't haveto do that anymore. So but like
my restaurant mentality and my athlete mentality, like I struggle with that a lot.
Like if I don't get a workoutin whatever however it shakes out thirty
(26:11):
minutes, forty five minutes an houror whatever, I get some severe anxiety
like, oh god, I skip, I missed a workout. I can't,
can't be But it's been fun.I mean, you know, right
now, we took a year tojust kind of you know, be us
and shall yeah, regain some timeas a family and travel and do some
(26:32):
other things and just be around forthe kids too, and Kylie and let
her kind of do her thing.If you know, I really tried hard
to if something comes up for her, to allow her never to have to
say no to any kind of socialevent or travel or anything like that,
because she gave up a lot oftime for me to do my thing.
And you know, it's just it'sbeen a lot of fun transitioning into this
(26:56):
phase. And you know, movingforward, we have that we have the
Hunt Club and Parnell the Lakesy AcresPheasant Club, and so kind of transition
into that role a little bit morekind of doing the front office day to
day stuff and and you know,developing relationships with the people there, which
is you know, part of thereason why I decided to buy it with
with Kurt, my father in law. So looking forward to this fall.
(27:19):
So how's that going. It's good, it's good. We uh, you
know, just do you feel likeI'm more? Do you feel it?
So, so explain it. Explainit a little bit for the people,
like what's that? What's the product? If you want to if someone was
going to come to you, guys, it's it's it's like, yeah,
there's some job for a hunting weekend, right, yeah. Yeah. If
somebody calls us up and says,hey, I want to come out,
(27:41):
and you know, I want toget a hunt, and so we set
you up with a guide or youknow, if you have your own bird
dogs that you want to come outand use the field. We we put
out some birds. Typically it's abouta handful of four or five birds a
person, and you come out,you get a hunt for three hours.
And the nice thing about us,we're a license preserve, so we can
hunt from September first March thirty first, and there's a it's a no limit
(28:04):
bird hunt where typically if you're goingto hunt during you know, designated hunting
seasons in the winter, you're onlylimited to three birds. So with us,
you can come out and shoot asmany birds as you can see and
you can hit you know, sometimespeople hit less than less than others,
which is okay, just keeps peoplecoming back. So but we have a
(28:26):
beautiful sixteen bedroom lodge that we canhost people in. And like I said,
getting to meet people from Ohio,from Atlanta, from Michigan, from
They'll come in from all over huhoh yeah, from South Dakota, from
you know, Missouri, Indiana,like everywhere people come and it's fun getting
to build those relationships and you know, see what, see what they're about.
(28:48):
So how many how many places likeLegacy Acres are there in Iowa,
there's actually quite a few. Iwouldn't have guessed as many when we first
started, but kind of doing recenton, you know, when we first
started setting our prices and in packagesand stuff like that, there's probably you
know, ten to fifteen that youknow you've searched pheasant preserves in Iowa and
(29:11):
you know, get a list ofall those places. So not all of
them do it quite like we do. You know, I think we're kind
of unique because of our accommodations weput it. Yeah, that sounds that
sounds insane, Like is the goalto be like the premiere one? Yeah,
for sure. And I think youknow, for me and Kurt especially,
like I don't know why you'd doanything if you didn't want to be,
(29:33):
you know, the top dogs.So really striving to be kind of
an all around place. Like wejust hosted a fundraising event a couple of
weekends ago, went really well.We've done several graduation parties, a ton
of family unions in the summer,and it's just a great place. Like
good, good scenery, you know, the rolling hills, good sunsets,
good sunrises, all that good stuff. So it's just a good place and
(29:57):
you're gonna take a you're going totake a or hands on roll with that
as you get further into retired lifehere, Yes, do you feel like
that's holding that operation back a littlebit? Without you? It fully hands
on every day, not necessarily me, but with another set of hands,
it's definitely going to help kind ofexpand our capacity and our capabilities for hosting
(30:22):
more people and just you know,figuring out different ways to bring people to
the property and marketing it. Youknow, because when we first started,
we were really like a six monthbusiness, you know, like I said,
