Athletes Talk Podcast

Alonzo “AJ” Edwards Jr. | Sam Houston | From Walk-On to NFL | ATP EP 10

• AthletesTalk Podcast • Season 1 • Episode 10

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Alonzo “AJ” Edwards Jr. | Sam Houston | From Walk-On to NFL

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In this episode, AJ Edwards shares his journey from Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College to Sam Houston and what it took to keep advancing at every level of football.

AJ talks about:
• Growing up in Mississippi with two hardworking parents
• His faith in Jesus and how it shaped his mindset
• Walking on at Mississippi Gulf Coast and earning his opportunity
• Transferring from Texas State to Sam Houston
• Preparing for Pro Day and the NFL Draft

This episode is for athletes who want real insight into faith, perseverance, and what it takes to keep pushing when nothing is guaranteed.

#SamHouston #Bearkats #TexasState #GoBobcats #SamHoustonFootball #AJEdwards #AlonzoEdwardsJr #CollegeFootball #NFLDraft #JUCOFootball



SPEAKER_01

God, the reason I can do anything, man, for real. So. Dear Father God, thank you for the opportunity to interview AJ. I kind of was overlooked and like coming out of high school. Man, I'm from Mississippi, man. 601, sip baby, man. You really gotta have your faith in God to like just to do anything. You see, like you growing up around seeing people work hard all the time, you're gonna that's just gonna be a steel and you to work hard. I remember like when my dad used to work at Domino's, like I remember him coming home late at night with pizzas for us for like me and my brother and my sister going to, because my mom still really talks. I remember seeing my mama get out the car, put signs in the yard, like she's like proper 14 versus 23, like all mere talk just leads to basically nothing but hard work. Hard work is just basically all do my mom and give my all in the shout out to Mr. We Go Coach. The workouts were what like do go work out. So like coaching do, like we like this to this day. Um, like I say, I'm just I'm gonna work, I'm gonna work hard to do the best version of myself driver. I put like all my codes on there, and just like they wasn't happening at the top that I wanted them to happen, but like it was crazy because like I wanted it to happen what to happen to like our top is what happened to that, okay. So I like you know two case, okay? And I like doing my fish, okay? Oh, it's not your fit. And I think that's probably the greatest advice because I I look at everything now like you know, if somebody show you, if somebody told you that they this type of weight, then they that type of way. My brother and my sister, okay, they inspire me to keep going. My girlfriend, they inspire me to keep going. My mama, my dad, they inspire me to keep going. Uh I want to make sure they have my people straight. Yeah. And then my people, people straight. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome back, everybody, to ATP Podcast. I'm Kaito Eche, your host here with your boy AJ Edwards, man. Today's gonna be a great interview. Um, please tap in and watch the full thing. Subscribe, like, um, comment, and share. We really do appreciate it. Let's go ahead and start this podcast off with some prayer. Dear Father God, thank you for the opportunity to interview AJ, to share his story out with the world and um impacting the younger generation. I pray that uh you really work through him and you you tell the stories, uh, you inspire him to tell the stories that will reach the younger generation and help them out, Lord. Um we also pray for um him and his future and whatever he decides to do from this point on. Play football, NFL, um, and we just wish him all the best. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Alright, Athletes Talk Podcast. Thank you for being on the show. I appreciate it. I ain't gonna lie. I appreciate the time and everything. I know you're a busy guy, but uh appreciate you being on the show. So let's get off with uh let's start off with you know questions about faith. You know, like how do you think uh God um played a a role in you know your athletic career up until now?

SPEAKER_01

I pretty much say God, the reason I can do anything, man, for real. So my story just coming up, like I was a dog in high school, so like I had I made all the plays that you can really think of. I did almost everything. And I kind of was overlooked and like coming out of high school. Okay. So it kind of was just like you really gotta have your faith in God to like just to do anything that you want to do in life. So I kind of was like, I was on the on the verge of really just like being done with football because it's like I don't got no offer, so it's like what like what am I gonna do? So I was just like, I just gotta pray. I had all my faith in God and I just knew like he'll always just bring like bring me through. Okay. So for sure I always gotta have faith in God. Got you.

SPEAKER_00

Where where are you originally from? Tell the people where you're from, you know? Man, I'm from Mississippi, man. 601 sit baby, man. Okay, okay. Well, what city is that?

SPEAKER_01

Like uh going south, like I don't know anything about I'm I'm in like central Mississippi, so I'm like in the glut state area. Okay. Where everybody knows Jackson, Mississippi, so when people ask, I just say I'm from Jackson, Mississippi, because everybody knows the capital of Mississippi.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, bad. Do you have a favorite Bible verse uh that you know kept you going through your career and whatnot? Uh I got it, I got it tatted on me, man.

