Second Glance – Episode 6: Sam Salz

Sam Salz is a Texas A&M walk-on whose path to the SEC was defined by an unprecedented lack of traditional experience. Despite never playing a single snap of high school football, he earned a spot on the Aggie roster, becoming a rare example of pure persistence over pedigree. Throughout his collegiate career, Salz balanced the physical demands of elite Division I athletics with his identity as an Orthodox Jew, maintaining strict Sabbath observance and religious commitments while navigating the culture of a powerhouse football program. His story is less about the game itself and more about the discipline required to stand by one's convictions in an environment where they are rarely tested.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

And I practiced taking the handoff and I set up I set up a whole offensive line out of trash cans. And it smelled really bad. He calls you, he's like, listen, dude, I feel like I've been humoring you. Um, I just have to get this off my chest. I talked to someone today. They say you're not gonna be able to make the football team. They don't think it's gonna be possible. No one's ever made this football team and not played not played in college in high school. He's like, I just feel like I've been lying to you to you. Like, I just want to get it off my chest so I don't feel guilty. And he grabs me and he throws me out, and he's like, You're done. Like, you're done. Just stand over there, you're done. And I posted the photo that's now, you know, was on the cover of the sports page, sports uh section in the New York Times.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Today's guest had never played a noun of organized football until he put on a Texas AM jersey. He did it with just 11 months of training himself in the dirt outside of the practice facility, using trash cans as linemen, until he finally forced his way onto the roster. As the first Orthodox Jewish player in SEC history, he's had to balance the grind of D1 football with his faith, wearing the number 39 to represent the categories of work forbidden on the Sabbath, working with the team chefs to stick to kosher, and only able to stoot up for kickoffs after sundown in respect of the Sabbath. From a student in the stands with a crazy idea to a featured story in the New York Times. This is Sam Sells at a second glance.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

So I grew up on second and south with my mom in an apartment building. And that's really what life was like for at least my first four years. My mom had gotten married to my stepdad. And so, my background on me, my family's from the Soviet Union, my mom's family came from Latvia, my dad's family came from Uzbekistan, and culturally, obviously, things are like very, very different, right? My mom, my mom came to America with her mom. Her mother got remarried to the man who I called, you know, I called grandpa. He was the one who raised me. He was the son of a pretty wealthy uh American art dealer. And he pretty much he adopted my mom when he married my grandma. And so my my story really starts off there. I grew up, I grew up with my mom, and eventually my mom and I move in with my grandparents, and due to some financial struggles, 2008, other things, we go from living in a big house to a smaller apartment in Philadelphia, right? And then from that apartment to a smaller apartment, and then from that apartment to another apartment. So I really moved around a lot. And I I find in like this situation, I think, I think God really saved me because you know, I was I was an only child, you know, to a mom and a grandmother who, you know, came from Soviet Union. Especially with my grandmother, I was I was pretty much like a prince, you know. Um when we were, you know, we were more wealthy and whatnot, especially like I used to eat, I used to eat my dinner in bed, like it used to get brought to me, and then being forced to move from my childhood home, uh, being forced to you know look through the struggles of financial loss at at that pretty young age, I think really shaped me in the scope of work ethic. Uh, but more than it taught me about what I what about the world, it taught me about faith. It taught me about about how God puts you into every situation and it's for you, right? Like you have to live with this consistent, and it's hard, you have to live with this consistent um lack of victim mentality, right? You have to have the the victim mentality that everything happens to me happens for a reason. Everything happens for my for my development, everything happens for me to become better and for me to accomplish something. And you know, in Judaism, there is an interesting quote where I believe it's from the Talmud, where someone says, uh Rabbi said, he said, you know, every person should live as if the world was created for them. They should say, I think, like, the world was created for me.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

So how did how did the kid from Philadelphia end up in College Station, Texas?

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Was when we were in school, right? Now, we were in school during lunch, and a lot of the kids, a lot of the um, like the the kids in my class whose whose dads like ran Yeshivans and stuff like that, they were very, very into sports, you know, very into basketball, very into football and whatnot. And I walk in one day and they're watching Dude Perfect on the screen. Right? On the screen. They're watching Dude Perfect stereotypes, which like I thought was the greatest thing in the world because I thought they were hilarious. But then, you know, I went home, I started watching their trick shot videos, and I fell in love with Dude Perfect. It became my favorite YouTube channel. Like there was a point in time, I think around when I was in high school or something, I probably had watched almost every single video that Dude Perfect put out. And I remember coming across one of their older videos with Travis Labhart, who was a uh wide receiver for Texas AM. Um I've I'm I'm going to mess up the years. I feel like it's around 2014. Um, so they they had put out this video where Travis Labhart's training for the draft. And I realized in that video, I'm like, oh, they what's this like logo that they have on their hats? And it's Texas AM. And so that was kind of always in the back of my mind. But then forward to me deciding where I wanted to look at college. I'd watched this documentary on Dude Perfect when uh during COVID. And I remember being amazed at these people about about like what type of role models they were, you know, who you know, who were men of faith, right? Men of family, who, you know, who went forward though, like who accomplished something pretty, pretty remarkable. And I I looked into like each of their biographies and I and I was really, really impressed. I was like, these are real, like, these are real role models. These are not people of character, you know, you don't really see that a lot of time with youtuber, youtubers. And so I I because of them, I looked into Texas AM. And Texas AM had everything that I wanted, right? It had you know a beauty, like a very unique former student base, very alumni base. And then like above one of the other things that was like above all else, when I looked at Texas AM, I went and I visited the Jewish community and I saw something very unique. But my mom goes to the rabbi, she's like, So how come you guys don't have more Orthodox students here? And he's just like, Well, it's kind of my fault. Like, what are you talking about? He's like, Well, whenever you know they come here, I just tell them not to come. Because what happens is when Orthodox kids come here, it's such a big party school, right? If they come, they tend to just drop everything for four years. And so, like, that that's just the nature of college. That's what happens. That's what what that's what it is on a social level. And so I go to Texas AM, and the place is completely different. Like, there's like this energy in the air. I couldn't, I could something I couldn't really put my place on. But the reality of Texas AM is it's a very faithful place. And so I I there was something about it that that just instantly drew me to it. And especially when I went to the Jewish center, the Chabad at Texas AM, I noticed something completely different. And that was people became religious there. And and that was something that was like so different and so unique to me that I just fell in love with the place. The thing was, I didn't get into Texas AM. I got into this program called PSA, which is program for system admission, which was where I had to go to one other campus for a year and get the good grades so I could automatically transfer in. And so when it came down to like this, you know, signing day or whatever, decision day for colleges in May, it's like the first week of May. I ended up picking between Texas AM and Ursinas College in Pennsylvania. So you're talking about like a school with 70,000 people, massive school, versus a small liberal arts school in Pennsylvania. And in that situation, I really just took the leap of faith.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

