Chris Hetherington on Discipline, Masculinity & Life After Football

Former NFL fullback Chris Hetherington spent 11 years playing professional football, but this conversation is ultimately about much more than sports.

In this episode of At the Podium, Chris reflects on discipline, masculinity, fatherhood, identity, and the difficult transition that comes after elite performance. From the physical toll of football and the realities of concussion culture to meditation, stoicism, and rebuilding life beyond the game, Chris shares what he learned about becoming a professional—not only as an athlete, but as a man.

Patrick and Chris discuss:
• The changing culture of football and the long-term realities of CTE
• NIL deals, money, and the pressures facing young athletes
• Why discipline matters more than motivation
• Meditation, yoga, and learning stillness after a life built on collision
• Fatherhood, accountability, and modeling healthy masculinity
• The challenge of building an identity beyond performance

Chris Hetherington is a Yale graduate, former NFL fullback, entrepreneur, investor, and father whose life today is centered around discipline, service, personal growth, and intentional living.

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For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

When you're going through career changes, you gotta rely on those traits, if you will, of passion and discipline and hard work and making sacrifices on a daily basis. And you know, for me, I I've you know, people ask me all day, like, how do you wake up at five o'clock every day? It's not an option for me. Like when that alarm goes off, I'm getting up.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hello, and welcome to At the Podium with me, Patrick Huey. At the Podium is a multimedia platform that brings together people from a diverse background of lives, careers, and experiences who all share one thing in common. They have stepped fully into the transformative power of finding and raising their voices to tell their stories, to be heard, and to bring us inspiration. My guest today is Chris Heatherington. Chris is an inspirational leader who is motivated by internal standards of excellence to overachieve expectations and exceed all set goals, stemming from his experience playing fullback in the National Football League for 11 years and earning a BS in psychology from Yale University, attending the Business Management and Entrepreneurship Programs at Harvard Business School and Wharton School of Business, and achieving success as an experienced executive, board member, entrepreneur, and investor. Chris meditates twice a day and practices stoicism. He is married and has two sons, Jack 8 and Cole 3. Okay, Chris, welcome to at the podium. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to uh to jump in here. I appreciate you having me. Absolutely. I'm so glad that you reached out to me. A, because you're you're a fellow Yaley, but you've had many iterations of a life. But I wanted to talk to you about football because I think football really helped establish you in the world. Um, you were a quarterback at Yale back in the 90s, and then you played for 11 years for various teams professionally as a fullback, um, which I had to look up what a fullback was because I don't play football. But I was like, is he running or is he throwing or is he catching? Um but I was curious because there's been so much talk recently about college athletics and should players be able to benefit financially. Um and recently the NCAA actually came out and said that players could earn money from use of their likeness, their image, um, their names. What is your perspective on that? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

It's an interesting topic, right? Uh I think there's a lot of pros with the presence of NIL, and I think there's some cons, right? The unfortunate thing is, statistically speaking, Patrick, the chance of uh a high school or college player going pro is very small. And although I think it's a good opportunity, and I'm I'm not against uh college athletes being paid because same with the pros. I mean, they're the assets, right? They're the ones that are filling seats and and you know, making money for the universities and and the head coaches are being paid millions and millions of dollars. But also, look, I was lucky enough to be able to play professionally for a long time. But I I went to Yale because I knew I was gonna get good education, and I took advantage of that. And that helped me in my transition after professional football, where I had, you know, skill sets that that translate into the business world. But it's it's a slippery slope. The NIL laws vary from state to state. I read these articles about boosters, taking advantage of these young kids. You know, look, I think they should focus as well on getting a good education and graduating from their universities, because the average career in the NFL is probably three years or less. And so it's important that these young men and women get a good education and build skill sets. Now, since they're getting paid, there's a lot of things that go into that, right? Uh hopefully they learn how to manage their money, they're gonna have to pay taxes and and stuff like that. So I think there's some benefits. Um, I just I want young women and young men that are at the collegiate level to focus on their education as well, because that's gonna benefit them for the long term.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Aaron Powell It seems to be a very interesting time in in sports in general, but I feel like, particularly in football, I feel like it's struggling a little bit. I mean, if you look at the sort of popularity of the game, it's still quite strong. But I was reading an article I was gonna talk to, and I knew this, it was in Forbes, and they were talking about some really interesting numbers, for instance, and I'm gonna read them just to make sure I get them right. They said that youth participation between ages six and twelve is down 32% from its peak in 2008. High school participation is down 10% from its peak in 2009, except for the SEC. The numbers are going up, which is probably not that surprising. It's interesting to note that the numbers are going up in terms of viewers, but as a percentage of the overall population, the numbers are going down. And then you have TV shows like Blackish basically coming out against football because of concussion injuries, long-term disability, and things like that. Do you think the sport is viable past the sort of moment we're in now?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

