Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
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Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Uras “LT” Agee IV: Football, Faith & Fighting Back Against Brain Trauma
In this powerful episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, former Green Beret and host Bruce Parkman sits down with professional football player Uras “LT” Agee IV to tackle one of the most pressing issues in athletics today—repetitive brain trauma.
LT opens up about his journey through football, the mental and physical toll of concussions, and the importance of faith, perseverance, and resilience on and off the field. From youth sports safety and proper tackling techniques to life lessons learned alongside NFL legend Tom Brady, LT shares hard-hitting insights every parent, athlete, and coach needs to hear.
This conversation goes beyond the game—it’s about protecting the next generation, building mental toughness, and finding strength in community mentorship.
👉 If you care about brain health, mental resilience, and the future of sports, this episode is for you.
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Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
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Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken Brains with your host, bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we look at the issue of repetitive brain trauma and the form of repetitive head impacts from contact sports and repetitive blast exposure from military veterans, and how these two conditions are impacting the brains of athletes and kids and veterans and contributing to one of the largest preventable causes of mental illness that we have. Because the impact of these sports and military service is not trained to our doctors and nurses, service is not trained to our doctors and nurses, and so we reach out to athletes and researchers and scientists and advocates and parents and all kinds of people to give you that 360 degree perspective so that you can make informed decisions Because, as I said, you are the frontline, this is not trained, this is not talked about, and you need to protect those that you love as we make sports safer, as we make military service safer as well. Today on our show we have LT. He is a professional football player known for his perseverance, leadership and tenacity as a safety, which is, I would say, the toughest position on a team that you're always hitting. Hailing from Chattanooga, tennessee wonderful town there Despite facing injuries and a limited platform in college, he remained committed to his goal of playing professionally.
Speaker 1:His resilience and determination during the 2020 NFL-CFL draft process drew attention, ultimately leading to an opportunity with the Dallas Cowboys. Beyond his on-field event, he frequently returns to Chattanooga to speak at local sports and youth camps to include QB County and his former high school. His efforts to inspire and uplift the next generation reflect the values and we need this so bad with our youth that have guided his journey Faith, discipline and a refusal to give up With his strong spiritual foundation, often quoting Psalms 23, he leads with humility and purpose as he continues to make his mark in the NFL. He remains grounded to his mission to be a positive influence both on and off the field. His path from small school underdog to professional athlete serves as a powerful example for aspiring players and fans alike, and I absolutely 100% agree, because without tenacity, perseverance and a whole bunch of attitude, you're not going to get to play in the NFL.
Speaker 1:Lt. Welcome to the show, sir. I appreciate you. Thank you, hey. No problem, man. So let's talk about ball dude. I mean, we haven't had too many ballplayers come on yet. I don't know all my ballplayers. You know, they're good friends of mine. So how long you been playing, man? Where'd you start out?
Speaker 2:So started off, man, you want the childhood numbers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, dude, that's what we're talking about, yeah, all the way.
Speaker 2:I started at five years old in Chattanooga, tennessee. I played on a six-year-old team for two years in a row, so my dad snuck me out there at five man. My first touchdown was scored backwards. I took the ball and ran the opposite direction. You know that just kicks off you knowity for like having the ball and uh, from then on, man it was, it was all a green light for me. Then transitioned uh to. We moved to atlanta, georgia, for a while and I was uh planning out in gwinnett county. So 7a football, big time football, uh at mountain view high school so I've heard of 5a.
Speaker 2:That's like no kid, the high schools out there look like uh, juco's or fcs schools. It's insane, no kid. Yeah, a lot, a lot of big time athletes come out of gwinnett county. So I started there, uh, and we ended up moving back to tennessee. So my dad was a principal so different schools had him come in for like three years at a time to kind of alter and change the direction of their programs. Inner city schools got the call to come back to Tennessee. He wanted to do something for the town that he went to college at. So I went with him, transferred high schools and went to Ridgeland High School up in North Georgia. We went to two or one state championship against Sandy Creek as a runner-up. And then after that I had a few offers like Tennessee, coastal Carolina, small schools like that Decided to go to Coastal Carolina for marine science, play football, got hurt, had some major knee problems, been through three knee surgeries in my lifetime.