What was the plan on coming to Texas? What did you originally want to do at AM and what what were you studying, and what was the plan at the time?

SPEAKER_01 9:10

So I was what happened was I wanted to go to business school, but I didn't get into maze. And when you get into PSA, there's certain programs that you're like you can't go into if you're a PSA student. So you can't go into business. So I had to choose the next closest thing, which was economics. So I went into economics, but when I was younger, I always wanted to be a YouTuber. Like I always wanted, I was always good at that. And I I I I felt like there was something that I was, you know, that I had to do that I was destined to become. But like I had been joking in my head for a while, like, what if I, you know, joined the football team? What if I joined the football team? And then, you know, that kind of stopped when I saw the requirements you were like you must have played varsity football.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

So what did I mean you never played in high school?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Was there a reason for that? Like, here's the thing, like a famous I joke about is like, so Jewish schools don't uh don't Jews don't agree on a lot of things, you know, aside from like keeping the Sabbath and keeping kosher and like you know the very basic tenets of the faith, right? But but it's but how to dress, how to go about your life, like completely different. And so I I I always joke in my speeches, I say, listen, they don't agree on anything. There's one thing they do agree on, and that's that none of the teams have none of the schools have football teams.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

So the school didn't have a football team. So you get to you you do the year with the West Texas online living in college station.

unknown 10:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Would I go ahead and assume that that obviously went well and you ended up getting admitted into the f into the university?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

So yeah, so thank God it did. I had like a I had a 4.0 GPA. Um, so like I I thank God I like aced every glass. I mean you I really had like a chip on my shoulder when I came in. I was like, you know, I was like, I can't believe y'all deny me, but you know, it's all it really is all from God. It really is all from God. Um, because doing that stuff online that gave me a lot of flexibility. But the other thing it allowed me to do was like be a part of that campus culture, which included football. So my first real game was in Kyle Field on a Saturday night. It was against Kent State, and I remember being there and standing at that game with this thought of like, why can't that be me? Like, I can do this. I can do this. And then that's kind of that's where everything that I had been thinking about really came front and center, and I began to really uh explore this idea of making it onto the team. So I'm I I joined flag football in a mural leagues. The thing was I didn't have any cleats, and you know, the guys on the team, everyone played football in high school. I didn't know anything about football, and so that was probably at the end of September, the second week of October, the Chabad at Texas AM has this trip where you go to Crown Heights, New York. It's supposed to be with a lot of other Jewish students from other colleges. We end up going to Crown Heights for this trip. I did school online, so like it wasn't even a big deal for me. In fact, I stayed an extra week in Philadelphia with my family because it was my birthday, and I did I could do school online. I was cool. And so on Sunday when I was leaving to go back take the train to Philadelphia, I get on the train, and I think there was like a homeless dude, or maybe there was just maybe like a random sorry, there's a random dude sitting across me from the train. And I go to the home, I go to him, I was like, You think I could go D1? And he's like sitting like this, looks up at me, he's like, Yeah, why not? So I get to Philadelphia. And I think I had only I think I at some point I had like met my dad. I told my dad my idea. My dad fully supported it. My dad fully supported it, but I took my old soccer cleats, which were like these yellow Nike soccer cleats I bought for 20 bucks when I was a freshman in high school, and I took them back to Texas AM with me. And that's how I started training.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