You know, I think it's an interesting time for football and even collision sports in general, right? Uh I'll give you an example. When I played in the NFL, you know, I was running down on kickoff and running 70 yards and blowing up wedges and you know, getting knocked out or knocking people out. And there really wasn't a concussion protocol back in the day. I probably got asked two questions in my whole career. What day of the week is it and how many fingers do I have up? So now we're we're doing the research and becoming more aware of the head injuries and CTE and the long-term health consequences of playing, not only football, but collision sports in general, right? There's a lot of concussions in soccer, hockey, lacrosse, et cetera. I think the NFL has done a better job of protecting the players. If you can protect the players, you're gonna hopefully protect the game. They're really trying to protect quarterbacks, they're trying to protect receivers from from getting hit uh when they're unprotected. But it's it'll be interesting to see how it plays out over the next several years. I think um, you know, the Ivy League was, I think, one of the leaders in kind of limiting the amount of hitting that goes on in practice. There's a lot more injuries in practice than in games, right? So that's a good start. And then they're always trying to improve the equipment. I mean, when I played, believe it or not, I didn't wear a mouthpiece for 11 years, which is reckless. I I if I can go back in time, I I wouldn't do that. But I just couldn't breathe well with him. But the helmets are are more protective, they're they're lighter, they're more aerodynamic, the shoulder pads, uh, etc. So, you know, I I football is a great game. That's still the number one participation sport in in high school at the high school level. The discipline that goes into being able to compete, the the physicality of it. I in my opinion, it's the ultimate team sport. And I had a great experience in my 11 years in the NFL, and I learned from from older players that I respected how to be a good pro and how to take care of your body, how to improve your football IQ. Really, that's the way I survived for 11 years. But it's it's a collision sport, man. It's dangerous. And uh, you know, I'm sure you're gonna ask me about my kids and my best. Look, I grew up and and I was obsessed with sports, but I was equally obsessed with academics. And my brother was a great role model. My brother's 10 years older, went to Princeton and played football. And you know, every every young kid wants to be like their brother, especially if he's a great role model. So that had a positive impact on my life. You know, like I said, I was lucky enough to play in the NFL for a long time. And it's hard for me to say no to my kids, but at the same time, it's my job as a parent to make sure, you know, my kids are as safe as possible. I mean, in an ideal world, I would love for my kids not to play attack of football until high school. My son Jack's, you know, he's in two flag football leagues and he plays soccer, he plays basketball, he plays hockey, you know, he's into every sport. And I think that's healthy. I think looking at some of these leagues that my kids play in, these parents, they're a little bit crazy, you know, and they put a lot of pressure on these kids and they get them hyperfocused on one sport. And again, my message to them is like, look, these kids are seven and eight. The stakes aren't very high. You know, you want this to be a healthy experience. And and I think there's a lot of benefits from playing multiple sports, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

You played three, didn't you? You were baseball hockey and baseball in college. You said something interesting, which was that, you know, kids are seven or eight and the stakes aren't very high. But then I think about the kids who are looking at football or sports or basketball or any sports as a way out. As a way up, and the stakes become uh very high. How do you balance that that the idea of stakes versus the results versus the risks that are inherent in some of these sports? When the real needs are to uplift yourself, your family, et cetera, out of what can be really dire circumstances?