Speaker 2:So we took a step back, went to Shorter and ended up trying to— I did their sports management program, switched my major for marine science and just tried to get myself back to that playing mode while also trying to get a degree. And then I got the opportunity to finish off at the University of Georgia with Coach Mel Tucker, so that was a good did a walk-on opportunity there, so that's where I finished at and, man, it was a long road for me to get to where I'm at now. 2020, as you know, got the opportunity to be with Tampa and then now finishing off with Dallas. For me, it's just been a story of, honestly, injury, perseverance and opportunity every step of the way. Haven't always been on the roster as a 53-man guy, so any opportunity I get whether it's practice, training camp, training camp, mini camp I'm just trying to make the team every year. So you know, I'm just just kind of like that guy from invincible, from uh you know.
Speaker 1:So I'm just, I'm just grinding to have that opportunity, you know that's man that's just what it is and you know. So, you know I, you know, we talked a little bit earlier. Man, I'm a rugby player, you're a football player, we're ball players, right, man, right, what do you love most about the sport, man? I mean, come on. I mean, you've been injured, you know. You've been pushed down. You've come back up. You've played in multiple schools. Your dad traveled, man.
Speaker 2:What kept you in the game and what I like the most about the game is the ability to have, like the perseverance, the, the ability to be able to do what we do. It takes a different mindset right, it takes discipline, and I think what I love the most about this game, and what's so much to give back to it, is the idea that only 2% of people can do it right. 1.7 to 2% to 1.7 can do it. I use the I don't want to get off track here, but I use the analogy that everyone in this world can buy a foreign car. We can all buy a foreign car. You know, even with the worst credit, you can buy a foreign car, but not everybody can maintain a foreign car. So and there's a difference A lot of us are athletic, a lot of us play ball, but not everybody has the discipline to continue to thrive and carry a career on, and that's what separates the good, the average and the great.
Speaker 2:You know, and I think that is the that for me, that's the best thing about football is you're able to to create discipline and a routine for yourself that carries on through life lessons with having kids, a family, a wife, it, it teaches you how to. I don't care if you have just a regular nine-to-five, I'm care of the trash man. Football teaches you that no matter what you do in life, you have to have discipline and you have to fight through adversity and some things you just can't teach. You have to be able to go through it, and that's what football. It hits you in the mouth and you got to respond. All right, man, and that's what life is.
Speaker 1:And that's what life is because I mean, from what I hear, you know, I've never been an nfl ball player, but I mean literally you're fighting for your job. Every day you're on that field, there's somebody else that wants that job, or you want somebody's job, and now how does that translate in the you know locker room or afterwards? Man, I mean, you know, at rugby and I played some b sides and I made it to the a side, whatever, and afterwards, man, we were, you know, we were kind of chill, you know we'd have some you know beers and stuff, but the, the camaraderie, I mean it's the, you know the, I mean you guys, I, you mean the tightness that you must have on the team must be another big draw.
Speaker 2:It has to be. I think that of course, with everything in life, there's politics. You got guys that you have franchise players that just kind of do their own thing. But when you talk about bringing whether you're an IR, practice squad player, franchise player when you're in that locker room and you're competing on Sundays, you're one person, right, you're one team, you're one identity and it just. You have to have a strong foundation and that starts in the locker room, like you said, from weekly dinners, position group dinners, to going, going to each other's weddings and birthday parties and getting to know each one another's families and things of that nature.
Speaker 2:And it also can be tricky and hard too. When you're, you know you're you're being traded or cut or released and shipped off to different programs or different organizations so as as built, as much as you can build it, it um, as fast as it goes as well. You know so. But it is definitely, as you can see. We talked about tom earlier and every team that Tom has been on, you see that, like the team itself seems so well put together locker room wise. You know you don't have the fastest, most agile and biggest guys around him, but the one thing you look at when you talk about rosters under Tom Brady is the team itself he makes everybody better.
Speaker 1:It makes everyone better. So what was it like being with the man in the locker room, dude? I mean I'm a huge Patriots fan. I've been, like, you know, a lot of games with my son. I could tell stories all day long about just being a fool. You know, obviously never met him, never worked with him.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know what was it like just being with you know what people would say the goat, you know, and working with them on the field. Yeah, tom man is a perfectionist, right? So I always make people laugh with this story. So five yards to tom is five yards right, and five yards to the average person is like, okay, I can do like four, I can do six. You know I can do. I can do five in an inch. So I tell people, if you ever see a bad throw or a bad play from tom and the receiver doesn't get the ball, it wasn't tom, it's because the receiver ran six yards and he doesn't run five yards you know what I'm saying, so like when he.