SPEAKER_01

It's actually right here. I got C Proverbs 14 verse 23. Okay. And it basically just says that like all mere talk just leads to basically nothing but hard work. Hard work is just basically leads to everything. Like you can do everything if you just work hard. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00

Like talk is cheap, kind of like, you know. Let your actions speak louder than your words. Gotcha, okay. So tell me how you first got into football, man. Like, what was that experience like? You remember back then?

SPEAKER_01

So I got into football because of my appearance, my mom and my dad. Okay. It might be more, yeah, I can't say apparent because they be they be like, I'll put you in this way. I'll say, uh, I got put in football by my parents when I was six years old, and it was introduced to me as like just flag football. So, you know, just playing football with two flags on your on your backside or on your hips or whatever, and just running around with the ball and then just letting people take the flag. And then I remember when I turned eight, my dad was kind of like, like, we're gonna put you in tackle football. And me initially, I didn't want to play tackle football because I'm like, I don't want to get hurt. So like I'm like, I don't really want to do it, but I just I did it, and then it kind of resolved like to the love that I have for the game ever since then. So now I just, it's something that really I can't live without. Like just being around the sport, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay, bad. Um, when did it become real for you? Like what I know you said that you were underlooked, but when did it become like maybe there was a moment that started you you started getting serious attention? Um what changed?

SPEAKER_01

What changed, like just my mindset of football? I'll probably say um around like my sophomore year of high school is when I kind of really just started taking it serious and just like actually like just putting it in work and just knowing that I could actually go for like far in football. Because when I was in, when I was in ninth grade, my parents kind of told me like like you either gonna choose basketball or football because like we're not gonna be driving all around coming to pick you up. Because I was at I did every sport that you can think of, yeah. And so um my sophomore year, I kind of got back into football because my ninth grade year, I just I was like, I'm just gonna play basketball. So I quit playing football. Tenth grade year, I came back and I played, and I will I I made a bunch of plays, and so I was just kind of like, I'm gonna actually take football seriously and I'm like, if I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna give my all in it. And then I was making a bunch of plays, and so I always just looked up to people like people that was already in the NFL, and I was like, I'm gonna be like them. So I just took it serious from that point on. Sophomore year.

SPEAKER_00

You think it was like sophomore summer? Like, um, is there a summer that you look back and like, man, that summer we worked our tail off or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01

Like uh, I wouldn't say a specific summer or the like the specific just season, because I always been like the a person that was gonna work. So, like, regardless if it was football, basketball, like anything, I was I was the type of kid, like if I got in trouble, like my parents would tell me, like, you're not gonna go outside, like you can't, you're not gonna play football, you're not gonna do this. Like, they'll take the sport away from me because I really didn't too much care about like phones and all that type of stuff. Like, I really never really like just cared about that stuff. I cared about like the sport that I played. And so I just got so like caught up in that that it was just like that was my that was my everything for real. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Did you have um a breakout season like in college? A breakout season?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Uh I'd probably say when I was in JUCO, not I didn't really have a breakout season in JUCO, but I I like I was a good player. Okay. But like that comes back to faith, like having faith in God to just get me out of JUCO and to get me to where I'm now, where I'm at now. But and I say my I say my first year at Texas State was probably like my my breakout season because it was kind of like I had like I had a point to prove to a lot of people, and uh, it was just like like I got no offers out of high school and I wanted to show everybody that I could play on that level. Like any level I play on, I just feel like I could play with anybody. Gotcha. So that I say probably my first year was like my breakout year for real. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Like I wanna now I want to hear about what it means to that that sense of like, oh shoot, what am I gonna do? Because what people don't realize is that you walked on, not to a D1 program, you walked on to a JUCO. Like, not many people are gonna do that. Yeah, facts. Was that was that Juko around here or where was that Juko at? Uh Mississippi.

SPEAKER_01

It's Mississippi Gulf Coastal. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna forever rep that school because they gave me the opportunity when nobody else really wanted to. Yeah, Mississippi Gulf Coastal. Shout out to Mississippi Gulf Coast, man.

SPEAKER_00

I bet, I bet. Um, I you know, I remember watching an interview about with Tank Dell in it, and he was talking about some Juko horror stories, roaches, like you got any horror stories you want to tell?

SPEAKER_01

Uh any Juko stories? Uh I don't got no crazy Juko stories because like my Juko, like, yes, we were Juko, but like we won like the year before I got there, they won a national championship, and like we, so they had a lot of nice, like a lot of stuff that was getting built up. Yeah, so it wasn't really like we had the workouts were were like Juka workouts for sure. But like all the other stuff, like facilities-wise and all that, like, yeah, we we had like great facilities. Uh like the dorms was nice. I I will say it was one time when we was like in the um, we was in the dorms, man. And it's like when I first got to my Juka. I'm in the dorms, and I'm like, I'm cold one night, so I'm like, I know the heat is gonna eventually come back on. Yeah. Man, I had I got up in front of the covers. I'm just sitting there and I had like this little heater that my mom had bought me. So I put the heater like on the chair beside my bed, fam. I woke up and it was like, it smelled like the room was on fire because it was so close to my, it was so close to my cover because I was so cold. I woke up, I just got to unplug and everything. But I cannot catch this school on fire. Yeah. But nah, that my uh my true co was, it was good though. Like we got we had everything like nice, we had nice everything for real.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Can we go more into specifics on like how um you reached out to coaches like email, Twitter, all that? Did you put like a video together and stuff like that? Uh little like technical stuff.