When your research, when you started researching what it would take to get on the team, the timelines, the steps you had to take. What went into that and how maybe this isn't the right way to word it, but was it demoralizing when you saw the varsity football experience required? I mean, how did that pivot your plans or your confidence? Because maybe what I should do is I should go watch tryout.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Because one, I I never play football, so I don't know what I'm training for. But the second thing is, you know, I don't know what I'm training for, so I should watch, but then if I go and watch instead of just participate, I can meet the people who are gonna be evaluating me and I can build a connection. So I'm thinking I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, it's ironically where I do my best thinking. And I was like, oh, let me just go to the head coach's radio show. Because if it's live, you know, at the very least I'll be able to write in and ask the question, like, what do you look for in a walk on? But at the very most, maybe like I'll get to talk to him or something like that. And so that's what I did. So I actually showed up at the last radio show I could have possibly showed up at for that season. And I go to the radio show, and I remember my thought process the entire time. I said, okay, I'm going to wear blue. Texas AM just lost to Ole Miss, so I'm gonna wear blue, I'm gonna wear Ole Miss's colors. Everyone at the radio show is probably gonna be wearing maroon. So if I wear blue, I'm gonna stand out. I get there at 7.55. I walk up, and I was like, hey, can I write in a question? And it's like, sure. And they gave me the paper, like everything to write, write down the question. I said, No, no, don't worry, I already got it. And I like pulled out like this tiny piece of paper I had ripped out of my notebook and I gave it to them. And I look for a place to sit. There's nowhere to sit. Everything's taken. Except there's two seats left. There are like two spots. Because at Rudy's at Rudy's, there's like uh they're benches. It's uh they're like they're like picking tables, they're benches. And I pick a bench to sit down on, and it happens to be the only thing available was at the table that was reserved for Texas AM athletics. And they let me sit there that time. And they were really nice, like I kind of BS with them. You know, it wasn't like coaches and stuff like that, it was, you know, just like film crew pro like you know, people who were like part are part of the creative team and film crew and maybe some administrative services, maybe some recruiting services. But you know, I sat down, and in between, I realized in between segments, people were going up to Jimbo to have him sign things. And I was like, oh, oh, this is my chance. Right? So first they asked the question. And so this okay, I'm gonna wait until they asked the question. After that segment, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna talk to Jimbo. And I was like, maybe if I talk to him, like, you know, he'll let me come watch the tryout. Because I mean I put in all the work to get here. So they asked my question. Jimbo gives a great answer. I have it saved somewhere. And after the question, I walk up to him. I'm wearing a baseball hat this time, so I didn't have my yarmulke. And the first thing I do is I look him directly in the eyes, and I muster like all the confidence that I could possibly have because I really truly believe that your confidence is how other people perceive you.

unknown 16:25

Right?

SPEAKER_01 16:26

You have to have strength of like, I am doing this. And I and I look him directly in the eyes. And I said, My name is Sam Sauls. I'm the guy who asked the question, and I'm gonna I'm gonna walk on to the team. And he looked me, and I remember it was like very, I remember this pretty vividly. And he looked me in the eyes, and I could have sworn he said something like I'd be honored, or something like that. And so I take off my so I take off my hat, I take off my yarmulca, and it was my yarmulk from my high school. My high school and AM had the same colors. And um I gave him my yarmulk, I said, can you sign my yarmulca? And I was like, that was a strategic that was actually a strategic move because I I knew if I gave my yamak, first of all, I was like, how many yamakas has AZ signed? Like that's never happened, it never happened before. But I was like, he's never gonna forget me now.

unknown 17:18

Right?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

We're in the middle, we're in the college station, Texas. Like I doubt even, you know, I doubt if Florida State anybody ever had him sign a yarmulca. And so I give my yamaka to sign, I said, Can you sign this? And then I pull this piece of paper out of the back of my phone. And the piece of paper was where I wrote down my goals. I wrote down my goals, but it was folded up. And I told him, This is my my piece of paper, my goals about making another team. I look at it every night before I go to bed, I look at it when I work out, I look at it when I wake up in the morning. Can you sign this? And he put a signature on it. And, you know, for me, you know, Jimbo was something else. Like it, like, like, like I view, I I view him and you know, I view it and view him to this day in very, very high regard. There there was a there's this energy around him. And I remember, you know, when I would after after that event, I would, I would, I would look at my piece of paper whenever I work out, and I, you know, when I go to before I go to bed, and I'm like, I promise Jimbo I'm gonna do something. I'm not gonna let him down. It was like it was like really like it was like, I don't know, you know, so I went back down to my seat and I'm walking out, and this drunk guy pulls up to Rudy's and he's like, hey man, I'm hungry, can you buy me dinner? So we walk in, Rudy's is almost closed. I pay for this guy's dinner, and everyone left by that time except for Jimbo and his assistants. So the guy buy the guy his dinner, he gets his dinner. I go and walk back up to Jimbo. And I was like, hey coach, um, is it okay if I talk to you a little more? And they're like, or or I think maybe his assistant pointed to me, he's like, hey Jimbo, someone wants to talk to you. And so I walk, I I I hey, say, hi, my name is Sam. I was the you know, we talked a little bit earlier. Um I just want to ask you for your advice. If I want to walk on, I told him I kind of like my situation. He asked me where I was from. I said, I'm said, I'm from Philly, Philadelphia. He's like, Oh, we got a couple guys from Philly. And then I asked him, you know, I said, Well, can I come watch the walk-on tryout that you guys have coming up uh in in the winter? And he said, Of course. And he's like, Yeah, yeah, email me in the beginning of January and we'll get you set up to come watch the tryout. And I was like, Great, I have a foot in the door. I I followed him up with him next day. He emailed me, he emailed me back, you know, that's a big deal. And that was kind of the first step towards like, okay, I was like, you know, maybe I'll get a foot in the door this way. Because I was like, the minute you get the foot in the door, you can bust it open. So I I sent an email in January to follow up. I get no response. Send an email the next week, I get no response. Turns out the guy went to Oregon to work. So here I am again. And so instead saying I made the mistake of releasing the location and the time of the tryout publicly. So I just showed up. And I walked up to the registration desk. They asked me for like my info, you know, because walk-on is they have a registration, they have this whole meeting beforehand. I'm like, I'm not here to walk to try out, I'm here to watch. And they're like, oh. They start giving me like the you know, the typical, the, you know, you know, with like lower level assistant BS that you get, that they'll they'll they'll say to, you know, oh, we don't do this, we don't do that. And I whip out the yarmulca with a signature on it. And I throw it on the table. And then I take the piece of paper with a signature on it and put it on the table. And I said, I talked to the head coach, he said I could be here.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

And they just let me in. About to say that I had to throw them for a doozy right there. Right? That had to really catch some off guard.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

So you get in there, what did you take away? So the first thing I did was I wrote down every single thing they did. I took a notebook with me. I wrote down everything they did. It was still COVID, but I write down every single thing. I mean, I'm talking about I wrote down the drills that they did. I wrote down not just the drills, I wrote down what the warmups were. Everything. And I'm standing there, I'm and the assistants, some of the assistants were kind of interesting. I was like, well, who is this guy? Why is he why is he writing stuff down? Some of the guys were trying out, were trying to figure out what I was doing, why I was writing stuff down too, because they had no idea what I was there for. And you know, I shook hands and talked to people. And I got some insight. And I remember this. So this day was it was actually very easy for me. Remember that date. It was my mother's birthday that that tryout was on. And it was Friday afternoon. So I left the facility after the tryout. It wasn't much of a takeaway, honestly. It was much of it was more of like because I found out who made the team like two months later. So it was like there was this big race at the end. They do you, they stick you through fourth quarter drills, and then you do this race at the end.

unknown 22:29

Right?