Speaker 2:When he means the number, he means it because he's going to get it to you. And that just I mean for a guy to win seven Super Bowls and get to the facilities at 4 am after a Sunday night game, and you guys just watch him come back within two minutes the night before and he's at the facilities at 4 am, you know, before anybody else. So that speaks volumes and shows you that it's not easy. He treats every practice as if it's a game. That's why the games look like practices to him when you guys are watching, yeah, and the playoffs are games to him. And then you know. So where I say games are practices to him and the playoffs are actual games, and then the championship is probably a playoff to him. So it's like different tiers and uh, he just teaches hard work, teamwork and uh, just being accountable. You want to be better around him, you know yeah, I mean, yeah, it's like.
Speaker 1:It's like working for your dad or something. Man, you want that out of the head. I guess you know it's like please don't yell at me to each other in this world.
Speaker 2:And that's my dad and tom. Like I'm like. He literally like all the in the values I learned on the field and off the field from my dad. It's like you learn the same things from tom. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but that's just. That's just how he is man, he's you know. So he's like he's father tom when it comes to football.
Speaker 2:Did he ever yell at you when you're on the team? Oh, yeah, man, my, yeah, rookie year first, first, first time I was out there. Uh, messed up on a on a play on a scout team, like call me by my number, like who is that? Get him out? Oh, I was like, I was like I'm gonna make sure that, like he knows who I am, I never messed up again.
Speaker 2:I never beat him into the facilities ever. I tried. I tried I would have living out in Western Chapel. I would have had to wake up at like probably I would have woke up at four o'clock and he was getting there at 430. So, yeah, I never made it. I never made it. I was always right behind him but breaking down film a couple of times with him and Richard Sherman when he got through. So you know it's, it's you. I will say this as a defensive player playing with Tom makes you better, a lot better, and even just from a practice standpoint, because you're going against him a lot more than anyone else is. Oh my gosh, like the stuff that you can learn from him is insane.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I know the sport misses him for sure, and you know there'll be another guy someday. I know the sport misses him for sure, there'll be another guy someday. I've always admired him as a dude. He's a leader, he's meticulous, he's always prepared, he beats himself up when he makes a mistake, which, like you said, is not that often. But I just don't know people that know him, but nobody's ever played for him. So I've coached for him too. But good on you. One of the things just reading your background, LT, is that I noticed that faith is a very big part of your life. Yes, sir, and that just builds a really amazing foundation, not only to be a ballplayer. But you know, dad, husband, the whole nine yards. How has faith impacted your perseverance? Just keep on grinding through injuries, right through, you know, whatever challenges you've had on and off the field.
Speaker 2:Honestly, like you said, what drove that passion.
Speaker 1:No, I mean how has faith helped you or, you know, impacted your perseverance or, you know, helped you get through?
Speaker 2:I can tell you, I can tell you, and I love this, because this past year I'm glad that we're talking about this this past year I kind of had a reborn situation where I had lost my faith over the last year and a half and in January it, like I really told myself, like the things that are going on with you in life, that you're falling short on this past year was because God wasn't involved, he wasn't at the forefront and I think, as Christians, like we don't talk about enough. And this is what came up and what drove me back into it. So much is that I don't want to call the church out because it's not, you know, it's not a bad church at all. It just wasn't for me. And I was sitting down in Tampa at this particular church and I just I had questions about the word. I was questioning the service, the message, and it felt more like a motivational speak and not speech from the context and the actual Bible.
Speaker 2:And I went back and I asked another NFL friend who lives in Tampa, who's becoming a preacher actually, who played for the Bengals for a while, and he sat down and went through the entire Bible with me and was like I wanted to get baptized again and he said I said, well, this church told me I got to go through this three week course. And yada, yada, yada. He's like no, no, no, no, he said. He said go get your Bible right now. I was like, okay, so he goes to the Bible and he shows me and I'll speed it up a little bit.
Speaker 2:He goes to the Bible and shows me that God said we don't wait to get baptized, we can do it right now. Why are we waiting? Three to you know? Jesus said come as you are.
Speaker 2:And that leads me back to so many times I fell short in my journey of being a Christian where I thought I wasn't good enough or like I wasn't doing right by the Lord, by the mistakes I was making, and I thought like, okay, well, I can't go to church this weekend or I can't go through this baptism process because, like, I need to fix certain things in my life before I get on that journey. And I learned that, like no, god tells you to come, as is Like he understands you're going to mess up every day. This is why he did what he did for us. You're not going to be perfect. I set that as my goal this year to be the best version of myself as I can. And when I fall short, instead of running away from it and saying I don't need to, I need to fix this before. No, go straight to God.