September to March is really when weoperated, and then we would have
to figure out, you know,how to stretch the dollar and make it
work for the six months that wedidn't host hunters. But now with the
(30:42):
lodge, like I said, we'vegot graduation parties, we've done a few
winter receptions, we've got book thelodge out as like a as a building
basically. Yep, yep, Imean, it's it's ridiculous. I mean,
we've got tons of pictures on ourwebsite and some people are you know,
there's at this point there's a waitlist and people are booking. Hell
(31:03):
yeah, especially in the summer.It's dude, that's sick. Yeah,
it's good. It's you know,people are calling now for later on in
the summer. It's like, sorry, the weekends are filled. So that's
also a good problem to have.And you know, I'm excited to see
where we can take it. Didyou plan on? I feel like it's
the the way of the the professionalathlete is sort of something in the entrepreneurial
(31:30):
space like that probably probably less ofa common occurrence to get a professional athlete,
especially someone who had a what I'llcall a long career, a longer
than average career for sure, andhas you know, done well, collected
some resources and and you know,set themselves up a little bit for I
(31:52):
was going to say the afterlife,but that's not dead. The after professional
life. It's it's hard to imagineand you hear it sometimes, but like
people going into like a normal deskjob after that, like there's just not
a lot of reason and so mostguys like open a business or start a
company or do something. You know, was that something that was always did
(32:14):
you ever think about that when youwere playing? Yeah, for sure,
before you ever bought this place,Yeah, you know, you kind of
think about your plan for what yourlife will look like afterwards. And I
think initially I thought I'd go backto the university and do something in alumni
relations or what's your care communication styles. So I mean I internshipped, you
(32:40):
know, at the Universe of Foundation, where you developed those relationships with alumni
and ultimately asked them for cash,so more money. Yeah, I don't
know if that's really where I wouldhave went, but somewhere, you know,
helping with the football program, eitherwith kind of what Ben has done
(33:01):
now with like the Legacy Hawk stufflike I think I would have enjoyed that,
because I've always enjoyed the relationship partof anything that I've done. But
no, I didn't really this didn'treally come about, or you know,
thinking about doing my own thing orbeing an entrepreneur didn't come about until this
opportunity to present itself in twenty eighteen. And I think the reason people,
(33:23):
especially NFL guys or just athletes ingeneral, kind of move towards that space,
the entrepreneurship space, is because atleast for me, you know,
my schedule and my day to dayfor eight months out of the year for
the last seven years has been dictatedfor me, like to the minute.
Yeah, you know, you wakeup, you go to meetings or lyft
at seven, you go to meetingsat seven fifty, you eat lunch between
(33:45):
this and this time, and thenafter five forty five six o'clock at night,
you're free to do whatever you want. But you go home and you
have all you want to do issleep, right, Yeah, I mean
you go home, if you havekids, you take care, you help
your wife to take care of yourkids, and go to bed, and
you do it all over again.So I think that's probably why people kind
of gravitate towards that space. Andfor me, yeah, it's two.
(34:09):
With the career that I did have, I've been able to kind of or
I was able to choose kind ofa passion projects. Well, that's the
other benefit of being a professional athlete. You're smart with your money. I
mean, athletes all over the placeare making insane money. You now have
resources to kind of get into whateveryou want, which helps a lot,
(34:30):
right, Like a lot of thelarge barrier entry for a lot of people
in starting a business is like,yeah, I'd like to do this,
but I need two hundred grand tokind of get it off the ground and
I don't really have the ability totake a loan out for that. Yeah,
definitely. So, I mean it'sbeen it's been a lot of fun,
and it does give us some timeto kind of build legacy into what
(34:52):
we really truly envision it being.Yeah, making your own schedule is sick.
It's oh yeah, like the workon stuff when you want to work
on something is the best part aboutwhat I do now, And yeah,
it's it's it's nice to not havesomeone telling you where you need to be
(35:13):
as Yeah, you mentioned, uh, well, is there anything else that
you see yourself getting into? That'swhere I was going to go with that.