SPEAKER_01 9:13

And it's a great question. In my opinion, I think it's the job of the parents and the coaches and the leaders of these various leagues and teams to make it as healthy to make experience as possible. And look, there's a lot of kids out there where this is their shot to get out of the circumstances that they're in or their families in. And I respect that. Um, but at the same time, you still want kids to be kids, you know, and and be well-rounded young men and young women. And it's it's a it's a complicated question, but I think you got to keep these kids' futures in mind. And so, yeah, I mean, I my mess is to these these parents and my my son's leagues are look, the stakes aren't very high. But to your point, for some kids that are in these different circumstances, they are a little higher. I mean, I hear these stories too, right? I mean, the kids in grade school getting recruited, young phenoms in basketball or or football, you know, signing letters of intent to go to colleges. God, when I was 13 and 14, and I had no idea what I wanted to do. I know I was luckily a good athlete and and a and a good student, but you still have to do the job as the parent or the adult to, you know, to to be healthy about these decisions that you're making for these young men and women. The reality is, Patrick, sports become a big business, you know, and uh that's the dangerous part of it. And unfortunately, like I said, the stats don't lie. I mean, the the the chances of a young man, man or woman playing professionally in any sport is very, very low. Uh there's 2,000 NFL players in the world, right? So it's not many compared to how many kids play football at the high school and collegiate level. And like I said, it's become such a big business and TV deals and endorsements and stuff like that. And so, yeah, I mean, back to the NAL deal, look, I'm I'm a big fan of young men and women getting paid because like I said, it's become a big business, and the universities and coaches and everything are benefiting, but it's a slippery slope, you know, and uh decisions need to be made factoring in long term uh for these for these young men and women. And uh it's almost a case-by-case basis, you know, but uh it's tough.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

And if you think about it, you hope that with this this new sort of way forward in terms of people being able to profit from their their face or their name or their number, you hope that there's sort of a requirement for financial literacy classes to go with that. And also, you know, agents and managers start showing up, and then that complicates the the stew even more.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yeah. It's hard. I mean, I saw this in my time in the NFL when when young men all of a sudden come into a bunch of money when they have no experience, you know, managing money and and unfortunately um sometimes surround themselves with people that are trying to take advantage of them. And and that back in the day, I saw it firsthand agents and financial advisors and family with handouts and stuff. And so if you know they can set up a program or process where you can teach these young men and women financial literacy and and general life skills, you know, balancing a checkbook. And you know, I took my son Jack, who was, I think, six at the time. I took him down to Bank of America to get a checking account. He's getting some cash from his grandparents and stuff. I said, look, let's let's learn about money. Let's you know, get you an ATM card so you value money in a different way. And you know, I I wish more parents did that. And certainly, you know, at the collegiate level, you know, you would hope that they start to learn about financial literacy and you would hope that people around them will respect, like, look, this is this young man or woman's money, and they earned it. You got to do everything you can to protect it because it's not gonna last for a long time. And you see these young players when I played in the NFL, and it's hard to get caught up, you know. And like I said, you you come into uh a bunch of money, millions of dollars, and and you buy a house for your mom, and you buy a car and this and that, and you know, buy some jewelry. It can go fast, and everybody comes into the league thinking they're gonna play 10 years, but that's that's just not a reality.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

You speak very positively and highly about the NFL and about your your your football and sports experience. What did you learn from that? What did you learn from playing at that highly elite level of professional sports?

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Most importantly, I learned how to be a professional. I learned how to go about my daily life being a pro. And when you're a professional athlete, your body and your mind makes you a living. And so I learned early on that, you know, I got to take care of my body and I gotta take care of my mind. And so I've even been more obsessed with that, you know, since I retired because look, I played 26 years of tackle football, and I've had my fair share of injuries and pain and inflammation and sleep issues. And and uh look, I again playing 26 years, that's a lot of hits to the head. And so I'm I luckily I have I've always had a very quantitative job, and I've always, you know, done these little brain games and you know, neurofeedback and stuff like that. It's a difficult thing, but uh, but again, I think first and foremost, I learned how to be a pro. And I tried to carry that into my professional life of being accountable. I was always accountable with my teammates, I always did whatever I could to be on that field because my teammates are are counting on me and relying on me. And and the same thing in in my business life. I try to be a great teammate, I try to lead by example, try to be a positive influence, and that goes a long way. You know, if you do what you say you're gonna do, that's important. And I try to do that with my kids as well. I try to be a positive influence on them. I try to teach them how to be healthy and how to be active and and not be on an iPad all day long or play video games all day long. Um I never played video games when I was a kid, but it's become, you know, very popular. It's addictive, right? So in summary, it's just learning how to be a pro in your daily life and and learning to be a good person and and be accountable.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

I always think when you see a person who really performs at that kind of level, that there's a lot of a lot of an ability or a skill to focus and control the mind, to overcome either a physical obstacle or hurdle or physical pain if you're talking about a tackle sport.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

