NFL Punter Ethan Evans

In this episode longtime No Limits member Ethan Evans talks to us about his journey to the NFL from D2 Wingate College and how training has helped shape his athletic career up to this point. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Rams.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Alright, guys, welcome back to the NLF coaching podcast, episode two. Today we have a special guest, our friend and NFL punter Ethan Evans.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

Yeah, so Ethan is the punter for the Rams, and he's been a member at No Limits Fitness for you know what, three or four years now, probably, Ethan?

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Yeah, it was like right when y'all moved over here from the old gym.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Yeah, so he's been with us for a while. He's been uh we're not taking the credit for him getting to the NFL. That's all on him. Uh we're just maybe a tidbit, uh, right? But we want to get some some questions for Ethan to talk about you know what it's like being in the NFL, what the strength training's like, what his regiment's like. So we'll get straight into it.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Nate, what's our first question? So uh walk us through like what your journey's been from high school athletics through college and how you made it to the NFL. Like walk us through that process a little bit, what that's looked like.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Uh yeah, I uh I started playing football my freshman year of high school. Um my high school team wasn't really good my first two years in high school, but it was kind of the classic story of uh, hey, we need a kicker who played soccer, and I grew up playing soccer since I could walk. Um so freshman year I started kicking the football around. Um then around my junior year, I was like, you know, it'd be pretty cool to go play college football and get a scholarship and go to college for free. Because my parents, you know, my dad being a police officer and my mom being a paramedic at the time, we didn't have uh a lot of money, so I knew it wasn't gonna be able to go to like the school I wanted, so I was like, well, I'm just gonna try to get a scholarship for football. So the summer leading up to my senior year, I took a massive road trip. Um went down to Florida and I ended up in Syracuse, New York, um, made stops to colleges all along the way. Um got back from Syracuse, I had a couple preferred walk-on offers, and um got back and I was like, man, like I really need a scholarship, or you know, I'm gonna have to go to like community college or join the military. So after that, my dad uh just looked at me and he's like, hey, try out these uh Division II schools. Um so found a couple D2 schools in Carolina, like Lenore Ryan and uh uh Barton and all sorts of stuff. And then eventually I found Wingate and I uh went down there, paid my $30 for whatever it was for a specialist camp, and went out there, kicked really good. And uh like five minutes after the camp, the head coach walked up and offered me uh full scholarship on the spot, and I committed a couple days later, and then uh after that joined the Wingate Bulldogs, and then from there just um kept getting progressively better and kicking and kept getting stronger and stronger, and uh, you know, eventually that led me to Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

That's so sick, man, because like it being a parent and you speak to other parents, and I think so many parents think my kid has to be you know D1, all the scholarships, you know, they've got to be the best of the best. And and and maybe you're an anomaly. I don't know if if most of your teammates for the Rams are the are most of them are they in a similar situation to you, or most of them D1 athletes? Like, how did that work?

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Um, there's actually a lot of guys that started their career out as uh you know walk-ons at D1 schools. Um we don't really have any more D2, any other D2 guys on the team, but like Nate Laman, our our star inside linebacker, like he started off as a walk-on at Colorado, and then you know, eventually earned his scholarship at Colorado and um you know thought he was getting drafted, and then he comes as an undrafted free agent and uh you know he has to work his butt off to be able to join the Falcons and then comes from the Falcons to us and uh you know balls out for seven, eight games, and then after that he signs a $25 million contract. So like, you know, not everybody's journey is going to be, you know, all sunshine and rainbows, but you know, if you just keep at it and keep grinding, you know, eventually you'll get to what you want. And you know, he's a great example of that. You know, he's one of my good buddies on the team, and you know, um, he's just uh example of like what you can do if you just stick to it and just grind it out.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