SPEAKER_01 22:30

It's a 40-yard dash. The winner of the 40 yard dash, you know, the winner of the 40-yard dash makes it. That guy was AJ Denoda. So, winner of the 40-yard dash makes it, and then obviously if you're a big skilled position or sorry, if you're a big big guy, you know, it's it's a little bit of a different metric in terms of grading. So I leave, and as I'm leaving, I notice this field outside of Texas AM's facility, which now is a parking lot because they redid the whole facility. But I noticed this field. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna start training here instead of the polo field because if I train here, you know, hopefully they'll notice me. But I'll get the energy of the place. I'll get to visualize my goals better. You know, I'll uh and that field became like you know, a s a quasi-sacred spot for me almost where I would like go and I would sometimes I would just go there, I would meditate, pray. I mean not like I, you know, we pray pray out in the field, but like not not like I sometimes it was just it became like something, and I would be there, you know, is training from it depends on the day. I started I started I did a couple of things. So like I started going out in the morning and I went out in the afternoon because I didn't know when they practiced, and eventually I pinpointed exactly when they started practice. So I started going out before practice and leaving after practice. And I was training on the other side of the field doing drills and whatnot. And what happened one day was I was training and one of the AM like walk-on quarterbacks at the time, um, what's his name? His name was Jackson Oxney. He was leaving practice and he's like, you know, pass me the rock. So he became my quarterback, and you know, two days a week he threw with me. So that's that's how it started. And I was training on this field, and a couple days after training on the field, coach Tony Gerard Eddy, who at that time was a GA, I think, and Nick Williams, who was also a GA, but he's at an I forget which school he's at right now. He's maybe like Auburn or Syracuse or Auburn. Um, they were both GAs at the time, I think, and they were getting into their car and they saw me leaving the field, and they're like, You trying to walk on? I said, Yeah, we're like, they're like, Well, you missed the trial. The trial was a couple weeks ago. I was like, No, no, no, I'm not eligible to try out, but I'm gonna be trying out in the fall. And they're like, We're gonna look for you. I was like, sick. And I remember being so happy.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

So that was seven, eight months later from when you started training, that you got a chance to walk on?