SPEAKER_01

I was like, I wasn't the kind of like I say what I really did when I was younger, I knew like I was good, but I didn't kind of think, well, I knew that I was good, but I didn't know like how to really just reach out to coaches. Okay. So what I used to do, and I still got the Twitter, like the messages in my phone, I always go back and look, look, look like at the messages to like just keep me humble. But like I would go to the, I would just look up the school, like the university, and I would just send my stuff to the university. Like I wouldn't send it to the football program. Wait, what? I would just send it straight to the university. So like for instance, LSU, uh, I got it in my phone. I went to their, I found their Twitter page, just the regular LSU page, not the football, nothing. And I just sent them my film. Nobody ever got back to me, but I was just like, I'm trying to get out. Like, I'm gonna send it to Eddie Know. So yeah. But I didn't really too much just reach out to coaches and stuff, but um I was just the type of person, like I posted, I posted a lot of my stuff on Twitter all the time. Like, and I was kind of like a do-all athlete, so I would post like my football, my football clips, my basketball clips, like, and I used to do like a bunch of like crazy backflip football catches and all that. So I would post stuff like this. So yeah, I would just do that to at least try to get attention from people. Right.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so what about when you hit the transfer portal? Like, I know you said you you got what what class were you in? Uh I graduated in 2020. 2020. So that means the transfer portal wasn't as crazy as it is now.

SPEAKER_01

Nah, it was it went as crazy because all the NIL stuff wasn't like really just popping. Like, I mean, at the at the time when I first got to Texas State, like they was talking about it, but it wasn't like in full effect. And then my second year, that's when it really started to like, when like after a season, everybody was going into the park and all that yeah. So what what do you think helped you get from JUCO to Texas State? Oh, what helped me get from JUCO to Texas State, I say just the amount of work that I put in every day, like, well, God first, he was the main reason. But I say like outside of that, like just putting in work every day, and then just just like being dedicated to being just the best version of myself that I could. And also, um uh I say my coaches too. Did they help you like reach out to the coach? Yeah, like my Juco coaching, like Coach McDougall, like we like this to this day. Cause he would he would like he would reach out to coaches, like he'll tell everybody, like, hey, like, like this is a dual worker, and like all he would used to tell me is you get you do your part on the field, and I'm gonna do my part to help you get like to where you want to go. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Hope y'all listening. This is real game right here. It's driven real game right here, man.

SPEAKER_02

Come on.

SPEAKER_00

Do you want to talk a little bit about like, you know, um what it was like to play in a Sun Belt conference? Because some people look down upon it, but you know, what would you say to people who like doubt like it's not a competitive or stuff?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I would say any school or any conference that you play in that's not like ACC, Big Team, all this stuff, like this G5 conference. I would say it's not really like it's not a step down because everybody, everybody that's on those levels can play in the SEC. Really, like. Well, it's you gotta you got like a select few that can play in the SEC or like play at a big school or any of that, but I say like just the competition that you're gonna face, like you're gonna face some dogs. I say that. Like, I'll never forget like my first year, um, we played, we played Southern Miss, and it's a dude that's actually from uh Hattersburg, Mississippi. He played, I don't I don't know what team he played for in the NFL right now, but uh his name is Jason Brownley. Jason Brownley, okay. Jason Brownley, and he played at Southern Miss, but like just playing against people like him, and then there was people, it was a dude I guarded from Troy. It was just like every week that you you was gonna have, you was gonna have a matchup. Yeah, like yeah, like I don't even think a lot of people know, but like Tez, uh Tez Johnson, the one that played for the Bucky. I think for the Bucky Series, he played for Ted. Oh no, Ted Johnson played for the Oregon. Yeah, he played in Oregon. Yeah, yeah, Oregon. So Tez Johnson, my first year, he was at Troy. So we played against him, but like he wasn't Tez Johnson at the time. He was just like a he was just a crazy receiver. Like he we had players like that, like they could play in the Sunbelt and then they just transfer and go big time. Okay. So you're gonna play some dogs in the Sunbelt for sure.

SPEAKER_00

So my next question would probably be when you went from Texas State to Sam Houston, is Sam Houston in the Sunbelt Conference too? They had Conference USA. Okay, I was gonna say, if did you ever play Texas State like that?