That's awesome. So that kind of brings us to a good point. So you said you're the only D2 guy on the team. That's like um, I'm sure a lot of people would want to know like what was that experience like? How did how did you get exposure to opportunities in the NFL coming from a smaller college? I know that's that's not as common.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Yeah, I mean, for me it was uh it was kind of like a it was a good situation because a football field is 100 yards long no matter where you play. Uh you could be playing at SoFi Stadium or you could be playing at Wing Gate where you know where the stadium holds a thousand people. Um so a 50-yard punt's a 50-yard punt, you know, no matter where you are. Um so for me, you know, it was the exposure was kind of easier, I guess, for me, just because, you know, like I said, a 50-yard punt's a 50-yard punt, but you know, for guys like a D-lineman or something at a D2 level, you know, that's balling out, you know, coaches will look and be like, well, you know, he's balling out, but he's also at a D2 level. Um for me, it was just like, wow, you know, he's kicking the ball 50, 60, 70, 80 yards. You know, you can't you can't take that away. Like 50 yards is 50 yards, no matter where you are.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

That's and the other thing take home from me for that is obviously you have a my kind of football or um for American soccer background. Um, so I guess the fact that you can you can be diverse, right? I mean, it's like, yeah, obviously soccer doesn't translate to being a quarterback, but it's also for the kids out there that think they have to specifically be in one sport from the age of like 10, you know, and be super specific. I think there's a lot of examples in the NFL, in the MBA, in the um MLB, where a lot of those guys could have made it in a different sport as well, right? So you don't necessarily have to specialize in that exact skill from a super young age. So, like, how did what was the transition like from playing soccer to going to football? Was that a strange transition?

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Uh yeah, it was because you know, you know, with the soccer ball, like you can I was a goalie, so you can toss it up and just hit the crap out of it and it'll go, you know, with the foot with the football. You try to say that's that's skilly. No, that's like um, but like for a football, like you can't you can't do that. Like you can't just toss it up and hit it, like you're gonna hit a knuckleball, you'll hit Shanks here, left and right, backwards, you know, all sorts of stuff. Is punting a football is very, very technical. Um you just gotta try to hit a spiral, and you know we we make it look easy, but it took me gosh, I mean, I still am trying to hit the perfect spot every time. Um, I've been punting football for 10 years, and you know, I'll still have shanks here and there. Um, it's just it's such it's such a technical part of football that not a lot of people notice it, but um no, I think soccer really helped me out because if I do mess up on my drop or something, like my soccer background would kind of take over, and I can kind of readjust super quick and be able to still be able to hit a good ball from my soccer background.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

That's awesome. So obviously we want to get some fitness involved in this because fitness guys here. Um talk to us a little bit about how like strength training has impacted you your your athletic career. Talk to us a little bit about like what your training looks like, things of that nature to help you perform as an athlete in the NFL.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Yeah, so um my dad was a huge lifter. Um, I mean, he's he's probably got the strongest shoulders I've ever seen. I'll be lucky if I ever see somebody with stronger upper body and shoulders than him. Um when I was in high school, you know, we didn't have a lot of money to send me to camps and see coaches and everything to try to get my technique down. Um so when I told him I wanted to play college ball, he was like, okay, well, he's like, I don't know much about kicking, but I know how to lift weights. So he's like, what we're gonna do is we're just gonna make you kick harder than everybody else. So that way, like even if you do like hit a shank or something, it still goes a certain distance. So th those high school lifts, man, he I mean, he just I mean he put me in the dirt. Um, I was crawling out of the gym pretty much every time. I mean, he just pushed me to my absolute limits. But um, once I got to college, you know, I had a really strong background in like technique and how to lift and everything. And then once I got to college, that's when I slowly started to progress into like getting as strong as I possibly could. And, you know, my squat went from like 405 my freshman year to 495 my sophomore year to 675 my junior year, and now it's probably around 750-ish, somewhere around there. But I always I I will never like falter from that mindset of you know, I'm still not as technically sound as other punters in the league, but I just know I have a stronger leg than them. Um so I'll just keep training and keep getting as strong as I possibly can until you know eventually I hit the ripe age of 30 something, and I have to kind of tone it back and do some bandit exercises. Um but until that point, I'm just gonna keep getting as strong as I can and just trying to hit you know the pun as high and as far as I can.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Yeah, I I think for reference for our listeners that you know maybe don't come to the gym and and haven't seen you on Instagram, uh, Ethan is deadlifting in the 800s. You said squatting in the sevens and benching, right? I don't know, what are you what are you benching like?