Next is it does has this sparked? Like you know, Josie obviously
is our buddy from our our class, and he's got the uh we're talking
about business ideas with him all thetime. We just had Ward's bachelor party
(35:34):
in Vegas this two weekends ago,and I think we spent like an hour
talking about how we're going to openOutlaws Steakhouse in Iowa City. There you
go, We've been talking about OutlawsSteakhouse for like seven years now, and
the like the six of us aregoing to go in on it. And
that's what we said, We're goingto talk to Nate because he's already in
the restaurant business in the area.It is not a joke. It is
(35:58):
like a legitimate possibility that we eventuallylook into this. Did you pitch to
him buying a lacrosse him? Idid not pitch to him buying the Denver
Outlaws next cross team. But well, Black, I have a idea for
you now, then for your nextbusiness adventure. Buying a lacrosse team you've
picked, You've piqued my interest.Are they profitable? Is that a good
(36:21):
investment? Grant? I don't thinkit's a bad one. I don't know.
I don't think. I've always lovethe idea. Obviously, the super
hip hypothetically, I don't think itwould ever become a reality. But someone
bringing a sports team to Des Moines, Yeah, you know it's a smaller
market, but it can't be thatmuch smaller than an Indianapolis, you know,
(36:44):
or a Minneapolis you know. Iknow there's cities around those and stuff
like that. But man, Imean, if you bring a pro team
to Iowa, how hard these fansride for like their universities, especially if
you can give them one singular proteam. I mean, well, what
league do you want? Like,what kind of what team do you want
(37:05):
there? If I don't know fora long while here, while Caitlin was
still at Iowa, they're like,hey, here's an idea. Give the
w NBA two or four expansion teamsthis upcoming season. Give des Moines one
of them, because not only doesIowa support women's basketball, but Drake does
(37:25):
a great job. Des Moines supportsDreda and Iowa State. They're a top
ten women's basketball team going in thenext year, and they've always supported their
women's basketball team like you have thefans. Give des Moines the first pick,
let them draft Kaitlin, bring herback home. She could live literally
live in her childhood bedroom, playfor the des Moines whatever and uh and
(37:49):
have a team in the dub Butbut yeah, it would be sick.
I mean it is small. DMoinn is small. I get it.
I just think the fandom, theIowa fandom in general, just for the
Drake fans, the Iowa State fans, you and i and Iowa fans like
you get all those, like allthose groups of people rooting for one team
(38:10):
together. Yeah, I mean youhave I know plenty of people that buy
season tickets for the Vikings, theBears, the Chiefs, you know,
like that would be that would bethe dream. The ultimate dream is they
put an NFL team in Des Moines. It would be so sick. Yeah,
(38:30):
but we do have the Barnstormers.Yeah, there you go, get
the Barnstormers. We have the IowaWolves their G league team. What Wolves
for a second? Okay, Wolves, Wolves, the Wolves? What Cubs?
The Cubs? You know the Cubs, all those are sustainable, So
(38:50):
I mean you give them a proteam? Come on, now, feels
like it could work. You mentionedbefore, you know, you don't have
to train now two hours a day. But you and I were going back
and forth a little bit earlier thisyear, and I, by the looks
of it in your face, Ithink we might have made some progress on
(39:12):
you losing a little weight. What'sthe what's the body athlete journey been like
post career? Now? What whatdoes like a day of nutrition and workouts
look like for you? Yeah?So, I mean I was always a
guy in the league. I've alwaysbeen a generally bigger guy, like always
been the bigger, the biggest sonin the family, big boned, yeah,
(39:37):
right, And you know, Imy biggest fear after I was done
playing is how I would go skyrocketin the opposite direction, right, so
right, and uh, you know, the wrestler and me probably would never
let that happen. But we're justthe discipline, you know, the will
power to you know, stay relativelyfit. But anyway, you know,
(40:00):
after I was done, I Ijust I stopped lifting heavy lifting heavy.
I started trying to maintain the musclemass and just kind of lean out.