SPEAKER_01 25:23

From training on that field is about nine months. Um, I trained there over the over the summer for a couple weeks because I was there for my new student conference after I got into Texas AM. I stayed a little bit longer. But the coaches at the time told me that they were full on the roster and they weren't adding anybody for the fall, but I could come back in the spring. And in my mind, I was like, yeah, that's not gonna happen, but I didn't say that obviously to their face. Um But I called my dad, and my dad, I'm talking my dad, he's asking me about when a tryout is, what's gonna happen. He's like, you know, you've been working hard. I see you've been putting in all this work, and I was like, I was like, well, I don't know when the tryout's gonna be, dad. They don't they say they're not gonna have a tryout for the fall, but I said, I have faith that they don't have a trial in the fall. I'm gonna make it on the team without having a tryout. And so I get back to Texas AM at the field, training, and you know, I'm I'm back with my friend Alex. Go to the we go back to the radio show. Go back up to Jimbo. You know, go ahead, coach, you know, coach, what happened? I thought I was gonna be tryout, whatever. Sends me over to his assistant. Assistant sends me over to the associate athletic director at the time. He's like, listen to a full right now, but like if anybody quits, we'll let you know. And we exchange numbers. I follow up with him, follows up with me. There's two very key events, very, two very key moments here. One is I was a transfer student, so I had to do this like extra economics class course, which is like worth one hour. Part of that course was I had to go and and go to the career fair. And I remember being at the career fair, and it was so it was so depressing for me. Like I really stood there, I was like, I don't I don't feel it, I don't feel this. Like I I need to do something with more purpose. And I'm standing in line to meet a recruiter. My car's in a half an hour zone. And I was like, I don't know. Like, this doesn't feel right. This is not what I'm supposed to do with my life. I get in my car, I had my change of clothes in there, I had my ball in my cleats. I called Alex. I said, Alex, meet me at the field. It's around sunset. So Alex meets me at the field, we throw around, we practice. And I was I want to be a running back, so there were a bunch of trash bins left out from like tailgates. And I practiced taking the handoff, and I set up I set up a whole offensive line out of trash cans. And it smelt really bad. But I remember them walking out of practice and staring at me. The players and the coaches were staring at me because I was taking handoffs and practicing running the ball through through trash a trash can offensive line. And so I go back to a radio show. It's Wednesday night. I tell the people at the radio show I'm not gonna be there the next Wednesday because I'm fasting. It's Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the holiest day for Jews. Thursday night comes along, and I get a call from my friend Andrew. Andrew uh was a walk-on linebacker for the football team. He was he did a lot of social media. He calls me, he's like, Listen, dude, I feel like I've been humoring you. Um, I just have to get this off my chest. I talked to someone today. They said you're not gonna be able to make the football team. They don't think it's gonna be possible. No one's ever made this football team and not played not played in college in high school. He's like, I just feel like I've been lying to you. Like, I just want to get it off my chest so I don't feel guilty. And I said, Don't worry. So Monday comes along, I'm studying in my room. Yum Kippur is Wednesday night. And I get a text from the associate director saying, Hey, can you come to another facility? My first thoughts are, okay, what does this mean? Did I make the team? Or are they gonna give me a participation t-shirt? Because they found out I didn't play in high school. And then getting text from all the admin later saying, Hey Sam, welcome to the team. We're super excited to have you on. Now, mind you, like, this is like the fourth week in the season. I had so much faith that I was gonna make it onto the team that we played Miami that season at night. And I waited till Friday to get my ticket for that game because I had faith that I was literally I could have made it onto the team at any second. And I didn't think I was gonna need that ticket. It happened to be two weeks after that game that we uh was it two weeks after that game? It was a week after that game, I think. Because we just lost to Mississippi State, that I made it onto the team. And that's what it was. I made it onto the team in the middle of the season. So I got the text from the admin staff that I had made the team, and it was like this, like it's like this weird rush. I don't know really how to explain it, but it's like this rush of emotions that that just like goes like this. It flows through you. And the only thing I could like think to do was was like jump. You know, I was in my room, I jumped, and I was like, yes! But it was loud, it was really, really loud. And I ran downstairs, and my room one of my roommates was there. And he was like, Is everything okay? I was like, I was like, dude, I made the team, and he was like, Oh my gosh, and he hugged me, and then you know, they had asked me in that text if I could come down to the facility that day within a couple hours. So the first thing I did was I put on a suit, like my my nice suit, and I went to the synagogue. And there there was no service that day. But I did the afternoon prayer because you know I put I wanted to put on a suit is as like you know, it's like almost extra extra thanks, obviously, um, in the in in that situation. So I put it on. The rabbi like kind of saw me walk in and he's like, What's going on? You know, he's like, Why is he wearing a suit? Why is he coming to pray in a suit? I didn't say anything. And then I because I my thing with this was like, okay, I made the I made it on to the team like for I gotta stay before I really want anyone to know about it. And so I go back, I you know, obviously change out the suit, and then I go over to the facility. And I come into the facility, it's kind of like this, you know, like kind of like this moment, you know, for me for me especially. And they hit give me a clipboard of things I have to fill out. I fill out everything on the clipboard. Then they take me back to do the medical stuff. They take me through the locker room. And yeah, yeah, they took me through the locker room because the locker room, like, they weigh you, I think they take your height or whatever, and then they take me into the medical room. In the in that, like during that time, like you're going back and forth like throughout the facility, that entire like onboarding situation. So I'm trying to remember exactly the sequence of events. And the first person I meet is Makiah Overton. And he he was like, Hey man, like nice to meet you. He's a very obviously like a very, very friendly, very friendly um junior guy. So the next day, the next day, which was a Tuesday, was a lot more. So I had to, first thing in the morning, I had to have a meeting with academics. So, which was very clutch for me because I was taking a class at the time that like was pretty it was I couldn't understand the teacher in economics. And so they sent gave me a gave me a tutor for that, which was like huge, huge help. But then after that, I had to go, I think sign, I used to go sign a ton of paperwork. I mean, you're talking we're talking like 20 forms. I go and I just go sit in the MSc and I'm sitting there and I'm signing and signing and signing and signing and signing and go to my class, finish signing everything, finally, I call everybody at that point. Like I call everybody who was along the way for their journey or whoever, my you know, all my friends, because like it's starting to become real. And then I go back to the facility. Now we go to the facility, and there's only a few things left to do that day. One of those things was I had to get measured for my jersey, and like for me, that like you know, the jersey's like kind of like the pinnacle thing, like it has your name on it, it's your number, it's like very much like a form of identity for a football player. And he's like, Okay, what number do you want? And he pulls up the list. And I've been thinking about this for a long time. I was like, you know, in Judaism, 18 is an auspicious number because it's the uh in in Judaism, there's like a numerology where like each letter corresponds to a number, and so the word high, right, in Hebrew with numerology corresponds to the number 18. High means life, and that's like a very, very typical number. And I was like, I don't know, I don't want to do that. Someone said maybe 36 is you know two times life, and I was like, no, it's gotta be unique, and it has to be like unique to me and my core mission. And I was like, what about 39? Why 39? Well, there's 39 categories of work you can't do on the Sabbath, so I was like, if I'm gonna be like the first, you know, Sabbath observant football player, then I might as well go all out with it. And lo and behold, 39 was actually available on offense. So I picked 39, and so next day comes. Now comes time for me to go to meetings, but like I don't know where or how to go. And so they take me over to I don't I think I went to the team meeting. After a team meeting, well, while they were doing special teams and stuff like that, I got sent over to the running backs room because I chose to be a running back. So they asked me what position I played who I wanted to play. I chose running back because it in my understanding, so when I when I was researching football, because again, I didn't know any that much about it when I when I started this process. I was like, what position do short people play? So I'm five six. I looked that up, and the first thing he says was running back. So I was like, all right, great, so I guess I'll pick a running back. I didn't know that running backs had I didn't even know that running backs had pass protection responsibility until um a friend of mine that I had met at while I was training in Philadelphia over the summer, he he told me. So I go to the running backs room, and Tommy Robbins is the running running backs coach. And you know, he he's excited to meet me. He introduces me to the assistant running backs coach, and I come in like I'm I'm just you know, I'm fresh off the boat pretty much, you know, in this situation. I'm like, you know, look, you know, that's just it's just natural. And he's like, tells me, Sam, sit in that chair. It's in the front. And I was like, I mean, obviously I'm gonna do it. The coach tells me to do it. And meetings, you know, finish. The running backs come in, and Devonna Chain walks up to me. And he's like, hey man, I'm really happy you're here, but you're sitting in my spot. Oh and and I look over, and um, I look over at at T-Rob, and he's just like laughing in the corner because he set me up. They they might as well been have been speaking like Chinese or something. Like, I could not for the life of me understand what they were talking about. Because it's like it's a whole lexicon. It's not, you know, you have I didn't know any of the formations, I didn't know like any of the runs, obviously. I didn't know any of the playbook. So I was like, what are they saying? So I didn't so I sat there, tried taking notes, but like, what am I gonna do? Like, you know, if you take notes in Chinese and you can't read Chinese, they're still Chinese. And that was that was my first day um of meetings. We finish meetings, I go get dressed, I do the afternoon prayer before I go out, I put on my my my uniform, my practice jersey for the first time. And I had this uh shunt F7 helmet, and I had to do this thing called an acclamation period. So an acclimate so in the NCAA, you there's this rule that like when you start, you actually can't go full pads. And I go to my first practice. And I it was very interesting. I mean, it was obviously very interesting because I never even seen how football practice was run. So we go to walkthrough. They're just it's pretty much I'm just standing there watching the whole thing. Right? That that's really what it was. I'm standing at walkthrough with the scout team. I don't really understand at all what's going on, but I'm trying to try and gather it. And I start figuring, I start obviously figuring some stuff out, and until we go to individuals. So we go to individual drills, I'm with the running backs. T-Rob had this favorite drill, and I think he's obviously more an old school coach. It was called the blaster, which is run where you there's like it's this machine with with with pretty much punching bags. It's like two punching bags, and the running back run, and there's three rows of them. You run through them. It's a pretty common running back drill. But the way that he liked to do it was like you had to run through it like two, two, like there, and then straight back through. And then there, straight back through, there, straight back through. Like it was like, it was very it was people hated that drill. And after I run through, T-Roes to me, he's like, What position did you play in high school? Well, and and that's what I said, uh well, well, coach, see that's the thing. Um I didn't play anything in high any football in high school. And he looks at me, he's like, Well, how about that? But then it's crazy, like three, like uh, my the next practice, that's like when the true tests kind of really happen. Because I went through a bla through the blaster. I went through the blaster, and I got a concussion because I did it wrong. And so I got up every day, went, did whatever rehabs that I had to do, and I I just got up and I kept on, you know, I kept on going, even though I was embarrassed. And I and I and I, you know, I had to, I was a practice, I was jersey only. And you know, T-Rob, he was very kind to me. He was like, you know, he was like, you're gonna come with me. You're gonna you're gonna watch with watch practice with me. And I I stood next to and you're gonna stand next to me and you're gonna listen. So I stood next to T-Rob during practice and listened to everything they did, all the corrections that he that he taught the other players. I listened to just everything. I listened to everything, and I stood with him, and I felt very honored that I, you know, that I got to stand with him on the on the main field for offense. And but the thing was, uh on the flip side, was like, you know, I show up to practice, and one of the other coaches ran up to me, and he's like, Oh, you're Jewish. I was like, Yeah, he's like, I'm so fascinated by Judaism. He's like, I listened to this podcast of this rabbit with this big white beard. Um, and I and I was kind of like taken aback because like it's not like plays I'm expecting to hear things like that. But I did remember like when I was praying to God um to make it onto the team, one of the things that I prayed for was I I didn't like I wanted to be appreciated, you know. I did I wanted people to be excited about it. I didn't want people to be like, okay, like this is something like we can tolerate. And like interestingly enough, like that that's exactly what happened. And like even like T Rob was kind of like interested, he wanted to hear what pers what her perspectives on in Judaism and stuff were like and uh in Judaism what stuff was. Anyway, um so so the the blaster you know did what it did, and I eventually got cleared, and I came back to practice, and I kept going. The next thing, so I get cleared right as I and like right as I get cleared, they run out of running backs because the other two guys, guess what they got?