SPEAKER_02 10:01

It's probably around 405 right now, if I had to guess. I haven't really pushed it, I haven't pushed it yet. We'll see, though, towards the end of March.

SPEAKER_03 10:09

So I I think the moral of the story is that being brutally strong is almost always beneficial, right? It's like absolutely yeah, there's very few athletic endeavors or sports where it doesn't pay to have a great strength background. You know, maybe maybe for soccer, those guys aren't going to be putting up those kind of numbers, but they're definitely still in the weight room. Um, they're still lifting just in some capacity. And um, so yeah, I think I think if you're a younger listener listening to this, that like there is not much of a downside to getting really brutally strong. And and even in a bodybuilding background, I know you've talked about maybe doing you know, when your NFL career is over, which you know, God willing, it's a long time away, but you've talked about maybe doing some powerlifting meets, right? So um even if you're looking at getting into bodybuilding as a youngster, I think having a background of strength, it's probably my biggest regret. I don't know about you, Nate, is I didn't really focus on getting brutally strong in the beginning. It was all kind of like pump work, chasing the pump, and and then after being in it for years, I was like, I need to get brutally strong because the other best natural bodybuilders in the world are freakishly strong. You know, the top bodybuilders are very, very strong. You see, um, even if you take like Chris Bumstead, I think in his peak, he was incline benching four or five reps, like it's that's strong, right? Like that's you can say he's just focused on mind muscle connection, but that's raw strength.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yeah, so with like with the strength sharing side of things, with you being on the team and stuff, like during season, do the do the coaches put any restraints on your on your lifting, or they let you kind of have free reign. Um, I'm sure like with the numbers that you put up, the coaches probably get a little nervous sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Yeah, um yeah, I mean, coach love it, our head strength coach. Um, I mean, he's super, super smart. I mean, he won strength coach of the year for the NFL two years ago. Um he he's very, very smart. Like, he he's not a type of guy that's like, oh, like we got to do band exercises and stretch out. Like, we don't want to push it too hard, you know. We don't want guys to get injured. He's like, no, he's like, our guys, like linemen are going out there, they're 300 plus pounds going up against other 300 plus pound dudes, or they're going up against like a Jared Verse who's 270 something and can run a 4840 and is just just as strong as like an ox. Um, he's like, we have to like push guys and make sure that their strength stays up during the season within reason. Like, we're not trying to shoot for like any big PRs or anything in the season. So um with me, like he understands like my lower body strength and explosiveness is the most important for me. And if you know if I lose it, then you know my punts will go down. Um so you know, we still squat uh decently heavy. Um, we still deadlift uh hex bar. We don't do straight bar that often. And if we do, it's more like stiff-legged deadlifts. Um, but he knows how important it is to like stay strong throughout the season. Um, because you can't just like go into the offseason, build up all this strength and muscle, and then come back, and it's like, oh, good job, pal. Like now we gotta like make you lose it all. Um, that's not his goal. His goal is to keep guys as strong as they can throughout the whole season and also you know make sure that their body feels good so that way our accessory works like our accessory work is like very like high mobility, um, higher reps, just try to keep the muscle built. And um, yeah, I mean he's awesome. He's super uh yeah, he's just he's just an awesome coach.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

That's a that's a great point because I often think the you you mentioned earlier that you make it look easy what you do, which you I think when we watch any professional athletes on TV do what they do, they make it look so easy, and and part of that is just surely the amount of reps that they've they've done, the amount of time they've put in. But I think there's a massive disconnect between just how freakishly athletic NFL guys are, right? So, like when you went from college to the NFL and you first walked in that locker room or or out to practice, were you were you kind of just taken aback by how incredible you know your teammates were, or what was that experience like for you?