But now, for the first sixmonths, I was a big peloton guy,
bite guy. So and then Istarted resistance training again, and oh
(40:21):
my gosh. When I started back, I think, I you know,
I started benching. I was likehitting like one eighty five like ten times,
and I was struggling on the tenthrep, you know, like it's
just funny how fast it goes.Oh yeah. But then now training again,
you know, I do kind ofI've sent you some of the workouts
that I've been sure now like across between cardio and CrossFit and some some
(40:45):
weightlifting thrown in there. What's thescale look like? And he says,
I'm about two seventy. I haven'tstepped on the scale in a long time.
You don't look too seventy in theface. Man, Yeah, well,
I mean I just want to feelgood really, like I really.
I mean the goal weight would beif I could, if I could ideally
(41:06):
get down like two fifty. Butyou know, I enjoy going out with
Kylie or friends and you know,socially being having fun doing all that stuff.
So I don't know if that goalweight is ever achievable without like six
months of consistent strict dieting and theworking out. You know, I kind
of work out to work out forpleasure, you know, so, but
(41:29):
we don't. I try to workout five times a week, and you
know, I think again, likelike I mentioned, it's some of that
anxiety. If I don't get likefive workouts in, you know, Kylie
gives me such a hard time,Like You're going to be fine, you
will live, Like you don't needfive workout if you don't want to work
out today. No, but it'sjust like it's hardwired and it's really hard
to reverse it. Well, Ithink it's something where you need to get
(41:52):
a workout. I think it's somethingtoo like it sort of does become I
mean, I'm a psycho, right, I'm on the far side of things.
I am absolutely someone who like,especially if I was just going easy,
like, there will come a timefor me where it's like, I
am just going to work out forforty five minutes to an hour a day,
and I will need that every singleday, even if it's like one
(42:15):
day an hour of walking or something. Right, Yeah, I don't like,
I think you should move your bodyat minimum thirty minutes of walking every
single day. There should never bea day where you just don't do anything,
including go for a walk. ButI think for a lot of people
it gets to the point where it's, like you said earlier, the sort
(42:35):
of the mental jitters and energy oflike you can physically start to feel it
in your demeanor, in your moodif you don't get a workout in and
so it's like at that point itstarts it does start to become unhealthy the
other way where it's like if youdon't have some outlet to get that out,
then you start to be less ofa of what you know, the
(42:59):
best version of Austin blythe could be. So it's like you got to go
in the if you got to goto the gym for forty five minutes and
do whatever you got to do toget it out, Like that's that's a
better spot to be than like,oh I can't make it into the gym
more than once a week, youknow. Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
I think it's funny how many guysyou know you said you probably wouldn't
(43:22):
let yourself get there, whether itbe the wrestler mentality that took takes over
just like the general like you know, desire to be fit and healthy.
I think it's amazing how many guysdon't have that that that play professional sports.
Like you are not the only orthe first, by a long shot
(43:44):
former teammate that I've had who hascome to me now six seven years after
playing and been like, hey,could I get some tips on this?
Could you write? Like like MarshallI think came to me before his wedding,
like sixty days before his wedding,is like, hey, I need
(44:05):
to look great on wedding day,Like give me some asshole Like he's an
he's an asshole, right, he'sbeen skinny his whole life, muscular toned,
but like he even came to meand was like, hey, can
you write me a program for thenext two months for my wedding, and
I was like, yeah, sure, And I like I've had plenty of
other guys be like, hey,like what are you doing, And like
(44:29):
I tell him, well, youdon't want to do what I'm doing,
but like we could definitely get youin the right spot. And like some
guys just like they do it asa necessity as part of the job,
and then afterwards they don't want totouch another weight. Ever. Yeah,
it's like, oh, I don'tknow if you want to swing that far,
Like you're going to figure out thatyou need to do something. Yeah,
Like I'm somewhere in the middle,like I don't think I'll ever put
(44:51):
you know, five point fifty onmy back again or no reason to right,
Yeah, but two twenty five topush the you know, to push
the state a little bit and keepyour legs strong, that is importantly.
