SEASON 3 EPISODE 17 | Former NFL Player Ahman Green

In this episode of Vetted Conversations, former NFL star and Green Bay Packers all-time leading rusher Ahman Green joins us from Radio Row to discuss his latest ventures in gaming, athlete-led media, and community-driven Esports. As a founder of Alumni Media Network and AME Leagues, Ahman shares how he is building inclusive spaces for former athletes and military veterans to connect through content, competition, and service. From hosting gaming tournaments that benefit charities to honoring his family's military legacy, Ahman brings passion, purpose, and innovation to everything he does beyond the football field.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Hey everybody, this is Anil Nathan. We are live on Radio Road here in New Orleans. I have the pleasure of being joined by Amon Green, legendary running back all-time Green Bay rushing record holder. Yep. Which is pretty impressive to still be in that, still be holding that record. But thank you so much for making the time to chat with us.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Hey, no problem, Mill. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

Yeah, so uh maybe to start, what what brings you to New Orleans this week? How's the how's the week been so far?

SPEAKER_04 1:12

Our week's been good, and what brings me down here is that I uh work with Alumni Media Network. I'm one of the founders along with Gus Farrat and Craig Richardson, the managing director there. And the whole Alumni Media Network started a few years ago where it's basically a network of former athletes uh doing their podcasts, doing their shows that they wanted to do. You know, whatever passion, whatever topic they wanted to talk about for an hour or two hours or three hours, and then put it in um between long form, short form, media, clips, and stuff like that. We managed to put together a group of guys and uh and soon-to-be women, uh girls as well, to talk and uh spread what they're doing now as former athletes from their profession. So we're not just football, right? We're not just we're basketball, we're baseball, we're women's basketball, we're women's football, we're partnered with the NFL wives, we're partnered with the USA Olympic Committee, um, the Women's Football Alliance, Women's Football League that's been created in the last couple years. And so we have right now an influx of over 20,000 athletes that we are connecting through through the network and also bringing them into my space. Another space that I grew up in is in the gaming space, the video game space. So playing games like Super Mario Brothers and Mario Kart and uh I say flash forward to Grand Teresa Mode or Madden and FC Soccer, which is what's FIFA now, it's FC Soccer. So bringing that to into a space to where it grows another community, just like the football space did. You know, for the fans that I met in Nebraska being a Husker to the fans I met in Seattle as a Seahawk in Green Bay, they were pulling hard for their, you know, for us to win and you know come out of the victor. And the same thing with uh with I say with the video game fans. They love to see, you know, athletes or just a gamer play, a game of Madden or or Call of Duty and say, oh man, I play that game too. Right. And then and know that that athlete is on the same level as them of communication. And so bringing, I want to grow that community with the league, um, obviously get sponsors so they can support our league, and uh also bring the uh, I say the I say the charity part of it, because then, you know, and during this competition, these athletes can uh win, you know, money for themselves or money for their charity or for their own foundation. Right. So express that community and giving aspect of it because that's one thing when you log on to Twitch or Kick or even YouTube gaming and stuff like that, you see the influencers, they're giving back all the time. Um there's companies out there that we haven't partnered with yet, but we soon will, because I know a few of them. So definitely going to do that moving forward to progress our league because we always uh say the more support we get, the easier it is to give. And we have the good thing is we have like a uh we have a schedule going on where we'll start our first virtual weekend. So the three matches that are going on for this season will be third three virtual matches, online tournaments. Okay. We'll be fighting uh starting with sports games, so Madden, uh FT Soccer, and 2K, and maybe tennis. I might throw in a little cricket as well. Correct. Just to see to see if gamers are paying attention to playing games and because it's all about fun. Yeah. But then the next after that's gonna be all the fighting games. So we got Street Fighter, we got Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Guilty Gear Strive, and Super Mario uh Super Smash Brothers as well. And then the final uh virtual weekend will be a little bit more into maybe some little bit of shooters, so some some Call of Duty, some Halo, some Valorant, and maybe maybe either RTS with uh League of Legends and Dota. So we'll see. You gotta be a dynamic gamer, just like a dynamic athlete, right? To play certain sports. So, like I said, it's all for fun, it's for it's gonna be for charity, but then the good thing at the end we're talking with a company out of uh Las Vegas to have our final event in person and in on and off the strip. So we're working on that. We'll be excited to make that announcement once we're done talking and figuring out all the all the details. So tomorrow, uh Friday at the Sheridan Hotel not far from here, uh 500 Canal Street, we'll be launching this event starting at 12 uh p.m. go all the way to 8 p.m. Um tomorrow night.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Very cool. It's uh that's pretty awesome, both on yeah, kind of the podcasting community as well as what you're doing connecting in the gaming community. And I see the t-shirt, you've got your own podcast specifically. That is that that's where kind of a lot of the discussion around gaming comes in, or 100%.