SPEAKER_01

Well, yeah, we nah we played, but we didn't play them when I was at Sam Houston, but when I was at Texas State, we played Sam Houston. Okay. And we lost to one. Oh man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because I don't like think of thinking about it like, you know, you it's like a rematch, you know, the team that you left to then go back. Maybe I was thinking some crazy story or something. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So um I want to talk a little bit about um when it go when it's when it comes to athletic identity, right? Like, what do you think separates you from other athletes in your sport?

SPEAKER_01

Um, like I say, I'm just I'm gonna work, I'm gonna work hard to be the best version of myself. I'm not, I wouldn't, I'm not gifted to be the tallest person. Like I wasn't gifted to be the tallest, I wasn't gifted to be the fastest, but I know like if I outwork people, then I know like I can I know one thing I can work, I can work to be the fastest, I can work to be the strongest, I can work to do whatever I want. And that's like how I was brought up. Like I was always told, like, you gonna work, like you work what you want for. Okay. So like that always been my mentality, and everything I do, just work hard for it. So do you so your parents instill that? Yeah, because I seem like I grew up and like I remember like when my dad used to work at Domino's, like, I remember him coming home late at night with pizzas for us for like me, my brother, and my sister. I remember seeing like my mama go to work every day and go on it, because my mom she a realtor. I remember seeing my mama get out the car, put signs in the yard, like she she hustling. Like, so it's like if you see like you growing up around seeing people work hard all the time, you're gonna it's just gonna be a steal to you to work hard and you do. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Do you have any type of like family uh like foot like other people in your family that played football at high levels or anything like that? Or you would you say like you're kind of like the alone wolf? I'm a lone wolf. Like the black sheep. Gotcha. Got you. Do you okay? So more about like you playing sports and football. Do you model your game after anybody? Is it like someone that you look up to?

SPEAKER_01

Um when I was younger, I just used to look like because I played running back when I was younger, so I used to look at like I looked at like Marshawn Lynch, like players like that. I would watch players like that when I was younger just because I wanted to be like, I want to be a Marshawn Lynch. Like run through them, yeah, face, yeah, face. Yeah. But like, because when I was younger, like when I got to high school and they moved me to defense, like, I really wasn't just the type of person to just sit here and watch somebody's game because I'm like, I'm a I'm my own person at the end of the day, like I'm not good. Like, and so like uh I was always the type of person, like, I'm gonna play my own game. Like, yeah, I'll watch, I'll watch certain highlights and stuff, but like I wouldn't just sit there and study a person that's in the league's feeling like, nah, nah, I shouldn't be there.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Is there a special routine that you follow on football game days? Like music, I don't know, brushing your teeth upside down, you know, stuff like crazy stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01

I'll be hearing crazy stories. Uh nah, I'm just a I'm just a cool, calm, collected guy. Like I'll take a nap, take a nap before a game, um, listen to my music. You know, I I tell you all the time I love uh NBA. Young boy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'll be like, I'll be like, what what edit do you want this to be about? He said, Young boy, young young boy. I'm gonna oversee you. I'm listening to young boy. Come on.

SPEAKER_01

You said pick a song for young boy. I don't know. Yeah, but I'm gonna uh I just listen to my music. Sometimes I be listening to like some calm music and stuff. I ain't gonna lie. My girlfriend, she really got me like listening to like some some calm like music. So I listen to calm music and stuff now too, but so I try to switch it up every once in a while. Gotcha. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Um, what does a typical training look like for you? Uh what would it have looked like in college versus now, you know, prepping for the NFL draft combat? Um and well, like pro day and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01

I'll say in college, it's like you kind of just like your workouts is just like conditioning. Like you just getting ready, you conditioning, you getting ready for the season, like you're just trying to get your body, you're trying to get your body as best as possible for the season and just to last long, to have durability. But for for now, like training now for the league and just for the pro day, it's kind of it's kind of like now I'm just kind of working on speed, my diet, um, explosiveness. I'm just working on everything that's gonna translate to what I'm gonna have to do on pro day. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, has it been hard these last few like months? Just kind of like, you know, no cheat meals or anything like that, like that type of mindset.

SPEAKER_01

It's hard, but I'm not gonna lie, I had some chicks later other days, so I mean it is what it is, denial, but uh it's not it ain't really been hard. It's just kind of like you just gotta discipline yourself. I'm I'm a disciplined person, so I mean, just a lot of change, a lot of change. It don't really, it don't really too much affect me. Okay. Because I'm I'm kind of used to it with all the moving around and stuff that I've I've been doing all my life. But nah, it ain't it ain't nothing. Do you do you make your own food or do you have like, you know, and deliver? Like, what do you think? Oh no, they give us, they give us uh where I'm training at they give us food every day, so we can get breakfast, lunch, dinner, uh, for the weekends, but everything is gonna be like, it's gonna be healthy. It's gonna be healthy wise. Ain't gonna be nothing just happened?

SPEAKER_00

Ground bison or whatever?