Yeah. Absolutely, It's funny yousay that, You're like, you don't
want to do what I do.I I've seen I've talked to James Farans
a little bit and he's he's kindof he's went way down, like he's
(45:13):
I think he's down to like undertwo fifty maybe really and uh, you
know, I'm like, dude,you look great, Like what are you
doing. He's like, you don'twant to you don't want to do this.
He's like he's fasting. He's onlyeating for like six hours a day
and he's cramming everything into the sixhours and he's eating. He's at like
eighteen hundred calories. And I'm like, dude, oh no, thanks,
(45:37):
nope. Well, I'm gonna look, I'm gonna look just like this.
I'm gonna eat what I you know, we went Yeah, we went over
your die a little bit too.It you weren't eating a whole lot either.
Yeah, to be honest, likea lot more than James though.
Yeah, oh my gosh, thatis unbelievable that Britt looks great. Though
he looks great, it's paying off. Yeah, I know that. That's
(46:00):
the thing is is as a coachnow, Yeah, especially as the season
gets gone, there's a lot ofthings that work. But there's no reason
to do anything if you're not ifyou don't plan on making it lifelong,
Like, if it's not sustainable,you shouldn't be doing it. So you
should always we should always be strivingto like find our what works best forever.
(46:22):
And that six hours of eating windowand only being at eighteen hundred calories
as a dude, as a guywho is two hundred and fifty plus pounds
and an athlete, like he waseighteen hundred calories man, that's yeah.
I mean there's one hundred and twentypound women who run races and don't even
(46:43):
lift weights who eat eighteen hundred caloriestoday. Yeah. Yeah, So it'll
be interesting to see where he settlesbecause I can't imagine him. I'd love
to talk to him about it.Yeah. We Actually it's funny we've I
don't know if it's just because it'sKF suns or whatever, but we've never
had Steve or Brick on the podcast. Shouldn't get them together, and I
would love to just be oh god, that would Actually I'm not even sure.
(47:05):
I've only ever seen me. I'mnot I wasn't part of the line
room where the you know your guyslike friend group, but I've only ever
seen them together like once or twice. Yeah, and they're obviously both individually
create a player characters on their own. Ye. I can't imagine them.
I can't imagine. I can't imaginethrowing Brian into them. Those three yeah.
(47:30):
Oh man, I just remember Jamesand Brian were in the same room
as player coach for that first yearBrian was in Iowa City, and it
was I mean, it was afine dynamic. I think they both understood
James as professional as it gets.So yeah, it was it was fine.
But like you know, Brian wouldlet him have it just as you
(47:51):
know, just as bad as anybodyelse. And it was it was fun.
I mean it was fun. Ohyeah. Yeah. And then when
Steve got in there, it wasbecause the age gap between Brian and Steve.
Yeah, I don't know what itis officially, but it's a it's
a pretty wide wide gap. Iwould guess it's got to be I would
guess fifteen years or so over fifteenyears. Yeah, So it was an
(48:15):
interesting dynamic dynamic with both of those. But having Steve and James on the
same podcast, that would be fun. You should try and make that work.
God, we got to. We'dget a lot of listeners. Would
it's eleven years by the way,because you're curious. Nice eleven Okay,
Bronco legend though, James Farence WorldChampion, Yeah, Bronco and Patriot legend.
(48:37):
Yeah, you talk about mostly Broncolegend, but agerance that guy had
in his career. I mean hisI remember his first year out he was
working part time at Randy's carpets andlifting and staying with it. I mean
it's crazy and he had. Yeah, I mean, got to get him
on here to tell that he wouldbe a very good, very good podcast.