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Oh, first time I saw Aaron Donald out there on the field, I was like, oh yeah. I was like, this is uh this is a different cat right here. Um like just like just like when you see him, he's 200 and I mean at the time he was 290 pounds of rock solid muscle, like just absolute just freak. And then you go out there and you watch his footwork and just how fast he gets off the line and just like the movements he can do with his hands, like I mean, it was just like I can't describe it. It was just unbelievable to see a guy that big and that strong move that quick. And then, you know, you see Matthew Stafford out there throwing the football. Like our quarterback at Wingate was pretty good. Um, but then I saw him throw, and I was like, wow, like the no-look pass that he does, like he'll be looking right and he'll throw a 50-yard bomb to the left. It's just like it's just stuff you can't teach. It's just guys just being the top guys in the world.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

Um there's us sat back watching you guys on TV, like, what was that?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

I didn't think all of that.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Yeah, I mean, it was just it was unbelievable to see those guys for the first time. And then I'm sitting over there sitting on the Gatorade cooler, just waiting for punk period to go out and hit So you uh, if I if my memory is correct, you you trained with uh him when he when he was still playing, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Didn't you guys were guys training?

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Yeah, yeah, we yeah, we hit a we had a couple arm workouts. Um I did not want to do anything else but arms with him. Um because I saw I saw his other workouts and I was like, yeah, it's not for me. Um but nah, dude. He'll I mean he does he he runs the rack um on arms and like he'll he'll start off with like the 50s and he'll do like probably 60, 70 reps with those, and then he'll go down to the 40s, he'll do like 50 reps with those, and he'll just run the rack all the way down, and then after that he'll go do like a thousand reps on tricep extensions, and then he'll do other curls. I mean, just the amount of like reps and like just sets that he did was just mind-boggling, and he still does like he's he slimmed down a lot because you know he he told everybody that you know just trying to maintain 290 at that low body fat and still be as fast as he was, it was just getting too too hard for him being year ten. Um and A D was like, you know, if I'm not gonna be the number one guy in the league, then there's no point in me being in the league anymore. Um, which is you know, I have full respect for it. I mean, retired 10-time pro bowler, eight, nine-time all pro, three-time defense player of the year. I mean, first belt hall of favor for sure. Um, yeah, I mean, just his workouts and everything. And then verse this year came up to me, he's like, yo, how hard are AD's workouts? And I was like, dude, I just did arms with him, and I was like, I will probably never hit arms that hard ever again in my life. He's like, Man, I'm gonna go, uh, I'm gonna go work out with him. And I was like, good luck, bud. And he's like, no, I'm gonna do it. Comes back the next day and he's like, Yeah. He's like, uh, that was pretty hard. I kind of threw up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

I was like, I told you.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

No, dude, they did like he does like full body workouts now. Like he he's gone away from like the like the upper day, the lower day, and this. He like he does full body workouts every like every day now. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

What what would you what do you think is the the most freakish athletic thing you've seen since you've been in the NFL? Like you have one thing that sticks out in your head that like you are just absolutely mo mind blown by it that you've seen.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

I would honestly say every time Puka Nakua gets a ball in his hand, like you see, like you meet Puka in person, he's like just this happy-go-lucky like guy, like one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. And then he gets out on the field, does his three back slaps, and as soon as he steps out on the field, you're like, oh, something something special is about to happen. I mean, this man's doing like when we played in Carolina, um, you know, he made a over overhand, like one-handed catch, like fully extended. Like it was one of the greatest catches I've ever seen. And my kicker, who's uh super nice guy, never cusses or anything, when Puka made that catch. I mean, he just dropped so many F bombs. No, I mean, every time you see him like get a ball in his hand, like the run after the catch, like his contact balance, like he's got guys 30, 40 pounds heavier and him running after him full speed and knocking him, and then he just keeps going. You're just like, holy cow! Like that's uh that's a different beast right there. Um so yeah, I would probably say just every time I see Puka get a ball in his hands.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Well, you you did have your own ESPN highlight this year, did you not?