Speaker 2:The tough weeks I have, I need to. That's the week that I need to be in church, all three services. If I have to be, I don't need to be running. I don't need to be running from. It is my point. So for me, when you talk about injuries and going through things off the field, I noticed that the most difficult times in my life were when I doubted faith and I didn't put him at the forefront and he quickly allowed me to know that like no, I'm very real. Like, let me put you through a storm to show you like I'm very real. You know, now I'm at that point where I'm getting older I'm 29 now, and I'm understanding that. Where I'm getting older I'm 29 now and I'm understanding that it's okay to mess up and it's okay to lean on God more and more and more and more when you do feel like you're not, you know, having the best week or living the right way, and yeah. So that's where I'm at with it.
Speaker 1:No, I think it's fantastic, man. I mean, god's got a plan for all of us. Yes, sir, and you're on your particular path, man, and we don't give ourselves enough grace. I mean, you're 29, right, and you know you've got a whole life ahead of you. And if you're learning to give yourself grace now and accept that you know you are who God made you, you're going to be fine man. So you know, stay on that path. And faith is important. And faith is hard to keep in the NFL, right, it's like I know. Christians in the army struggle all the time because, man, we drink, we like our girls we like to fight.
Speaker 2:Hey, listen, I can't. You can't even make it out of the house anymore. We got these. You know, we got these things called cell phones that it hits you. As soon as I wake up in the morning I'm like dang, temptation is right there. I haven't even left my home yet. Yep, we didn't even get in nice in the nice car. You know used to be like the the nice cars and things around you bring, attract the temptation. Now it's right here on this thing, right here, man 24 hours a day, dude man it's on that phone and dude, you're gonna stumble, we all stumble, and you're gonna learn.
Speaker 1:And I remember when I was a sergeant major in the army, man, I used to still punch kids in the head and I wouldn't give them paperwork and I said look, you can make a thousand mistakes, don't care, you make the same mistake twice, though I'm gonna smack to smack you because you can make that first mistake. That second one, you can't. I'm serious. Good on you, man. I appreciate you for your service too. That was before you were born, actually, it was way before you were born. I joined the Army in 1980, man, long time ago, long time ago, you talked about how you're giving back, man. It seems like you're doing a lot of work with kids, man, and they need role. They need some role models, man, some mentorships. Man, what you got going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know doing the youth camp, camp AG. You supported that last year as well in the cause and the cause.
Speaker 1:Dude, that's right, yeah, man. That was with Brandon and Jordan Reed bro, right Did Jordan. Reed come up, was that?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was in Tennessee, it was in Chattanooga. Okay, all right. Yeah, yeah, you were one of our sponsors.
Speaker 1:You were one of our sponsors yeah, the Mack Parkman Foundation.
Speaker 2:OK, so and so we got that going again next month, but before that is the last few years. I've just any time that I get I try to go back to Chattanooga and speak to a couple of high schools and organizations and just let them know Like my main thing with giving back to the youth is I was a kid that you know. I was blessed and was well off growing up. I didn't have to worry about anything. And we see so many times where we only hear struggle stories. We only hear about the guys who you know that quote got it out the mud or had to go through you know single parent household and things like that. We hear those stories but we don't hear about the kids that you know.
Speaker 2:I have both parents in my life. I did, I was raised very well and I still went through struggle and sometimes you have kids out there that that are well off, that need to hear that you can have everything set up in your life for you and life can still smack you in the face and you got to figure out how to get out of it. And for me it was like that, like I was very privileged growing up and I don't I'm blessed for it. At the same time, it stopped me from being able. It made me naive at times. I was at times unappreciative growing up. So when I got out of my parents' wing and got to college, that's when, like, things start happening to me. You know, off the field, different friend groups because I was kind of sheltered in and protected so much, and so when I go back, you know I'm talking to private schools and I like to. There's nothing wrong with me going and talking to schools that are in tougher neighborhoods, that need to hear that. But I also like to talk to the kids that feel like they're on top and let them know like don't don't, don't ride above the clouds too long, like you need to understand that you still got to work hard, you still got to be disciplined, you still need to listen to your parents, you still need to have some type of um, something around you that just kind of balances you, balances you out and brings you back down.
Speaker 2:Because that's what happened to me, man, and I wish there was somebody from my background that was able to tell me that, something like that, because I was hearing it from people that weren't that guys and kids that were coming back to talk to me. But I wouldn't. You know, I'm not from a certain environment or neighborhood, I'm not. I don't deal with those challenges that you dealt with. So it wasn't registering to me as a kid. And now we got NIL, so a lot of these high school kids are not struggling anymore. So they need to hear that like you can have this and things can still happen to you, man, so like this is how you navigate life with the NIL, with you know, all the attention and with the scrutiny sometimes Because the media you know you work in media the media will build you up to tear you down.