SPEAKER_04 5:35

So, like I said, from the passion of learning and play video games, learning about a computer, it just grew into that. And so I wanted to share this part of my life with my fans out there. I have, you know, you know, I have a fan base, I was a packer, you know, I was a corn husker, I was a Texan, I was a Seahawk. So there's fans that stuck with me all the way through those years, from being a drafted to the Seahawk all the way to finishing back in Green Bay and being a Texan for two years. And probably none of them, probably there's a few that, oh, he plays Madden. Oh, he streams on Twitch and didn't know that. Right. You know, because they figure that we're athletes, we might just do a certain thing, work out, and then attend to our family. I do all that, but hey, I'm a gamer too, man. You know? You know, but if I'm not a gamer, the whole podcast thing is like we have some of the podcasts that are on the online alumni media network where we got former athletes talking about financial literacy and uh how to take care of your body, so healthcare and fitness and all that. So this is my my my region or my genre of uh a part of my life that I want to share with people. And I'm I'm passionate about it. That's why I talk about the different uh topics on my show. Um and you can find all my past episodes on YouTube at Amon Green Gamers Lounge and on Twitch at Amon Green TV. And it's all the trendy talks going on in the gaming space, you know, from a couple you know, years ago when COVID hit. Um, what active what was going on with Activision behind closed doors that shouldn't have been going on? Sure. You know, we discussed those topics to what's going on with uh, I say, with Call of Duty and some of the I say some of the hacks that were going on with people shoot, able to shoot through walls and see guys. Hey, you're not supposed to do that. Yeah, the aimbots, you can't bring that in the game. But Call of Duty did something about it. They had a lot of band, they lot, a lot of band accounts uh during that week and month. So um, so we we we talk about the topics, then we have fun with the with the show as well. We have a segment called Game Releases where we talk about all the new games coming out. You know, I I love the side-scrolling, the Metro Davian type of games. You know, I played a lot of Metroid growing up on Nintendo. Yep. So there's a few that came out, and we always talk about that, and then we have fun with this or that. You know, you know, saying if if you're a DC or Marvel person. Marvel. Marvel. Okay, I'm DC. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Back on Metroid, I I remember I didn't realize Metroid was a woman.

SPEAKER_04 7:55

Yeah, I didn't find out until I got to high school.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

I was like, Metroid is a woman.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

It's Sammons. I'm like, I thought that was a guy's name.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

The best games that everyone ubiquitously played and didn't realize the character the main character wasn't woman.

SPEAKER_04 8:06

A hundred percent. I think I was a sophomore in high school, and uh I was watching, I think it was like a commercial of a new Metroid game coming out, and she took off the helmet and did the hair thing, and I was like, no, is that the end of Metroid? It's when you beat it. When you beat the game, that's right, that's what it was. And she takes it does the hair swing, and I'm like, I was like, that's so cool. I was like, awesome, that's that's who the badass is. Okay, I love it. Great prot twist right there. So you know, actually I have a quick question. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Could you speak to some of the overlap of the skill sets of both playing games and playing sports? Like people don't understand. They try to separate it. There's no separation. Can you just talk about like you know, some of the benefits of both that you've seen you play at the professional level, now you're playing sports at the highest level. Or you know, EA sports, yeah. Electronic. Can you talk to some of the overlap of the skills?