SPEAKER_01

Bison has biting ass, man, bison has.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, can I talk to you a little about um kind of more of a niche thing, you know, like you said, you mentioned NIL and you know, as a new thing and whatnot. What has been your experience with NIL? I mean, you don't have to name any figures or anything like that, but does it change the way the locker room is when you know a guy's making a lot versus someone else who's might not be as popular?

SPEAKER_01

Like how do you mean I'll say when I was at one school, it was kind of like it wasn't a big deal at first, but then like when you like when you heard like the the other player, like what other people was getting, like, yeah, it kind of made a it made a difference in the locker room because it was like it's not something that the team was used to. So it's like you got people saying, like, well, why I'm not getting this, and I'm doing this, and why I'm not getting that. But I try not to, you know, I don't like my dad and my mom always Told me, like, don't do stuff based on money. Like, so I mean, you kind of look at it and be like, eh, like they getting this amount, but it's just kind of like at the end of the day, like, we all trying to get to the league. That's where you that's what the real money is gonna be at. So I mean, it do change like how certain people are getting the locker room. For me, I say no. I didn't really too much really care about what everybody else got going on. But yeah, for some people, yeah, I say it does affect the locker room in some aspects.

SPEAKER_00

Did you first the way it first started is that athletes were getting NIL deals through brands. And now it's more that the actual school pays it, the athlete. Did you experience both or one of those?

SPEAKER_01

Uh when I was at Texas State, yeah, I experienced it like getting paid through the school. Okay. Like just getting people like getting paid or getting like brand deals. Nah, I didn't get that, but it was players on my team that like they would have like NIL deals with like small restaurants and stuff like that around the town and all that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, bet, bet. This the reason I asked is because you know, there's gonna be an athlete that you know watches his back and is gonna be like, Well, how did you do it? Maybe I can do it the same way, you know, that type of thing. Yeah, facts. Yeah, so um this is gonna be a specific question. And I want you to really think about this. Was there a person that you can remember that really, really inspired you or told you that you can do this? Like, I believe in you that poured into you.

SPEAKER_01

Um it's multiple people, really. Okay. So I say first, first I say my parents. Okay. Because it's like, it was days that I felt like I can't even do it no more. And they would be like, hey, like, you just gotta trust God, like keep your best foot forward and just keep working. And then uh I say, my coach from my Juco coach me do the one I told you about, like, he was kind of like the person, like when I was in school and I was at Gulf Coast, he kind of like, he'll bring me in his office, like he would read with me and he would just tell me, like, hey, like, like you doing good. Like, you probably not getting the offers and stuff that you want right now, but like just trust and bleed, like you're doing good. Like, just keep doing what you're doing. And like the talks that me and him had, like, early mornings, late nights, like, he for real pushed me. Like, besides my parents, I say him for sure. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, bet. Now, can you remember a person that said that you weren't going to go D1 or that you weren't good enough? The doubters and haters.

SPEAKER_01

I'm not gonna say no specific names, but yeah, it was, I just, I vividly remember, and it stays in my head to this day. I just know like when I was I was in I was in JUCO and I was just sitting in the hallway one day, and it was me, it was me, uh Coach McDougal and some of like my other teammates, and then some other people, like some other coaches, and uh, and like we was just sitting there and we were just talking, and um one of the one of the people, I'm not gonna say no name, but one of the people just was kind of like, like, you gonna be back next year, like, because like you ain't like I had like a small, I had like a small D3 offer at the time. Okay. He was like, oh yeah, like you're gonna be back next year, you're gonna be back, you're gonna be back. I'm like, I'm not coming back. Like, I know, I know I'm finna get some D1 offers, like I'm not coming back. And then he just kind of told me, like, where you gonna go, and then he named a small school, and I'm like, nah, I ain't gonna go there. I'm just like, but just wait, you're gonna see. And then like the next day I end up getting my first offer to Suthernese. And so it was kind of like, you doubted me, and then like it showed on the back end, like, don't doubt me.

SPEAKER_00

Like exactly. Yeah, exactly. The reason I asked that, because I know what I used to think is that everyone at the D1 level has always, you know, they've been good their entire life, you know, like they've always had it easy. No, no, no, no, no. Even the best player has had had has had a doubter before. No, dude. Any any star you think of, I don't know, one of the biggest stars in the name of football right now, um, let's go freaking Sam Donald, right? I think from uh Seattle Seahawks. This man switched NFL teams crazy. Or Kenneth Walker. He's probably had some doubters too, so it's it's about overcoming the doubters and proving them wrong. Well, not really proving them wrong, but more about like focusing on you. You know, because in the process of focusing on you, their whole whatever they said to you is gonna be is not gonna turn out.