Speaker 1:Right? Yep, they don't care. They don't care, you know? Yeah. So I mean, you've been playing a ball a long time, you're 29. You started year six, right? That's 23 years of football, big man, yeah. So how many concussions have you had during that?
Speaker 2:I'll be honest with you, and it's so crazy because people tell me that they're like how do you? That's insane to say, but on record. I only have had two recorded on record in my entire lifetime, so unfortunately I cannot sit here and give you an accurate number. I can tell you how many I feel like I have, but on record I've only had two, which, which, which should speak volumes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I mean, I've had, I don't know, I've had probably five or six loss of consciousness, right, but yeah, and and but there's a lot of. You know, there's a lot of shaking that goes on around here. And you know, in this foundation, you know we're kind of focused on, you know, the impact of these contact sports. These kids, like they're so big now, like when I grew up, man, you know, your average high school guy was buck 50, you know, maybe a buck 80. We had nobody over 200 pounds in our high school. Man, now you're rucking in and these big boys are there and they're getting faster and going on like that.
Speaker 1:But you know, what's your opinion on? When should these kids be playing contact sports? You know, knowing what you know, now, 26 years later, uh, you know, should we be looking at, you know, maybe flag football for a while? Only because the kids brains we now know they're developing, it's impacting stuff like that and, um, you know, looking to make the place because the thing is we want the sports to be safer, so they keep going, right, you know nobody wants to. You know, you know harm any sport, right, well, you know, what do you? What do you think about kids playing man, you think they they should be, you know, you know playing, or you know, or should they be focused on.
Speaker 2:I think that I'll give you, like, my general opinion and then my personal. I'll start with personal. My kids will not play contact football until eighth grade, seventh or eighth grade, and even that's a stretch and the brain needs to be fully developed. I think that I started off, like I said, at five, six years old and clearly brain wasn't fully developed, body wasn't even fully developed and clearly brain wasn't fully developed, body wasn't even fully developed. A lot of my knee injuries had to do with me starting at such a young age that my joints weren't able to take a lot of that impact and it caught up to me later in life. So if our bones can't take it, what makes you think our brains can take it at that age? So I fully support no contact when it pertains to football until a certain age and I think that age in my opinion is, you know, seventh, eighth grade.
Speaker 2:I think if you have a kid that is extremely athletic and will not have a problem adjusting, he or she needs to start at ninth grade. And my general opinion of it is we are seeing a change where we're doing more of the seven on seven, spring, summer style football for these kids and in Florida, luckily, year around football where there's no contact, all the way from elementary through middle school, and I fully support that as well. I think that the guardian caps are, have been a huge thing and a solution, but also, at the same time, the guardian. Every school can afford the guardian cap. So it's like you want to, you want to create and engineer products for us to be safer, but you're not allowing it to be affordable for the kids and programs to use it. So it's like at what cost? So you're telling me that our generation and our brains, like our generation's brain, for sports is at a cost? Mm-hmm, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's by just even having the guardian cap. You're admitting that we got a problem with brains, that we have to protect them. If we're going to admit it, all right, let's admit it and then let's either figure out how to make it affordable or, to your point, the only reason for the guardian cap is to minimize the impact to the brain. So, by stopping contact and a couple of points, you know where? Know, our big point is ninth grade. You know, because you're not going to get football out of high school, right, and we don't want it. But you know, the thing is the brain, the prefrontal cortex, this right here, this is the CEO of the brain. This doesn't start developing until 14, ninth grade.
Speaker 1:And if we're hammering this puppy, you know, from very young, then we're going to have especially guys that like to tackle. With this, right, we end up with damaged adults because they have a damaged brain. So let me ask you a question on this, because this is where we're getting a lot of excitement, like flag to 14. We converted our first tackle league, a police activity league, from tackle to flag till 14 because of our son's story and the research going. Look, these are kids' brains, man, they don't need to be hitting right now. Let's hit later on. But in the NFL the understanding is that during the season there is hardly any contact in practice during the season. Is that a fact?
Speaker 2:Right. So, and that's what I want to, I do definitely want to separate the two, because the NFL has done a tremendous job, through NFLPA as well, of growing and understanding, through people like you, the importance on the lack of head trauma as you're getting older. So during practice, throughout the week, when the seasons start, after training camp, there's little to no contact. I don't even think there. I can't tell you the last time there was full contact actually during the season. So it's all skills, it just doesn't happen. Okay, there's no need for it.