(49:00):
Yeah, we gotta. I gottareach out to him. Our goal
for the summer now is is LisaBluter now that she just retired. Dude
blown away by that? I itwas on anybody's radar, right, I
was. I immediately saw it andlike I was like, no, no,
no, And Jan Jensen is likeit almost feels like a copy and
(49:22):
paste sort of deal. But it'sjust like but then you think about it,
right, and it's like, asa coach, you probably want to
try and go out on top asmuch as you can. As a player
in anything, it doesn't even matter. Forget sports, if you're a CEO,
if you're a like it would beit would be nice to go out
when you're winning. Yeah, butit's hard because if you're winning, why
(49:45):
would you stop winning? Right?And Bluter just coached the greatest scorer in
all of the sports history went toback to back Natties. It's not going
to get better. Yeah, it'ssimply not going to get better. The
odds. I mean, it could, I guess, but the odds say
(50:07):
it's not. And she's she's retirementage. I think she's in her low
sixties. Yeah, it is kindof crazy, like the I feel like
the pillars of the coaching tree orstaff at Iowa are in my mind her
and fran Is getting up there asfar as ten goes, Blueed, Lisa
Blueter, the Brands, and thenkf like most three like and now one
(50:30):
of them is gone, Like whatkind of dominoes are we going to see
over the next Well, I'm surethe Brands probably have quite a few years
left in them. It feels likethey could coach till they're one hundred and
forty years. Yeah, no doubt. And I don't think they'll ever die.
You're probably right. I don't.If there's people on that are going
to live forever, it's the Brandsbrothers. Yeah, you're probably right.
Death fears that I mean after he'sgetting up there like he was sixty when
(50:53):
when we were in yeah, andbeen on a college a fair fair amount
of time, now, sure havethey? They talk about it every year
now, I mean, especially withall the stuff that's happened the last few
years, not to mention the niL stuff, the entire changing the landscape.
But like every year now is kindof like a is this I can't.
(51:14):
I can only imagine what it's gonnafeel like for like you and I
when KF when that when that postgoes out about KF that he's done,
because oh yeah, I absolutely willwhen he gives his last press conference,
right and you know email, Ohyeah, I I would I'll have to
(51:35):
go. Yeah, as a memberof the walk on media. Yeah,
absolutely not as a former player,but as a walk on media. No,
he wouldn't let me. I'm worthlessas a former player. I'll never
be. There's no way, I'mnot. I'm I'm not on the list
of being brought back as like aformer former captain or honorary captain. No,
(51:58):
it absolutely is true. There's there'sguys who are there, guys aren't,
and there's a year a half andI'm a have not And that's okay.
I'm just a podcaster. Now,it's okay. I'm just I'm just
a full time stay at home dad. Now pretty much. Well, you're
wearing the Williamsburg jacket. And Ithink I saw something I was going to
do research on this podcast, likewhat new topics should we talk about with
(52:19):
Austin. I think I saw somethingabout you joining the Williamsburg staff last fall
for the football team. Yeah,tell me about that. It was a
lot of fun. You know.I always knew that I wanted to get
back into coaching, and I wasn'tgoing to that first year just to kind
of fully take every thing off myplate, no commitments whatsoever. But you
(52:39):
know, my father in law,Kurt being the head coach, I was
quite sure how to say no tohim or just tell him he never really
asked, but or just tell himlike, you know, I don't think
I'm going to be a part ofit this year. And you know,
luckily I decided to be a partof it because we were able to help
Kurt win his first state title.Did they win the title? They did?
(53:02):
Oh my god? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We have to extremely
talented football players this year, oneof them being Derek Wise. Coffee is
going to be a hawky next year. Is he insane? He's an incredible
athlete. He's like one of thosedudes. He's not like gonna fly,
He's not gonna wow you with likesuper speed or agility or anything like that.
(53:23):
But like, the thing that reallyimpressed me with Derek was just him,
like his intangibles. Like he's likehe's like Josie just being a gamer
or CJ. Like he really remindsme of figuring out a way to get
the job done. Like on threeis going to write an article about how
he's sneaky athletic here in like threemonths. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(53:44):
I mean like so for instance,I mean, we he was playing wide
receiver, tight end tight for usas the season started and our quarterback ended
up twisting his ankle getting hurt andhad to sit a few games, and
Derek moved to quarterback because he hadplayed that early in Jesus, early in
his high school career. And theI mean by the end of the year,
he's just slinging and he's running in, he's he's you know, handing
(54:07):
it off like he's doing and youknow we're probably you know, i mean
without him, and then some ofthe other guys, uh that we had
a receiver or some speed speed guys, you know, and I'm not sure
would have gotten this first one,but he'd been really close. He got
second I think three times, andthis is a four state championship game.