SPEAKER_01

You just gotta you just kind of gotta use it as fuel for real. Like you can't, you can't like you can't just sit there and let it affect you, because if you sit there and just dwell on it, it'll like it'll mess with your mind, mess with your mental. But like, if you go like me, I was the type of person, like, I remember the people like when I was in high school that would tell me like you ain't like you doing all that like for nothing. Like, I remember all that, like, and like I'm the type of person I would go and work out, I would listen to my music, and like them thoughts are always plugged through my head. So I just be like, alright, bit, I'm gonna go hard. Like, when I wanna stop, I just think about like all the people that just be like, like you doing that for nothing, or you doing this, like you're not gonna make it, blase, blase. I just be like, alright, bet, like I'm gonna I gotta prove to myself, but I'm gonna also show y'all too, like, don't doubt me. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Okay, bet. Um I wanna ask now about the mental game. You know, um, when it comes to like writing down goals or you know, affirmation, do you do any of that stuff?

SPEAKER_01

Like, uh, yeah, I do it, I do it sometimes. Like, I say um, like me and my girl last, I think it was last year or two years ago, like we kind of did like vision boards and stuff. Okay. Like we did stuff like that. And then um, I know when I was in, when I was in JUCO, I had, like, right before I had went to my JUCO, like a couple days before I had rope, I had a uh dry race board. I wrote like all my goals and stuff on there, and just like they wasn't happening at the time that I wanted that I wanted them to happen, but like it was crazy because like when I wanted it to happen, it wasn't happening, but like on God's time and it was happening. So like I'm like, I was just scratching out stuff off the board and I scratched off my whole list except one.

SPEAKER_00

Do you do you before like football games, do you visualize yourself backpedaling and like intercepting or something?

SPEAKER_01

I just visualize, I kind of visualize myself just making plays, and then like I kind of just I try to just just ease my mind for real, just try to just go blank, just an easy little center surface.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Yeah. Um what about mental health? You know, we hear so many things, like unfortunately, mental health as an athlete, you know, it's such a huge part with the recent tragedies that have happened, Kyron Lacy, Marshawn, um, I forgot his last name, but the Cowboys, and then, you know, all this other stuff. So do you what what do you do for mental health, man? Like, what how do you manage that?

SPEAKER_01

I kind of just talk, I kind of talk to uh I talk to people, but I kind of like I got a cousin named Brian, and like I talk to him about everything. So like if anybody wanted to know anything about me, you could just talk to my cousin Brian, because he know he knows almost my entire life. But like just having I got him to talk to. I also got other people I can talk to, but like he just a person that I I talk to a lot. And so whenever I am like going through like little mental stump or stumps and all that stuff, like I'll just call him and we just chop it up because it's like I didn't really think like the mental, the mental side of football, like growing up, they used to always say like the game is mental, and just being a young athlete, you kind of look at it as like like nah, like it ain't mental. It's about me being like, I gotta be the fastest, the strongest, jump the highest, all that. But like as you get older, and like especially now, like just being in like this this era of college football, even in the league, like when it's all this money and all this stuff being involved, yeah, like coaches yelling at you, like you make a bad play on film, like you probably gonna think about that all day. So it's like all that stuff, it kind of plays a it plays a big factor into why I actually understand now why people say it's like mental, a lot of mental, like to just even make it to the league is a lot of mental because it's so much stuff that you gotta deal with mentally, and I'm not like I'm not even one of these top guys that's like on the board or anything, but I know that they got a lot of more stuff than what I be dealing with, so I know it's just the mental health side of stuff is you gotta just keep your mental straight. Okay. You gotta have people to talk to. Do you have any hobbies outside of football? Cooking, baking, I don't know, games. I like getting on 2K and I like going fishing. Okay. Oh, it's not you fish. I feel man, okay. Have you found a good place around here? No, I ain't look for no place. I've been just locked in on training right now. Gotcha. Gotcha. But best believe, when I go back to Mississippi, I'm going fishing. When I go back to Houston, I'm going fishing. Man, you gotta teach me. I don't know how to fish at all.

SPEAKER_00

That's nice, that's good. Okay. Um, do you have you have you ever perceived addressing mental health as like a weakness? Because what what I want to do with this podcast is to demystify that. Because people think, you know, if you talk about what's going up on here, you're somehow a sissy or like you're just gonna be. I feel like, you know.

SPEAKER_01

I feel like talking about mental, your mental with people, you gotta, I feel like you just gotta talk, you gotta find somebody that you're real comfortable with. But like that you like that's not gonna look at you a different type of way. Like, I know my cousin Brian, I know my people, like I know if I told them anything about my mental, like, they won't look at me no like any type of way, versus if I go talk to just a random person and be like, oh, like I'm going through this, such and such. Like, yeah, you can give me advice, but like, you feel me? You might look at me a certain type of way. I know the I know the people that's in my circle, they're not gonna look at me a certain type of way if I tell them like I'm doing mentally and stuff. So I don't feel like you shouldn't look at it as no weakness, especially like how you see people going and stuff now today, like all the stuff that they be doing, but I feel like you shouldn't look at it as like a weakness or anything. Okay. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00

Can I talk to you about um what it means for you to do this for your family? Because I mean, I think it's it's it's a blessing, but it's also well I think it's pressure, but it's also a blessing to do, you know, to go through this NFL process and whatnot. What do you think, what do you want to say to someone watching this that is close to you?