I'll tell you what, meditation and yoga really changed my life. Unfortunately, I didn't discover it until after I retired. Yoga and meditation has been had such an impact on my life to breathe, worry about what you can control and not worry about what you can't control. I'm a big fan of stoicism. That's their kind of main message. Worry about what you can control. That's helped me with everything in life, with my marriage, with time with my kids, with my job, talking to investors or talking to vendors. It's just um, you know, having the ability to breathe, not try to muscle through everything to react quickly when you can take a step back. Somebody says something negative, just kind of take a step back, breathe, and have a calculated, you know, thoughtful answer to that, whether it's positive or negative. Yeah, meditation is huge. I do it every day, twice a day for 20 minutes, uh, each session, and it's changed my life. I was always the guy that muscled through everything, and I played fullback. It was like basically like a glorified offensive lineman in the backfield. My job was to hit people. My life after football, it's uh, you know, it's it's meditation, it's controlling what I can control. And and there's stuff thrown at you all day, every day, right? Your kids have challenges and adversity. You're you know, my wife runs a business and she's really busy, and you know, being able to be thoughtful in decisions is is huge.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Looking at your your history, it's such an unusual journey from a very high collegiate sports career to a career in the NFL, which is, as you said, it's the premier sport to play, and it's probably to bas basketball and and baseball and soccer or soccer. And also you move from there into financial services, which is a whole other world unto itself. How did that journey unfold?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

You know, like I said, I went to Yale. A lot a lot of my buddies went to Wall Street, right? There's a big pipeline from Ivy League schools or, you know, big universities to Wall Street and financial services. My brother has been a financial advisor uh since 1986 for Merrill Lynch. And so I would say that you know, that was probably the expected path, but it was good, right? I towards the end of my career, I did the executive programs at Harvard and Warden. I've been out of school for 11 years and wanted to get back into it and really figure out what I wanted to do. And I was very interested in in the finance world, and but there's a lot of uh kind of verticals within the finance world. And so, you know, I mean you hear about this transition from being a pro athlete to the real world, and it's it's difficult. I don't care how much money you've made or how much fame you had or didn't have or how long you played, it's it's hard because your dream as a little kid is to play professional sports and and I and then you spend all your time and hopefully not your money maintaining at, you know, at that level. And then when it's gone, you're like, oh man, what am I going to do next? And you know, I feel fortunate that I had other skill sets and I wanted to use my brain in other ways. And and you know, I was very blessed to be able to transition into a company that were like-minded individuals. You know, I joined a hedge fund in 2008, uh, who was started by uh a gentleman I played football against. He went to Princeton and hired a lot of athletes that were kind of this work hard, play hard type people, but very smart and driven and hardworking. And so I I kind of transitioned to a different locker room. Some guys you know struggle and they think that their identity is only uh as an athlete, but the thing that that made them a good athlete, the work at the discipline, the uh stuff like that, can't translate into other things. You just got to figure out what that is.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Where does this come from within you, this ability to shift, to stay on your center? I mean, I'm sure yoga and stoicism help drive that and nurture that within you, but who influenced you?

SPEAKER_01 19:26

You know, I had a lot of positive influences in my life. My dad was a very good influence in my life. He was a hard-working man, you know, had multiple jobs. My brother was a very positive and had a very positive impact in my life. My sister's a great person, she had an impact. My mom is is my hero. My mom's a really great woman. And uh, but I've also been a self-motivator. You know, I'm a disciplined, passionate guy, and uh that's really helped me. And and you know, when you're when you're going through career changes, you gotta rely on those, those, those traits, if you will, of passion and discipline and hard work and making sacrifices on a daily basis. And you know, people ask me all day, like, how do you wake up at five o'clock every day? It's not an option for me. Like when that alarm goes off, I'm getting up. Like I've already made the decision. You know, and I jump in the cold plunge and I do, you know, jump in my sauna and I meditate for 20 minutes because that makes me a better person. It makes me, you know, a better performer, it makes me a better dad, a better husband. Taking care of my body and taking care of my mind is is very important to me. And so, you know, I try to try to be a positive influence, like I said earlier, about with my kids and and my friends and people around me and and be of service to other people and hopefully make a positive impact on other people. And and look, I'm humble and smart enough to really seek out other people that can add value to my life. You know, again, I'm a huge fan of stoicism because that's who I want to be, you know, and I've I've luckily figured that out. I'm not perfect, but I try to make a lot more good decisions on a daily basis than bad decisions and try to still live my life and not, you know, ever eat a carb for the next 20 years, right? But um, and I don't want my kid to not be a kid and never have birthday cake, but but look, you gotta teach your kid, look, what you put in your body matters. And you know, if you want to be healthy and live a long time, you know, you gotta take care of yourself. And, you know, I was a CEO of a company called Resilience Code in Denver, Colorado, and and what I learned quickly was that people are only go to the doctor when they're sick, right? And people aren't proactive with their health, they're they're more reactive with their health. And so getting people to understand that look, you should get blood work done, you know, at least once or twice a year. You gotta pay attention to what you put in your body and you gotta move every day. You know, if you don't move it, you lose it. You don't have to run a marathon, but you gotta move your body. And you know, the more you take care of your body, the more you take care of your mind, you know, the better off you're.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Talking to you today, uh it's so distilled and clear and simple, but living in it it doesn't always feel that way. These principles that you're talking about, how have you been able to distill it so cleanly and so purely for yourself?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