Speaker 2:You know, you save it for game day, right, you save it for game day, right, you save it for game day. So Sunday, of course, but in practice it is strictly. You're a professional, it's hands off. Get to where, get to the points and the points that you need to get to the schemes, the right fits, and let's take it in and get on the board. So that has changed. I know college football, so that has changed. I know college football, from what I'm hearing, is usually one to two days a week where they're during the season and they're full contact. I know Georgia, we have Bloody Mondays, what's a Bloody Monday Game on yeah that's SEC football right there, man.
Speaker 1:Man, so just go ahead, go on to this last man standing kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Bloody Mondays is you are hitting all day long. It is a full practice of a full day of practice. We're getting after it, you know, which should be talked about too, because it shows when Georgia plays, georgia plays. Clearly they're a very aggressive team, but as it pertains to the nfl, when you get to the nfl after training camp, like they're, they cut down on that. There's no, and we're guarding the caps as well, so we have the option to wear them in games also well, I know and and.
Speaker 1:So here we have the NFL trying to set the example right. We've got colleges trying to learn from example and I would say probably close to 95% of our high schools have contact practice during the season. I know my son's school did. Every high school team I've ever seen they practice during the season. And what we're saying, lt, is that when we start talking about damage to brains right, and we're talking NFL players that have played for a long time, it's about all those hits they had. It's not just the one hit or the two concussions or three, it's all about all the hits. Well, if you're hitting in practice, that means that 80% to 90% of the trauma that you're hitting is taking place when you're not on the field to win right. So we're saying, look, if the NFL is not practicing during the season, there's probably a great scientific reason for it. So why are we doing this in high school and even earlier, when the brain is so vulnerable? What if we just limited contact and practice for these kids as well? Is that something that makes sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think like. So I know eventually, like you know, and it could even be this year after, after next year, after this year that I want to get into college coaching and I would say that if I were to have to go through a high school situation before that, my team would not have contact. There's no need for it During your ramp up period fall, camp, spring you want to have a little bit of it, but when you're talking about during the season, you don't need to be hitting during the week. It's just, it doesn't do it. There's nothing by then. Either you're prepared or you're not. You know, like you, you're hitting. You're hitting during the week. It's not gonna make you. You know, like the same, the same kid that wasn't tackling in spring is not gonna randomly wake up on a friday night in the middle of october and hit somebody. It just doesn't work like that.
Speaker 2:So it's if he wasn't in the spring now man, so that let's just you.
Speaker 2:You know, you know the guys that you have, you know the guys that are that are prepared for it, and that's kind of how you have to go through with it. And i'm'm not saying that when you're talking about coaching and there's a lot we can get into that later too, because it leads into the NIL is starting to lead to like a lot of lack of coaching. It's bad and what's happening is there are kids that are getting neglected, but tackling is not something, in my opinion, that I'm weird, I'm indifferent about. About it, I'm kind of like tackling is not one of those things that is, it's very fundamental to football, but it's one of those things where it is more of a do you have it inside you or do you don't?
Speaker 1:I? I actually agree with that. I do not know. You can teach tackling techniques all day long, but when you got that train coming at you, you gotta decide. And I've tackled some br train coming at you, you got to decide. And I've tackled some brutes, bro, you got to decide are you going to commit or are you going to try and take the legs out from underneath and kind of not tackle, right Exactly?
Speaker 2:And that's why I'm like you know, and don't take my word for it. Don't look at football, look on Saturdays. Look on Sundays. High school on Fridays, friday, saturday, sundays Look this season.
Speaker 2:And you tell me how many kids are making tackles that we're teaching in tackling drills or that we're learning in tackling circuits. They're not, which means that we're going through that stuff and you're getting out there and you're just going to do what you want to do anyway. So I'm not saying stop teaching it. I'm not saying like we're doing a disservice by having the tackling circuits. All I'm saying is if, on average, the kids are not actually tackling the way that we're wanting them to tackle because you can't prepare for that in a game we need to limit the amount of tackling we're doing with our own team and hitting that we're doing our own team throughout the week. That's time that we can spend on other schemes and preparing you in other ways.
Speaker 2:I remember at Coastal we had it was called BAM. That was our motto BAM, joe Moglia. I don't know if you ever heard of him, but he's a big. He's the CEO, used to be CEOo of td ameritrade and all that. Wow, he ended up yeah, 60 minute segment on him. He was actually our head coach at coastal, so he he played, he coached for free, gave his salary to all the coaches because he was a billionaire just coaching football for fun, yeah he's a really good really good business guy.