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I did. You want to talk us talk us through that moment? Yeah, I mean it was uh it was the first time we played Seattle. Um, you know, there we're up by two points and a minute and forty, some seconds to go. We get to the 50-yard line, and we're like, oh, we gotta punt. And I know their uh Seattle's kicker very well, and I'm like, this guy has like the leg to hit a 65-yard field goal, so like I gotta try to put this punt you know as close to the goal line as I can. Um caught the punt, looked downfield, picked the target out, and I was like, all right, let's just punt it towards it, and you know, hopefully, you know, we get a good bounce here, and um, you know, hit it, bounced at the one, went straight up in the air, and I was sitting there with my hands on my knees just watching it, and then uh bounced out of bounds like at the one-inch line. And once I saw the ref signal where it went out, I kind of just blacked out and went insane. And you know, probably got a can probably got a concussion or two from all the headbutts I was given and all my guys. Uh but yeah, no, that was super cool moment. Definitely probably the coolest moment I've had in the league for myself. Um, hopefully have some more moments like that next season.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah, that's awesome. So you're going to year four, correct? Yep. Okay. So what's uh what's your approach this offseason to look look at making improvements for your game for next year? Like what's that looking like?

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Yeah, so I mean this year I'm taking this offseason, I'm training taking my training and offseason a little more uh serious and focusing on uh hypertrophy work, thanks to Coach Nate right here. Um we're um focusing more on hypertrophy work because um you know when it comes to our barbell, I'm you know, I'm pretty pretty good at it, but when it comes to the hypertrophy work, I'm making a test to this the first day I did it, I got like two sets into everything, and then I just crashed and then I just crashed out on everything. So um taking my hypertrophy training a little more serious, um, and my nutrition a little more serious as well. Um I just want to come back healthier and um still lifting heavy. Um Still trying to get as strong as I can, but you know, I also want to take care of my body, you know, make make myself look stronger, uh, feel healthier. And, you know, once I start kicking again here in a couple days, um, taking my technique a little more serious and try to be more consistent in this go around. Um and yeah, hopefully get an extension after this year.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, I know the the wear and tear of a long NFL season, so I'm sure like the the work that you're doing in the off-season to prepare for the season, it's gonna help big time with the longevity. And uh got some uh big news coming up this offseason, right? Something exciting on the horizon for you?

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah, yeah, I'm getting married in like uh March 29th, so about a month and two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

That's fine.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited about that. I'm ready for this wedding plan to be done. Um it's like I'm in purgatory every every month, every month, and then every minute of every day is just like, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? What do you think about this? But no, it's fun. I'm super excited. Um, yeah, it's gonna be a good time.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

I I think you know, it I've always felt this way, and I'm sure a lot of the listeners will as well. You know, people are so intrigued by what is the life of you know an NFL athlete like, you know, and I'm sure there's you probably have a decent amount of downtime, right? So, like when you're in season, what does a regular day in the life of an NFL player look like?