SPEAKER_00 42:05

A concussion.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Yep. The other the other scout team running backs had concussions and Tony Gerardetti, who's who was a GA at the time, I'm standing next to him. I'm back. He looks at me. He throws me in. He's like, he's like, okay, this listen, like you you got one shot. He tells me, like, you have one shot. I was like, first off, maybe not the best thing to tell someone after they've worked like for so long, and like, what do you mean I have one shot? Like what you got like like they're gonna kick me off? That's what I'm saying, thinking in my mind. He's like, you have one shot, and it's like he's like, If you're gonna line up here, I think you are supposed to like fake inside zone or something, and then you're supposed to. I was supposed to be getting the ball in some regards. So maybe it was like I was faking inside zone, but then I was I was like gonna go out to the side, he was gonna toss to me, and I was gonna like run, and it was gonna be like a maybe like a mid-zone run or some sort of toss. And um I'm like, okay. So I didn't I didn't know formations, I didn't know where like to stand or anything like that. So I so I I line up, right? Because I'm looking for the quarterback, I can't find the quarterback anywhere. And I line up like under side. And he grabs me and he throws me out, and he's like, You're done. Like, you're done. Just just stand over there, you're done. And like that was, you know, it was a little bit crushing to me. Because I was like, okay, great, I guess they're gonna they're they're gonna kick me off. And you know, afterwards he goes over to T Rob. And T Rob goes saying, you know, what's our code word for Inside Zone? And I knew it because I listened to something in the meetings, right? I mean he taught me like like Two things I understood in the meetings. I knew what our code for inside zone was. Right? But like lining up in the diagram and doing because it was it wasn't like a simple play. It was a it was a more it was and I find I found this very like weird because like anytime I had a big opportunity in in football, um, in front of like the head coach or whatever it is, it was always on like a more complex play. Like I remember when we went into fall, uh into a spring camp, I I get called in to run a play in front of Jimbo. And in that type of offense that he ran, there were you know, there were more check plays for the running back where the running back would have to shift his um shift his uh formation. So the first play I get called to I ever have to run out of a huddle. First play I ever have to run out of a huddle is a is like one of these like check plays with like two running back, like with like a dual back formation check play where I have to change where I'm standing. Right? Like, and and it's I just find it like it's it's crazy. Like, like I had it, I hadn't like had any experience, and all of the plays that were like the biggest opportunities I had were the most complicated ones, but like that's how life goes. Um so anyway, getting back to that story, you know, I I felt like pretty crappy, and and you know, I was on the sideline again. And then finally, no one of the one of the running backs ended up, I guess, being out for the rest of the season or something, and they needed a man for special teams. Right. They needed a man for and and I find this almost very poetic that the first real play that I had in practice almost um exactly mirrored the first real play that I had in a game, which was I was on kickoff running down. And so, you know, Tony goes to me, okay, Sam, today's your chance. Today's your shot. We need a guy on special team, you're gonna be that guy.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