SPEAKER_04 9:00

Easy, easy. The skill, let's say the sort of old so the overlap of the skills in training for let's pick any game, let's go, let's go with Madden, make it real easy. At the same time, you put in to learn how to use the mechanics on Madden, knowing that you have wide receivers at the A button, the B button, the X, and the Y button, and sometimes the R B button is no different than a quarterback learning his progression. If you're teaching the quarterback how to read a progression in his route sequence on a flood concept, you we know that the flat route is your first read, then the corner route is your second read, then the backside corner or the backside street will be your third read in progression. So you got to do the same thing. But now just with your fingers. Right. You know, and you gotta put time in it. You can't just play it one time, once a week practice, and it takes a lot of energy, hours putting in, just like if you were a football player, a baseball player here, a basketball player, a track athlete, putting that time in. It takes that dedication too to say, you know, unless you just know, okay, I'm gonna just be a casual gamer, but yeah, then your expectations are casually. So, but if you're talking about, hey, I want to beat everybody in my neighborhood and eventually I want to be a professional and make money off of it, well, you gotta get into it just like I got into football. I gotta start early, gotta wake up early, gotta hit the weight room, then I gotta go home and run some, uh, do some conditioning, I gotta learn how to cast the football, learn how to hold on, five points of pressure, all that stuff. So it's the same commitment. And like, and I'll go into the next uh genre of game, it's like a first-person shooter, so FPS. Like, when I started coaching it, that's when I've gotten a little, I dug a little deeper into it because it was just learning, not just learning how to shoot with a controller, but obviously there's mouse and keyboard, and it's actually a little bit faster. You know, some argue it's a that's a great debate between you know FPS shooters with controllers, FPS shooters with mouse and keyboard. Great debate. Um it's more it's more of a preference, you know, in my opinion, but if you're good at one, stick with it and go with it if you're gonna go pro. But if you're gonna be casual, you can mess around with it, see what, you know, see what uh what you like. But it's also still a training style to that. Because what's funny is I got a training module from one of my assistant coaches where I was working at Nebraska to track my eye my eye tracking. So it's this one app I do that's on uh the on YouTube. If you go on YouTube, it got eye training modules that you could search on YouTube. So I you basically following the ball and popping, it's popping on the screen left and right. So I do that, and I started doing AIM labs and easy, and and it was Aim Lab and Easy Easy Aim. Two apps where you could either program aim training bots or they'll give you ones that's already pre-made. You could go on there and it only takes, like any warm-up, 10 to 20, 30 minutes. As much time you didn't in a warm-up, then you could go into a Call of Duty match, a Fortnite match, a Halo match, or Valorant match, and then my my KDA, trust me, I'm I'm sitting in Call of Duty, even though it's just casual. I'm not in rank yet. I'm in casual, but my call my uh KDA, which is my you know, kill to death assist and assist, my KDA is like one 1.5 right now. And so most pros are at a one, but I'm in casual ranking right now, so that so don't don't don't just don't don't judge me off of that. Don't be like, oh my god, you're really good. No, I'm just in casuals, not in ranked yet, but I'm gonna start ranked this week to see where I land, you know. But that dedication, that knowing that you gotta do that, because I played against pros in Madden, I played against pros in Call of Duty, and trust me, it's a world of difference. Exactly. So when I and so when people, if somebody played me in football, when I was probably at my prime, it was a big difference. When like, okay, now I see what the football. And now so I played with Call of Duty plays like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

That's a pro.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

That's a pro. I was like, I could barely get I I my KDA, I'm like negative, and he's like positive five. So, okay, there is a difference. Because you know, it's just a different way you you you you train your hand-eye coordination, it helps you um get better, and then you don't even, there's no type of anxiety there because you know where you're going with your shots.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Yeah. Well, I mean, speaking of overlap in communities, right? I mean, the military community, veteran community is huge gamers, right?

SPEAKER_04 13:08

Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

I'm sure do you come across vets or people in the military and your your your fan base?

SPEAKER_04 13:15

I used to do um an event called Pro vs. Joe's. Okay. So I have a friend, I don't know if y'all ever crossed path with him. He doesn't do it anymore, um, but his name is Greg Zion. Okay. And he worked with all the mil all the Army bases across America where he would part, he partnered, pretty much partner with them. He would reach out, and for whatever NFL team or major league baseball team, and I think maybe NBA that was near the base, he would invite a couple of the pro athletes to the base, and they were sit and play whatever game the veteran picked. And what was crazy, a lot of the veterans picked Call of Duty.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

And I would I would have thought the other way because they obviously y'all were living it, you know, but that's what I found out. A lot of the veterans were playing Call of Duty.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:58

You know, every now and then a Madden player would show up or a FIFA would show up. But the majority, and I was like, well, I would. They were like, why? Well, I would think y'all wouldn't, because y'all living that real life. Like we live Madden, but Madden to playing, not playing, but being in the Army was is, you know, as we know, it's serious. So it was like, oh, like, no, we still like to play Call of Duty, you know. So I was like, oh, so that was that was a subtle surprise for me. Yeah, yeah. But that was great, that's what Greg did, and I I joined him. He he did an event with the um with Washington. I flew out for that event. He did it with the Seahawks one year. And so I was able to go there and support, and I think that was it. I did two events in one year. So that was but then and then but to see the the military uh crew going out there and having fun, having a good time was always good to see.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Yeah, no, it's uh it's very much like a part of the fabric of I mean, especially when you're deployed, you know, in the in the downtime that you might have. I mean, it is there's always some form of gaming going on. Um and I think for a lot of people, I mean it is it is a release, right?