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah, so I mean we'll get to the facility around 6 a.m., eat breakfast. You know, if a couple guys got treatment, they'll do they'll do their treatment before meetings. Um about eight o'clock in the morning, we'll have a couple meetings. Uh, we'll have a team meeting, and then after that we'll break up. Uh, they'll go to offense and defense meeting, and then the specialist uh we'll go meet with the special teams coach and talk about like what we're gonna do at practice that day, yada yada yada. Um after that, we get like two hours of free time. So uh me and the specialist will go play like darts or something and uh just kind of goof around that whole time. Then we'll have a walkthrough. Um then after walk through, we'll eat lunch. Then everybody gets like an hour to kind of chill out, decompress for meetings, uh, get taped up if they need it, and then we'll go out to practice. Uh, we'll do our special teams, very beginning of practice, and then after that we'll go in and lift while the other guys practice this whole time, and then about four o'clock practice will be over, and we'll go home for the day. And then after that, I go home, eat dinner, play some video games, or watch a movie and sleep, go to sleep, and then uh wake up, do it all over again.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Awesome. Um so I'm I'm sure that uh this is a big component of high level athletics. The the the Rams have really got you guys honed in on. But what how do you guys manage the sports for sports performance pressure um of high level athletics and um handling game situational stuff?

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Yeah, um so for all the other guys, they only lift Monday and Wednesday. That's like their scheduled lifts, like that's like the days like you have to come in and lift. And then they give guys the option of if you want to come lift more, you can. Um, but if you don't want to, you don't need to. But we try to get two two lifts in uh per week for all the other guys. I I lift Monday through Friday uh just because I don't have as big of a workload as all the other guys do. Um some guys come in and lift, you know, four times a week because they need it. Um then other guys like the freak of nature athletes like Devontae Adams or something, like they'll come lift twice a week and be just fine. Um it's just all like they have it set up for like each player like to have like something specific towards them. Like this guy needs more recovery work, this guy needs to lift this much more, or this guy doesn't need to do this. They just have it, each player has like his own thing that like they need to do, and they uh they have it all planned out for you know, hey, this guy's knees bother him sometimes, so let's make sure we do extra treatment on his knees or his hamstring, his back, whatever. But they um they really schedule it out really well and make sure that all the guys are taken care of evenly.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Yeah, that's awesome. Um, yeah, I'd imagine it's like a well-oiled machine from start to finish, you know, they're taking care of you guys as as much as they can. Um, something that I've always been interested in is like the psychology of pro-athletes. And you know, my background is obviously playing soccer where it's very there's there's not much stop-start. I mean, for you know, 45 minutes half, you're pretty much going, and it's all just you're in the game, you don't have much time to think about anything other than the game. Obviously, in football, you know, you have periods where you're you're not you're not caught upon, right? I mean, it especially like as a punter, if that if you're not getting four downs, you're not punting. How do you kind of manage your mindset and just be ready to go whenever you need to be ready to go? Like, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Uh yeah, for me personally, I mean, I just try to stay as relaxed as I possibly can. Um, when I first started playing football, I was like, oh gosh, like if it gets too second down, I need to go hit this many balls into the net. I need to do this, I need to do that. Um, but then once I got to college and I kind of you know started to form into what I became as a punter, I kind of realized like, hey, like I don't need to hit this many punts in a game, I don't need to be like this amped up. Um every now and then I still get like pretty amped up and I'm like, oh, like I'm ready to go. But I've just learned to like control the adrenaline a little bit better. And like I'll go hit maybe one or two punts into the net and be ready to go. Um but I mean I've hit thousands upon thousands upon thousands of punts in my life, so you know, my muscle memory just kind of takes over and knows what to do knows what to do. Um it's just being relaxed as I possibly can be throughout the game. Um because you know, we don't get that many plays, and we can't you can't sit there for three and a half hours like shaking in your boots, like like, oh, I can't wait to like go out there and mash this football. Like, no, just sit out there and uh be relaxed as you can and just go out and just let your muscle memory take over. Go ahead and hit a smooth punt, um, and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

That's a great answer. Yeah, and I think that actually translates a lot to lifting. You know, I I tell people that it's you've got to have controlled aggression. You know, you can't just you can't come in the gym like you're on a war path and immediately just go balls to the wall, everything you got, every single step. Like there's got to be some method to the madness and and the ability to flip the switch when the time is right, you know, because if you also get too aggressive and lose too much control, then your technique goes out the window, which I would imagine is the same for you guys, you know. You get you get too apt up, and then you kind of not forget how to kick the ball, but you might lose some of your mechanics. So just staying in that relaxed mindset makes a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Can't live like Tom Plants all the time.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

So we've got time for one more question today. So let's uh let's end on something funny. What uh what's a funny story you have from your playing career that would be worth sharing with the listeners?