You know, and this was the game after Jimbo got fired. The first one that I played? Was that is that where we're at? No, the first game I played was under Alco.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Okay. I was thinking of the 12th man kickoff. Yeah, no, no, that I wasn't on that team. That game was on the Sabbath. Um, but no, this this this Jimbo was still the coach for another season after this story. So Coach Tony is like, okay, like here's your chance. Like you can't mess this up, man. Like it's like you're you're running straight and like you're folding at like the 45 or whatever it was. Right? And I was and I'm like thinking in my head, I was like, yeah, I'm happy myself. I'm like, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm not gonna mess this up. Um and so finally get the special teams, and I'm all and you know, I'm all excited. I'm all excited. I was like, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like I'm gonna do this. And I get on, and I run as I literally like bolt as fast as I can. Like the ball, he kicks the ball, like he gets the ball, and I've thank god I have a good reaction time. So like I I go like this, and I and I ran as fast as I can. And I remember I remember like and and and and I'm like, you know, they have the this is scout team special team. So I'm on scout team. Like I'm the guy they're supposed to block. Someone else is running with the ball. And you know, I ran down, my guy tried to block me. I think he knocked me down. I thought whatever happened. Then we run it again. And I'm and I and I'm like, okay, I'm not letting this guy do it. So like I avoid him and like I start like like chasing down, I start chasing down the the returner, like as fast as I can. Like, like my life is on the line. And I think there was there must have been something about that that the coaches appreciated. There must have been. Um, and I remember like you know, Nick Williams telling me after he was like, Man, you really like it looks like you ran like the wind to get down there. And I was, and you know, I started you know contributing in that capacity on special teams. And that was uh that was, you know, I started doing more during practice. And like I was starting to get a little bit, uh a little bit of some some semblance of confidence. But I remember the first game that I got to run out at was against Ole Miss, and that was when Connor Wigman started that game. So Connor Wigman started that game. That was his first uh I think start in college, and I wasn't able to run out in my full pads because my high school hadn't completed their NCAA certification, so you can practice without the full certification, like the last part, but you can't go out in full pads. So I was there in my jersey and my sweatpants. When we played LSU, which was the last game of the season, that's when we upset them at number five, and they rushed the field. I was in pads for the first time. And like that was that was a crazy feeling. I mean, you're in pads the first time, you upset number five, the field gets rushed. So after so that game at LSU, um we had interns working for the Jewish Center at Texas AM, these two girls, and you know, they and they really wanted to go to a football game. So like I gave them two tickets, and I gave two tickets to I forget who else. Because you get four free tickets. And I'm like, I tell one of them, I was like, she's a photographer, I was like, bring your camera. And I because I knew I would be in, you know, I knew I'd be in my uniform. And you know, I you know, you want to get a picture of you in your uniform. I mean, especially like how long you've been working for it to finally get to put on like the actual jersey, not the practice jersey. And so I get down there and I have like a yarmulca, a what um a white yarmulca with like a maroon um maroon logo on it from the Jewish center. And you know, during that game, I got on ESPN because that game was out, it was it was a primetime game, so I was on ESPN, like me jumping and hyping up the T-base with the sideline. Um someone banned the camera over to me. And then so everyone, so now so now it's like the secret's out. Like people were like, who the who the who's the guy in the Yamako on the sideline? And I and then we watched the field, so they came down, they like took pictures of me, like, you know, where the field was rushed, and like that was like kind of the first media storm that I had been through, where like people wanted to understand what was going on, like hear my my story, my my experience.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

Can you talk a little bit um briefly about some of the changes? I don't know if changes the right word, but some of the differences that you had to go through or accommodations, for example, the kosher in the cafeteria. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

So the thing was I didn't know walk-ons even were allowed to eat at the cafeteria. I actually had no idea. And and one day, it might have been after uh spring or whatever, some something. I was talking to my teammates and I was like, wait, the walk-ons are going to eat. I was like, we're allowed to go to the cafeteria. I mean, we're we can go to eat, but like, we're allowed to actually get food from the cafeteria for the for the athletes. I didn't know that. And I was like, okay, like let me see maybe, you know, if it's possible, like, to get like, I don't know, some kosher food or something. You know, maybe like they can outsource it to like the Jewish center and they can make it and they can like deliver it from me or whatever. And so I remember going over to the nutritionist. I was like, hey, you know, is it possible um to like get some kosher meals or something like that? And she was like, Yeah, absolutely. And like they went uh way above and beyond what I had even expected. I was like, okay, maybe maybe they'll outsource it to like the Jewish center, maybe you know, they'll make it, they'll bring it every day. And they're like, no, like, no, we're like, we have to like do this in-house. And I was like, um, okay. So they interviewed me, they interviewed my rabbi on like what you know what they needed to do, like the chef, like the head chef on what the laws were and everything. And so so it the thing is with kosher is that like dishes, right? Dishes are important, like you can't have not non co dishes that like touch non-kosher food. So I couldn't eat it on you know any of the plates, and then when it comes down to cooking food, it's the same principle, right? Because there's a whole thing with like flavor transfer. And so we're like, okay, well, they're like, okay, we can get you frozen meals that you can heat up. How are we gonna heat the meals up? And they're like, what if we get you microwaves? And so they got me two microwaves, one for meat and one for dairy. Because, you know, with kosher, you can't mix meat and dairy. And I mean, they they made me like my own little enclave, and I was like, it was like way more than I had like I could have even expected. Like they went completely above and beyond.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