Speaker 2:If you get a chance, look him him up, I will, but pretty much it was be a man. And then we had LAF, which was life after football throughout the week, and so there were some days where we wouldn't tackle, we wouldn't have tackling segments and we would have life after football segments and that was a period of time where we would talk about he would bring in an accountant or he would bring in you know, financial advisors, things like that, uh, to teach us about, um, life after football now. Now I say that to say that the tackling didn't disconnect us or the hitting didn't disconnect us from getting what we need to get done. When I was at coastal um, it was, it was before and after I was there. In that stint there was four back to back to back big south championships, three national championship runner-ups and it was fcs division one maybe lost a total of six games the entire four years, like again the year before I was there, the two years I was there in a year after that.
Speaker 2:That program is one to look up and research. Wow, and I'm telling you right now, we barely tackled. I understand it's a part of football, but even in the NFL, you can start to see that it is becoming more of a— and we as defensive players complain about it all the time. They're putting more rules in to cater more to protecting offensive players because it's starting to dial back a little bit. I think that college with the NIL, I think that some of the guys, as you can see, there's some players already that are iffy about they have injury clauses already in their NIL contracts. So you're going to start to see that dial back a little bit. So eventually it's going to get to a point where high school is going to have to conform to a better structure as far as, like the hitting goes, especially with the head trauma, and where the direction of like, where the college and NFL is doing and where the direction of what college and NFL is doing.
Speaker 1:I actually agree. I mean, look, if we literally limited contact to start in high school and then we limited it right, I mean honestly, and I'm saying this with absolute certainty if we limited contact in high school and college the way they do in the NFL and we accepted tackling as part of the game, you're going to go after it on Sunday, man. I mean, just leave it on the field, right, Earn that paycheck. Cte wouldn't exist, CTE and all these other mental health issues that we have across contact sports. And we're not talking just football, we're talking lacrosse, rugby, wrestling, hockey, you name it, Australian rules, rugby, soccer, cheerleading right, who would have thought cheerleading had so many dang concussions?
Speaker 1:This is crazy. But it's all about how much exposure we run. I mean, all of this is predicated on a whole 30 years, 35 years of continuously. This is what killed my son. Okay, we can absolutely make football as safe as it possibly can and people can go out and and BLT a G and Tom Brady make bling and enjoy it. I mean a lot of the NFL players I have right now will self-admittedly say man, I ain't right. Tell me straight up, man, I ain't right.
Speaker 2:You know I've dealt with personal things that pertain to that type of stuff and you know you have, you know, a loss of memory with certain situations and sometimes talking in conversations Like I fade out sometimes and I don't know why. You know, but I can guarantee you that it started way before the NFL.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the NFL ain't to blame for this man. It's about how we do sports. If your dad knew what I know now, both of us would not have put our sons out there on the field. We talked to Ray Lewis, right the man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I played with the third, rest in peace. Yeah, ray Ray, I played with little Ray.
Speaker 1:Ray was. I mean, I didn't know him, but I know his mom is just an outstanding young lady. She told me flat out she goes, bruce, we're a football family. She goes. I got to watch out for my other two boys because we started them all at six years old. That's what we do, right? So you know, I think that if we look at just what you as a professional ball player and me as an old semi-pro rugby player and I'm kind of a brain dude now right are talking about we're talking about eradicating CTE. We're talking about a place in football where there is no ct, because we were flagged until 14 and then we didn't have contact every day in high school. Same thing at college. And and dude, man, guys went out there, made bling, whatever, and man, they're good dads, they're good husbands or whatever, right, and so that's where I think we're going.
Speaker 2:That's where I think we're going, you're you are a lot of emphasis on like and it. It's not. I'm not. You know, I'm not being I'm not trying to be biased Like. The NFL has done a wonderful job at changing the trajectory and just the stance on. They're really taking it more serious. I have to put emphasis on high school and college right now because I don't think it's being taken that serious. I really don't.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think it is either, and that's no, it's not, I know it's not that's what you said earlier where you were like it's being developed at 14 and on up. It's happening that head trauma is happening from high school to college and then you're taking that and some of these guys are making it to the league, where it's even worse as far as the impact on each other, because we're bigger, stronger, faster, and now you're dealing with what you've already dealt with through college and high school and now you're we're amplifying it by the time you get here now because it is so poorly advised in the high school and college level, is so poorly advised in the high school and college level.
Speaker 1:And then think of those. Kids started when you did, before they even got to high school. Even worse, Even worse right.