SPEAKER_04 15:00

It's a means of hundred percent release.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Taking your mind off of other things and being able to kind of focus on something else. And so I think a lot of a lot of vets and people on active duty get a lot of, you know, kind of uh they get a lot out of that, right? In the kind of gaming world.

SPEAKER_04 15:13

So yeah, because went from uh that's what the mom, that's what the parents, you know, the families that would come into events, the the dad or the mom would play with us, but then the kids are there running around having a good time, right? Mixing with other families that also deployed with their mom or dads just getting back home so they we could see that. You know, they're kind of reuniting and just kind of letting their hair down, having a good time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

Well, do you do you have any family that served in the military? Or close friends?

SPEAKER_04 15:39

Oh, yeah, I've had close friends, family. So I had where where could I start? I'll start with my on my mom's side of the family, uh great uncle Buck, he was naval. Okay. Um, I'm gonna say one war two. Okay. Yep. Um, and then come back into present time. My uh my dad, he he was in reserves for a little bit. And then um, and I'll say not quite military, but it's still a force. My my older brother, Jerry, he was in the police, he was a police officer for 24 years in Omaha, Nebraska. Okay. And then my other brother, Nikki, he was also in the army. So he was in the army for, I think about eight years. He did most of his time up in Seattle in a Lewis base McCourt, uh McCord up there. Um, and then my and then another cousin, four, three, four years younger than me, he did eight tours of Iraq. Wow. Um, and his last tour was 2008. Okay. And as soon as he got out and he was able, he was okay mentally and physically. He still, he still was working, I think he works with soldiers now, you know. I think dealing with PST, S T and all that. But he got away, he got right, he got done, was okay, was ever and started his family. So now I would say his kids, he has two boys and a girl, and they're I think they're teenagers now. Because I say, like I said, he right retired in 08 and he got making kids right away. He was ready for that because he was done. You know, he was done, you know, traveling the world, going to protect us for, you know, and serve, serve us, serve our country. So when he was done, and and when I and when I when I say eight tours, everybody was like, what? He did eight tours? And I to me it wasn't, he was like, oh yeah, I'm going for it. He just made it like it was nothing. Yeah. I'm yeah, I'm hey bro, hey, cuz I'm going for another tour. I'm like, okay, man, you know, be safe, you know. And I I just and I never, never not thought I would not talk to him again. Yeah. You know, that was one thing I always thought. I was like, oh, I can't wait until we talk again. You know, keep that positivity up. Because I know, you know, I had a brother that was a cop. And now one of my cousins that I grew up with was in the military. So it's like you you know what they were facing, but you just gotta, you know, this reality and and live with it, but also know that stay at stay ahead of the game, be like, hey, I'm gonna see you again, no matter what.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

100%. Well, uh, Military 250, I mean, what we're doing is we're celebrating this year, is actually the 250th birthday of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. And so it's a little fun fact that a lot of Americans aren't aware of, and so thank you for your family service and um everything that they've done. And we are um we are using this kind of celebration of the military's birthday to inspire you know all Americans, but especially the veteran military family community, to find new ways to serve again. So honor the service of people from before us by our own service moving forward. So that's what it's all about. And yeah. Well, uh I'm uh thank you so much for making the time to chat. No problem and uh before we go, I gotta ask, uh, well, first off, where can where can people find more information about your your podcast and gaming and all that sort of stuff?

SPEAKER_04 18:41

We'll do, we'll do. So uh for I say Alumni Media Network, so it's alumnymedia network.com. And for all the former athletes, professional or college, um, you can find the AML, so am e-lesports.com. That's the landing page and a registration form for um for the league. And if you're in town in New Orleans for tomorrow's event, is at the Sheraton here in um French Quarter, 500 Canal Street from 12 to 8 p.m. tomorrow. Um, and then myself, Amon Green's Gamer Lounge, I am on uh Twitch, Amon Green TV, and then on TikTok, Amon Green's Gamers Lounge, and uh I will say X, Amon Green30. So those are all my socials. Love it. You know, where I'm at, streaming once a week on Gamers Lounge, that's every Wednesday at 2 p.m. Okay. And then the Green and Go G Lounge with Gilbert and Dorsey, Gilbert Brown, Dorsey Levins, that's every Tuesday morning at uh 10.30 a.m. So we got our last episode of the season after the Super Bowl, and see we'll find out if Gilbert is not licking the bottom of the barrel in picking games because he's been not doing good in his picks. I'll say that.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

It'll be nice to say that.