SPEAKER_01

Uh I just say appreciate y'all for always for supporting my dreams, man, for real. Okay. They know how I feel about how I feel about it. Everybody, I think all my people did. Everybody that's in my circle that I talk to on a day-to-day basis, they know how I feel about them. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Well, how have your parents like told you like how proud they are? Like, man, like you came from here all the way up to the world. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

They tell me all the time. I be looking at it though, I kind of look at it as like like they see it and like other people see it from the outside looking in, like, like you wouldn't accomplish so much, but I be feeling like I don't really accomplish, I ain't accomplished a lot. I feel like only way I feel like I accomplish a lot is like if I actually just sit back and just like look at it from the bigger picture. Yeah. But I kind of like to live in the moment. Like I don't really like to just sit there and like look at it all and just be, I just feel like I still got I still got a lot of stuff I gotta do. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, what is the greatest piece of advice someone has given you? The greatest piece of advice somebody has given me?

SPEAKER_01

Mmm, I say, uh, I say, well, my granddad, my granddad told me like literally not too long ago, is when I was back at home. He was like, if it walk like a duck and it cracked like a duck, it's a duck. I say that's probably the greatest advice, because I I look at everything now, like, if somebody show you, if somebody show you that they this type of way, then they that type of way. If they don't, if they show you that they genuine, then they genuine. I kind of look at it like this. Like I feel like that advice, it was like we was just joking around, but I feel like that was some good advice. I'm pretty sure I got some other stuff that I'm talking about, yeah, I'd probably say that. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Well, what advice would you give to a younger athlete trying to get recruited right now? Like if they were in the in the trenches right now, like no, no one knows their name, what would you say?

SPEAKER_01

Um, I say keep your faith in God and just continue to work. You just gotta, you gotta know, like at the end of the day, you just gotta, if you work, it's gonna all pay off. Okay. That's why what the Bible says, faith without works is dead. So I always say, if faith without works is dead, if you got faith and you work, you don't know what you can do. You can do anything you put your mind to. That's true. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00

Alright. Um, if you only had the next 60 seconds to leave a message to the world, to the whole entire world, tuning into AJ TV right now, what would you leave, what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_01

Um I got 60 seconds. I'll probably say um just keep your faith in God and just enjoy life for real. That's what I say. Okay, bad. And do you have any questions for me? Uh how did you get into the camera or into the videography?

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so for me, man, I picked up the camera my senior year. Um, well, I picked it up before then, but I really only took it seriously my senior year. This was birthed out, which was my I graduated from high school in May of last year. So um this was birthed out of the fact that I I felt like I actually wasn't getting recruited. Yeah. I was I had one D3 offer. You played football? No, uh, yeah, it was actually a football offer. I had okay, I had two D3 offers, one for football, one for track. And so I was like, man, I'm not getting recruited. Well, I'm gonna start recording myself, I'm gonna start recording me talking to people, things like that. So that's how I got started, that's how I did it. Um, nobody was there when I went to a small school, it's actually like 10 minutes down from here, but I went to a small school, we didn't have anybody to help us out with that type of stuff. Yeah, right? So I was just like, okay, I'm gonna do it myself. I learned how to edit, learn how to shoot, learn how to do all this stuff. Oh, yeah. Um that's what got me started. But the podcast in specif specifically was because I wanted to help other athletes like me, but for free. Yeah. When I was trying to get recruited, there's this thing called NCSA or whatever. Dude, they wanted you to pay like a thousand a month. Oh, for real? And we I wasn't gonna pay a thousand a month. So I needed something that was free that would give me real advice, and so that's why I started this. It was basically, you know, I saw a problem, I I knew I could make a solution, and that's how I got into this, but that's that's really it. Um you gotta do. Yeah. Um if if I were to make an edit, right? What song would it be like? Could you sing the lyrics of the song? You know like how they do like you start singing a little bit of the song and then it the edit? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh alright. I'll probably say 38, baby. Okay. You want me to sing it? Yeah, sing it like maybe like two on. No, man, crazy. So don't try to play me on 38, baby.

SPEAKER_00

Alright, yeah, it's gonna flash into an editing. That's my song right there. Gotcha. I got you. So I do have a couple questions about your pro day. So I I don't know how this whole thing works. I just know that there's an NFL combine, okay. You get yourself an agent. Off those numbers, your agent takes those numbers and starts talking to coaches or whatever, they pull you in for a meeting. But for you, since you didn't get, since you didn't go to Indiana, what does that look like for you?