SPEAKER_02 29:24

You want like an on-the-field story or off the field story? Whatever you one of these, whatever you got. The best. All right. All right, I'll go, I'll go with this one. So our uh my rookie year, um, the NFL Players Association, they all uh they come in and they like let us know what the PA is all about and you know what benefits we get as NFL players and you know, get invested and all this stuff. And then after we have those meetings, they have what's called the rookie dinner. Um my rookie year, um we we had like 45 rookies, which was the most of any NFL team. Like it was a huge rookie class. Um, so Dwayne, our NFL PA representant, was like, hey, we're gonna go to Mastro's, which is like one of the nicest steakhouse in Los Angeles. We get to uh Mastro's, so we're like, hey, like what can we order? Like, is it like a set menu? Can we only order like a five-ounce filet or something? And he's like, No, you can get whatever you want. And it's 45 guys, so we're like, okay. So then uh we all ordered the tomahawk steak, which was like a 72-ounce tomahawk steak for 45 guys. We ordered Sufu Towers, buttercakes, like we pretty much ordered the whole menu. And after we got out, uh Dwayne comes on the bus and he's like, I just want y'all to know. He's like, PA called me because they saw how much we had spent, and they banned rookie dinners for the PA because of us. Uh I won't disclose the amount we spent, but I'll just tell you it was absurd. And we also just absolutely destroyed that restaurant. Kobe Turner found a piano and started singing, and oh yeah, it was a it was a crazy night. But yeah, so now the PA doesn't do rookie dinners anymore because of the Los Angeles Ram 2023 rookie class.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

That's the hang of a still that's a great story, it's a great steakhouse, too.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

Yeah. I mean, the last thing I would say for you as well is um what advice would you give to you know younger people that are maybe going into college, they're at college and they're looking at the the next step. Um in whatever, you know, maybe the likelihood is they're not going to make it to the NFL, right? Or to the major leagues in anything. I mean, it's a very small percentage of people that ever do. Um but what advice would you have for them, you know, moving forward in their life and in their careers?

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Yeah, so for me, like what I what I did was, you know, I was like, oh, I'm at Wingate, like I'm not going to the NFL. Um, there's just no way. So I found something that I that I love to do, which was weight training, and you know, got my degree in exercise science and was gonna go back and get my master's in kinesiology, and like I started grinding my butt off to like be the best train coach that I could. So I'd just say for people that you know are in athletics and you know feel like they don't have a chance to get into the league, you know, find something else that you're super passionate about. And you know, if it's like breathing to you, like you're gonna be the best at it. Um, Tom Plett said that, so I gotta give credit for that. I can't take that as my own. Um, but whatever you find like you're super interested in, want to do for your job, like spend all the time you can doing it and learning and getting better at it, becoming smarter and being the best of whatever you like. If you want to be an accountant, be the best accountant you can. If you want to be a strength coach, be the best strength coach you can. Like, just stick to it and just like be the best at it that you can. Never stop learning, never stop growing. Always try to learn and grow.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

I'm fine. I'll love that. Fine up. That's awesome. Great great advice. All right, brother. Well, we appreciate your time. Um, I know you I know you're busy, lots of stuff going on the off season, the wedding planning and training and all that. So we appreciate you taking some time from the listeners. Um, really enjoyed the conversation. This was great. Yeah, this was great. Ethan, you're the man, bro. Thanks for your time. Yeah, appreciate y'all, boys. All right, brother. Thank you. See ya.