Can you talk about because you mentioned you wanted to be low-key for a while? Can you talk about when the transition was to where you were open about this, where you wanted to make Instagram reels and TikToks? Yeah. Can you can you lead into that process? For sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

So um it's actually interesting. I have my notebook right here, actually. This is so this notebook is the notebook I wrote everything down in. And I wrote out like these promises to God, this notebook. Right here it says in clause five I will use whatever platform I acquire through this process to inspire people to be their best, trust in the Almighty, and follow the Torah and seven no-hide laws. So I stood outside of Texas AM's facility. And I wrote this. This was before I made it onto the team. So I knew from the outset what I had to do. Um I didn't take to social media immediately because I think I I I don't even really know why, but I I just I felt like I hadn't done enough to warrant. I posted that one post of me after that LSU game, and I did whatever interviews, I went on a podcast in West Virginia with a guy named Chris Miller, who at the time was running for governor. And that was all I did. And that podcast didn't even release till the summer. And so Media Day comes around. And I'm like, okay, we're taking pictures in the uniform. What can I do? Like, like, like, like, let me let's inspire some people. And so I take my Zephillin, which are like they translate in English to like phylacteries. But like, regardless, it's like those black boxes that you see Jews wearing when they pray. And that's it's uh it's uh it's the fulfillment of the verse when it says that you should take these words, you should, they should be, you should bind them as a reminder on your heart, you should bind them in between your eyes, right? So we put it on our arm, the parallel to our like um pointing it to our heart, and then we put it right here on our head, um, which is supposed to signify between being between our eyes. And it's an obligation for all Joe Schmidt to do. And so I get in there, and I I know obviously like I look kind of goofy like unwrapping and wrapping it, but I'm in my uniform, I put on the tefillin, we take the photos, and my photos got lost. I find this very interesting. My photo, so everyone got their photos like a week two weeks before mine, so everyone's posting their media day stuff, and I didn't have any of my media day stuff. But it's like it's all God's timing because I get it the first week of fall camp, where media is kind of heating up about everything. And I go on Twitter, I didn't even post it on Instagram, I went on Twitter and I posted the photo that's now you know was on the cover of the sports page, sports uh section in the New York Times. Um, but but when I really started on social media, truthfully, was when I posted the day in the life. So this was after this was after Jimbo got fired. Um and and I po I wanted to post a day in the life. You know, I just want to show people what what it was like being a debugging football player or whatever. And that video video completely blew up. I mean it was it that video went everywhere. I had I checked last night and it's got well over a million views. Right, right. So so that video I posted, and I I gained 8,000 followers in like the span of like what like a week, maybe less. And I was like, I can like use my platform to teach one, like teach people about Judaism. Because like there's a lot of Jewish a lot of Jewish people don't know a lot about Judaism in terms of like why we do stuff.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

What I wanted to also ask you about is like you said, the nature of social media. It's all not sunshine and rainbows. And you are all you are not immune from that, like any of us. I've I've seen the comments. And there there's there's support, but there's also there's a lot of trolls, there's a lot of there's probably some real hate in there too. You know, there's some so I guess what I'm asking is how is how has that affected you? Did you expect, you know, a crowd of negative pushback? Does how do you deal with it? Has it been tough to keep going with it at times? I mean, walk walk me through what that's been for you.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

So it's so funny. I was listening to um Sylvesterone on a podcast last night. So a lot of what you do is dictated by how you respond to failure. And the time that social media was heating up, right, was also the time we were going through a head coaching change. And that, you know, the head coaching change for me was I think it was a particularly difficult time mentally, because for one, you know, the way that Jimbo got fired was insane. But two, like Jimbo for me was like almost like a set like a like a father figure, you know, especially like a father figure to football. And his entire staff really was like Coach Craig, Coach Coley, and then like there's always that there's always the question is like is Elko gonna keep him around, right? Like they there's always there's always that. And so I'm dealing with with with all those things at once. And on top of that, then all the social media stuff comes in where like you have a ton of positive, and then like there is some some negative. And the great thing, the thing I'm grateful is, grateful for is that that happened at that point in time. That I began growing the alligator hide then. Because to where I am now, that doesn't it doesn't affect me at all. But the thing you have to remember is that God put you in the spot that you are, and that every person who became something, especially when you look throughout the Bible, the Torah, they all had haters. You know Moses, right, Moses, greatest prophet of all time, had haters. Right? King David had haters, right? Solomon, like like like like all the successful people, right? Everyone had everyone who was something, who contributed to the world, who left a legacy, had haters, right? Because the world is open to scrutiny.

SPEAKER_00 59:45

Sam? What's next?

SPEAKER_01 59:53

So as it stands right now, I'm obviously I'm working on this, uh working on uh building out social media. I'm working on um I'm working on the motivational speaking stuff, obviously, you know, follow in the in the footsteps to some regard of of Tony Robbins. But um there is there is one thing that I can't really talk about yet. But as I tell everybody, it will be seen.