SPEAKER_01

Uh it's kind of, I mean, it's kind of like the same thing. It's just it's just a product. Okay. So it's kind of the same, it's the same process, just not on the on the national platform. That's how it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Are you gonna have your draft party in Mississippi? Or do you think it's gonna be here? Oh. Alright, uh Mississippi, man. I told them I'm having it at my grandma's house. Okay, man, that's gonna be tough. That's gonna be tough. Hopefully, you don't do this CD lamb. You know that, you know that library.

SPEAKER_01

I ain't gonna grab no phone. I ain't got nothing to hide in here, ain't nothing number.

SPEAKER_00

Um, no, I didn't mean it like I just meant it like that. It was just a funny book. No, I knew it was like that. Um what else was gonna ask? What's the difference between I feel like now I'm just doing a random question. But um, what's the difference between high school, Juco, D1? Uh high school, like, what you like, what in what aspect? I don't know, like uh competition aspect? Competition, like you, you know, you could be athletic and you still get all the attention. D1, everyone's athletic. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

I say juco. I say like in the competition aspect, high school, you can kind of get away with like being like super athletic. Because like a lot of people high, some people in high school just playing because their parents don't play. Pretty much. Some people because they that's their only way out. Some people playing because they love the sport. So uh I say high school, yeah, you can just get away with it. Juko, um, Juko, I can I say like you kind of got like a it's like a mixture of high school and division one because yes, you got some teams that you can play if you're super athletic, then you can get away with it, but like you also got them teams that you're gonna play, like if your technique and stuff ain't right, then this guy is a D1 player too. So I mean, you gotta you got both aspects in in the uh Juco world. And in D1, just being a D1 athlete, you gotta be on top of it every day. You gotta put in work, like you gotta put in work at any level, but you gotta really put in work. Um, you gotta do, you gotta be extra in the film room, like you gotta just just do stuff that other people not willing to do for real. Okay. That's what you gotta do when you D1 trying to make it to the league.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Tell me about like how it was with like the fans and like the school taking care of y'all. Like, y'all had your own meals, you had your own space, like what was that like?

SPEAKER_01

Uh I refer back to Texas State. Uh I say it was like how our how our atmosphere was at Texas State, it was crazy. Like, especially when Coach Kenny came in. Okay. Like, Coach, when Coach Spave, when we had Coach Spawdle, our fan base was crazy. Like, we had a lot of fans and stuff come to the games, but we wasn't really winning a lot. Like, we didn't win as many games as what I did when Coach Kenny got there. We went to a bowl game our first year, like he had this, like we had the crowd packed out every home game. And then um, just the fool-wise, we was getting fair good. Yeah, we had good. I was thinking about like, I say, we used to have like um sometimes Texas Roadhouse. Uh we had Chick-fil-A, we had Canes, like we had we had a whole bunch of different stuff when I was at Tex State. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Alright. Tell me, tell me something that most people wouldn't know about you by looking like maybe you're you're you're left-handed or you can play guitar or something like something unique like that. You can sing, I don't know. Something that people don't know about me? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I can't tell them that one. Uh uh. I'll probably say I'm a crazy dunker. Oh, for real? Yeah, like I can probably do any dunk that you can really think of, I can probably do. Beach Bay, Tomahawk. I can do all that. Man, that's crazy. Like, probably. What's the one behind the like Under the knee both days? I did that when I was in 10th grade. I got the video in my phone. Yo. I've been doing, hey. I'm a crazy dunker. Crazy dunker. So like basketball was like your first love, you think? Uh, I wouldn't say basketball is my first love, but I'll probably say it was like, it was something that involved me and being around my family a lot because all my family played basketball. Okay. Well, matter of fact, yeah, you know what's crazy? Like, I just thought about it. My granddad played basketball in college. Oh, snap. So I'm not the first, I'm not the black sheep. Okay. He's the black sheep. So he was the one that paved the way.

SPEAKER_00

So, hey, we give a shout-out to granddad. Okay, if you had to leave a question for the next guest on the show, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01

Um a question for the next guest. I'll probably say. What inspires you to keep going? Okay, that'll be my question for the next guest. Okay. And what inspires Okay, now you answer that question. What inspires me to keep going? Man, uh, let me show you. Wait. What inspired me to keep going is them right there. Who is that? My brother and my sister. Okay. They inspire me to keep going. Uh my mama, my dad, they inspire me to keep going. Uh my girlfriend, she inspired me to keep going. Like, she's gonna always tell me to keep doing what you're doing. They're gonna always tell me keep doing what you're doing. But my family, because I wanna make sure, like, I wanna make sure that my people straight, yeah, and then my people people straight. Okay. Alright, man, I think we're pretty, I pretty much we're wrapped up. Post here with your boy AJ Edwards, man. That's good. Alright.

SPEAKER_02

Appreciate you.

unknown

Yeah.