Speaker 2:Right and then when they start having their problems.
Speaker 1:We're seeing a little bit in college, but now they're NFL players. Now the NFL gets tagged with it, right when it started back in six or 12, right.
Speaker 1:You know there's no finger pointing right, but as a society, if we understood how important the brain was, dude, we can make these decisions, man. We can start fixing this thing now and getting that going. So look, man, as we close out, tell us about LT man. What's LT got going on? How do people find you? Tell us about your camp man, man and all the great things you're doing for our youth and for yourself.
Speaker 2:My instagram is the agiv, because I'm the fourth, so t-h-e-a-g-e-e-i-v on instagram, tiktok, twitter, all that good stuff, um, so you can find me on that. Off the field right now I'm invested in med spas, so I have a lot of med spas, got one in Tampa. I'm an investor over 10 locations down in South Florida, so Miami, sunrise, fort Lauderdale, so definitely I entered that space. Now that's life after football for me. And then, as far as my camp goes, I'm super excited. We're trying to secure the actual date for it right now in July, because we're mixed between two days on a Friday and Saturday, but it's going to be in Chattanooga, tennessee, and it is On.
Speaker 2:Point is our foundation, which is a company and a nonprofit organization in Chattanooga that deals with kids that don't have. I grew up around a couple of kids that you know didn't have the laptop, didn't have the calculators, didn't have the right supplies or access to tutors, like I did, and this particular foundation works with giving kids the resources. So that's tutors, that's school supplies, backpacks, electronics, and they're taking care of kids in need in the city of Chattanooga that just need more resources. So great, great foundation and our nonprofit organization, and it's going to be a skills camp. We are, I'm excited to have more girls involved this year.
Speaker 2:Flag football for girls is a big thing, so I'm tapping into that. That's going to be new for me, uh, so I'm sure we'll have a lot of girls out there this this year. Actually, one of our sponsors is a cosmetic brand from alta queen that'll bring them out there, man. So I'm like I'm like I'm, I'm, I'm in, I'm in full girl dad mode right now. I'm like you know what I gotta? I gotta make up makeup sponsor for the girls. I want them to feel included and inclusive with this stuff.
Speaker 1:Dude, that's so great man.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, of course it's. It's ranging from six year olds to uh, to 16. So that age group, so all those kids will be able to come out to that. Um, so all those kids will be able to come out to that, and that's pretty much it. Man, I'm training right now. I'm getting ready for training camp. Got a big move coming up too I'll no longer be in Tampa, I'll be in Nashville. So it'll be Miami, nashville and Dallas. That's where we'll be.
Speaker 1:Nashville's a great town, man. Yeah Well, man, dude, I wish you all the luck in great town. Man. Yeah Well, man, dude, I wish you all the luck in the world. Man, I think, um, I am I, I, we were blessed to support you. Please reach out, we'll see if we can support you again. It's the nonprofit world. We'll see what we got in the piggy bank.
Speaker 1:But if we got dimes, you got you got pennies, man, yeah, but um, you know, man, God bless you for what you're doing, man, I appreciate it. Your journey, you know, just sticking it out, man, and driving and grinding on and showing, you know, just showing the world, man, what it takes to come back. You know, and keep coming back. I mean, how many times do you come back? Right, right, and I just think that your story is one that you know needs to be told and I hope you keep telling it and I hope that you keep on, you know, helping out our youth and and and trusting in the Lord to show you the way, because he will and he'll also let you know when you're off that path too, as we both know right, he'll be on it.
Speaker 1:Man Well, man well lt. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2:We look forward to having you again man.
Speaker 1:Ah, dude, man, big game on man. We'll get this all over the place, man, and we'll wish you all the luck in this season. Coming up, man, you need it. Yes, sir, all right, thank you so much. No, thank you, man, for all you.
Speaker 1:Man, they don't forget. Man, get your book, the only book for parents. I had to write it. Uh, it's on the website. You know, don't forget our app, your book, the only book for parents. I had to write it, it's on the website. You know, don't forget our app on the Apple's Google Store smart head for you parents, out there, it's a concussion tool. So you guys can, you know, take care of your kids if they have problems and look out for them. If they've had too many concussions to make sure that they're not, you know, they might need to take a break from contact sports, play that flag football that LT was talking about. Our Summit on Repetitive Brain Trauma is going to be in Tampa September 3rd and 4th. Hope to see you there and remember you only got one melon. Take care of it. God bless you. We'll see you on the next episode of Broken Brains. Take care, we'll see you on the next episode of Broken Brains.