Man. They finally got it donefor him. So the uh, you
(54:30):
know, we had the we hadthe Pulson's on last year at some point
and they obviously live in Colowna nowand they were trying to recruit it.
They were trying to recruit us overto the area. Uh huh. They're
like, hey, we can ourgoal and they were totally serious about it.
They're like, we're gonna try andget all the guys who still live
in Iowa or anybody who will comeback to just come and populate the Colowna
(54:50):
Williamsburg like this eastern Iowa that spotis, you know, part of the
state, and just build like statechampion ship football teams and in all sports
teams with all of our kids.And I was like, you know,
it doesn't sound like a bad idea. Oh yeah, I'm all in.
You know, that's a great idea. I love it. And he mentioned
you when he's when he's he's like, yeah, they got blythe right there.
(55:14):
Yeah. I was like, Idon't know Man was a great place
to raise a family. It islike no, but you're seriously, you're
right, like there, I can'tthink Williamsburg if you're thinking small town like
and there's a lot of great smalltowns in Iowa, but Williamsburg or something
like Colowna, like that's up thereon the list. There's not a lot
of bad things going on in thoseplaces. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean
(55:36):
Walkee's all right too, but it'sit's bigger. I mean yeah, uh,
Walkee's like a big Williamsburg. Ithink, yeah, I like it.
Like you were you like O linecoach? How like how did that
go? How did you feel youfeel comfortable in the coaching role? Yeah?
I did? You know, Ithink for me, I had a
lot of good experiences with great coachesover my career, so yeah, you
(55:58):
know, I had a lot ofgood examples to try and learn from.
And being a part of a good, solid group on the old line,
great kids, good group of seniors, and then a good group of young
guys that just came to work everyday and you know, didn't say boo
about it. So it was fun, a lot of fun. I'm looking
forward the next fall. It makesit easy absolutely, well, we well,
(56:20):
grant, I guess you got anyother questions. I don't, Yeah,
no, I can rip some.I'm curious, So you played in
the greatest regular season game of alltime back in twenty eighteen with Rams Chiefs,
like fifty four to fifty one.I'm curious what that's like, is
an offensive line or an offensive linementof playing it, because in my stupid
brain, I'd be like, oh, you guys are scoring it. Will
you must be like like you're onthe sidelines, like, oh, this
(56:43):
isn't that hard at all. Butthen also on the other side, defense
is getting scored on a lot,so it's like, oh, shoot,
we got to get back out there. I'm just curious, like what's that
like? In the game? Islike, are we extra tired all the
time? Like what's happened? Yeah? I think coaches do a great job
of getting guys ready week to weekand even before that, getting in shape
for those types of games, youknow, because everything at that level is
(57:07):
elite, the best of the bestat ever position, and those games.
That game especially was a lot offun because we were executing at such a
high level that year, especially offensively. We knew we could score points as
long as everybody kind of executed theirrole, and gosh, that game will
never forget. We were supposed toplay yeah, Mexico City and Lady Gaga
(57:31):
ran a concert like the week before. I just ruined the turf. So
luckily for us, that game gotmoved back to LA and the Coliseum and
it was just it was a tonof fun and something I'll never forget.
It's one of my favorite game balls. I love the I love the extra
component there that the reason you guysmoved it back was because Lady Gaga ruined
(57:52):
the field. Yep, that's incredible. Yeah, it was. It was
wild. How much faster do youfeel in the color restuerses, Like,
give me a forty right now?I'm four six immediately? Yeah, you
know, I think I was officiallyclocked at five three something. I'd probably
run on like five to two.Here we go, there we go.
So then I did I wanted toask you this last time. I didn't
(58:15):
get a chance to. Have youever asked Pete Carroll for a piece of
gum? I have not have youever seen someone do it like get it?