You know, life is not easy, you know, and there is there's a lot of challenges that go into people's lives. I don't care what circumstances you're you're living in. Uh life is hard. And you know, if you look at the media and and politics, you know, people thrive on negativity. And I try to thrive on positivity. My wife, you know, busts my chops all the time. She's like, oh, all you want to hear is positive stuff. I'm like, yeah, you're right. Like, why would I read the news and watch the news every day or read this, you know, read Twitter with with uh you know all this negativity in the world? And again, there's so much inversity in life, but if you're conscious to be centered and most importantly be a good person and try to make a lot more good decisions than bad, then you're giving yourself the best chance. And again, dude, I'm not I'm not perfect. Um, I wish I was, or I don't wish I'm perfect. Nobody, nobody's perfect, but but again, I I I'm a very passionate guy. Things are very important to me, and you know, that's how I want to live my life. And and but again, it's it's hard to wake up at five o'clock every day, no matter what you did the night before. But but again, I've made that decision already, and it's not an option. Your mind's a powerful thing, right? You got this little dude on his shoulder saying, Oh, you should sleep in another hour, or you deserve it. It's like, no, dude, I'm getting up because that's what I want to do and that's what I should do.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

This this season on the show, we're talking about people who found their voice, and you clearly found your voice and your passion. What do you want us to lead with today?

SPEAKER_01 23:44

You know, I'm I'm always seeking ways to make myself better. I'm always trying to find my voice. Uh you know, it's it's interesting in the world we live in. There's the access to information is is so good, right? Uh, you can go online and research anything. Um, so I'm always trying to find ways to make myself better. But my overall voice is to be a positive impact in the people around me and always find ways for people to make positive impacts on my life. You know, I have friends that I've been friends with since I was a little kid, you know, because that's important to me. Friends and family are really important to me. And so it's tough. I mean, again, life is hard, but it's waking up every day and and being committed to the person you want to be. And there's always people trying to bring you down, right? Uh yeah, people thrive on negativity, and we got all these crazy reality shows, and and you know, the news every day is so negative. But if people focused on making themselves better every day and try to make people around them better every day, I think we'd be in a better spot.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Who is your favorite team, the 49ers that you played a lot?

SPEAKER_01 24:50

I grew up in Connecticut, I grew up a giant fan. My dad and my uh my brother were Giant fans. I root for every team I played for. I'm very grateful for the time I spent with every organization, and I feel very lucky that I had that experience. And so I I really root for every team. We lived in Los Angeles and I played for the Rams for one year. We were in St. Louis, but you know, it's fun taking my kids to uh to the games and being a fan. And you know, one thing I I wish I had a family when I played because it would have been great to share that experience to my family. I I I probably wasn't ready to be married at the time and have kids. But that would have been fun. But uh yeah, it's it's it's fun rooting for all these teams. And I'm just a I'm just a sport fan in general, right? And I try to expose my kid to every sport and have him, you know, be healthy about the process and and get him to enjoy every sport. And then he's gonna figure out himself what he wants to do if he wants to play, you know, high school sports or college sports. And and the biggest rewarding thing for my wife and I, my kid's equally as creative as he is athletic. So that's that's really fun for me to watch my kid do crafts and be creative and painting and all this stuff. Like I didn't have any of that when I was a kid. I had no creativity whatsoever. So he gets it from my wife and his mom, but uh it's fun.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Chris, thank you so much for taking some time with me today. I completely appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Appreciate you having man. It was it was a really a pleasure to be here and great to get to know you better. And uh, hopefully we'll keep in touch into the future and do it again.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

We will, we will. Thank you. And to those of you who are watching or listening, remember we all have a voice. Use yours wisely. Bye, everyone. Thank you, Chris.