I don't even know where he getsit, doesn't It's not like you
can see like the you know,the block of gum or whatever in his
pocket. Like, who, he'sjust been chewing one piece of gum for
forty years now, might be.I think the best thing about KF is,
(58:36):
uh, like the three packs ofgum and his locker when we would
roll in on game day. Yeah, it's like, Grant, do you
remember anything? It was like hubabove or whatever it was right, yeah,
yeah, and it was a lot. I don't remember if they I
think they put whole packs in there. Yeah. Handedly stay in business because
of them, and like so soGrant. The uh, the managers would
(59:01):
set up the game day locker roomfor us, so you know, your
helmet and everything's hung in the rightspot and mouth guards put. I mean
it's it's pretty meticulous. The managersare insane. Uh, they do unbelievable
work. But then they would alsolike set up the coaches lockers and like,
if you're the headman, you getwhat you want. So KF right
(59:23):
there in his locker on the topshelf, his gum was ready for game
day and uh man, he Imean KF goes after a gum hard as
fuck, I mean flavor in thefirst place, and he probably runs it
out of flavor in about two anda half minutes. He's just on the
(59:44):
sideline. It's the way he getshis energy out. How he stays so
thin at a you know, atan elderly or elderly age. That and
the fact that he worked out withcoach Doyle every day in the weight room.
It's probably probably a combination caff workout in the ca keis No,
No, I don't think. Ithink he puts gym clothes on. He's
(01:00:06):
got a shower in his office.That that can't be true. Oh,
it absolutely is true. Are youserious? Yeah? I only went in
there one time. I sat thereone time. Shower No, no,
in his office one time, justrunning there with a towel. He's trying
to break down film coach. Theshowers are full downstairs. I'm like,
(01:00:30):
I'm gonna get a quick one here, all right, clue. I it
was. I went in there toget told that I was not being put
on scholarship. So that was andhe said, hit the showers. Yeah,
it was, Uh, it waslike it was it was like the
compliment sandwich. You know, hey, we we love what you're doing for
(01:00:53):
us. You played great last year. It was after my first year of
starting. So they he's like,she's not gonna be out. There's the
numbers. It's the numbers. Theshit clue, you know, mcaren Crosston.
They've been great for us a yearolder. We wish you could give
you a scholarship, but just justjust not the numbers. This here,
(01:01:14):
okaick. We love what you're doing. Keep working hard, put you on.
Eventually, I'm just sitting there like, fuck man, we're in the
middle of camp at this point.No, but uh, we appreciate you
coming back on. We'll uh you'ruh your your guest. That consistently we
have a couple guests who are justlike, yeah, come on, We'll
(01:01:35):
just keep bothering you until you youdon't. I'm always down. Well,
keep it joined being dad and allthat. Uh, all that free time,
I know, it's that time isthe best in the world. It's
awesome. I stood out in thedriveway today for forty five minutes and uh
we just got like a little tykest ball thing trying to get my daughter
(01:01:57):
to swing the bat and she justshe thinks it's hilarious just to knock the
ball off the tea with her hand. Thank you. Because why not.
Yeah, it's and it's a greattime. So hopefully, hopefully the fans
enjoyed the awesome blythe episode, thirdedition of austome blythe on our show,
and we'll be back again next weekwith another episode, hopefully another cool guest.
I'm gona try and get Mitch King. I think, for uh you
(01:02:20):
would be a great guest. He'sbeen on the he's been on the list
for a while. He does advertisementswith us now for his insurance, so
we need to have him on ouractual guest. But we'll be back then.
Hey, thanks for listening to theshow. If you want more,
you can check us out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube by
searching washed Up walk Ons. Andif you're interested in supporting the show,
head over to patreon dot com slashwashed Up walk Ons, where you can
(01:02:42):
find bonus podcasts, merchandise, andother cool perks. Best part, half
of your subscription benefits the kids atUI Children's Hospital. We'll see you next
time. Hawks by a million.Poun pun pun pun pun pun pun pu
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