Michael Strahan | Mac Daddy Show Premiere Episode

Mac Daddy💙💚 welcomes a Hall of Famer, Super Bowl Champ, and one of the most recognizable names in sports and TV, for a conversation that's as real as it gets. Give us a few minutes and let Michael tell you what's really on his mind. Take another 2️⃣ seconds and follow us. 🙏🫵

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#TheMacDaddyShow #SportsTalk #MichaelStrahan

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SPEAKER_04 0:00

And a moment happened on the show that changed it forever. Well. And I've learned never say I got this many points. I got two points. I got three points. I got four points. You never say that on live television. I got three points. I got one.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

I did two.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

After two, I realized I forgot three.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

You forgot the third. Right.

SPEAKER_04 0:20

And I'm like in my head going, oh crap, it's not coming to me. And I'm running out of words on point number two. What's the back?

SPEAKER_05 0:26

What the back? Hey, come on in. Welcome. This is Michael Strahan's Man Cave, everyone. Unbelievable. It's our premier episode of Mac Daddy, the one and only Michael Strahan. This is a pretty darn cool man cave. You got some Maway. You can just order one of those in the middle of champagne. Michael's got that covered. And he's got a pretty nice collection of cars in here. As you can see, pretty darn impressive. We'll get into this and a lot more with Mr. Strahan. Episode one. We're here. It's Mac Daddy. Finally! All right, welcome everyone. It's edition numero uno, the first ever episode of Mac Daddy presented by Volition. We are so happy to be here with our man, Mr. Michael Strahan, Patrick Macaro, Rich Erd, Big Daddy Salgado. Rich Erd. Big Daddy Salgado. So I guess I guess the first question has to be how do you know this guy?

SPEAKER_04 1:19

Okay. Well, first of all, I don't know Rich Erd. I think that you get a podcast and the cameras get on your face and you change your name. You know, people get that could happen. I know Rich. Big Daddy Salgado. I don't even know how we met.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

We just met, like Ready? I know how. How? Mark Cooper, Rolling Stones concert. I met live with Mick Jagger's running down that long walkway and doing his thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

And he's still doing it. And he's still doing it. 80, right? Yeah. Yeah, he's 80, yeah. And he was, man, he worked. Like he worked. But yeah, from there, and then we just we just hit it off.

SPEAKER_05 1:55

So this was when you were um obviously on the Giants. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:57

Yeah. I was still playing. Yeah. I was still playing. Um, yeah, long time. I played a long time with Daddy. He used to bring us pizzas for the game, it's a superstition. Yeah. Every Friday night. Every Friday. And um, yeah, we go, we go way back. There's some stories we can tell about each other that you better not even think about telling. If we even think about telling.

SPEAKER_05 2:20

See, he's a TV rookie. He's got his phone off. But I can't even be mad at him because I know him well enough that I know that that was an opportunity. That's gonna happen. That's gonna happen. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 2:28

But congratulations on the podcast. Thank you. We're excited about it.

SPEAKER_05 2:31

And I love the name. Mac Daddy. Mac Daddy. Yeah, little P Mac here, a little Big Daddy over here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

As he always says to me, this is this is Big Daddy, you know. He goes. I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

SPEAKER_05 2:47

I like when you said to me when I thanked you for letting us come to your man cave, which is pretty spectacular, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah, this is outstanding.

SPEAKER_05 2:54

And he said, Well, I gotta get Big Daddy off my back to do finally do this interview, you know?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 2:59

Yeah. Um is he just pestering you nonstop?

SPEAKER_04 3:01

I'm like secretariat, man. He's just riding me until I did I get it off my back. But no, you know what? I always, I always I love him, right? I really do. And and I want to support him and everything that he does. And I have so much respect for you. Thank you. And I love watching you do your other day job. I appreciate that. So yeah, you know, I respect and love you guys. So why wouldn't I want to do it? And it's fun. I mean, talking to friends, what's better than that?

SPEAKER_05 3:24

What's better than that? Well, we're happy to be here in your spot. Tell us a little bit about the early years of Michael Straham.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

The Houston years. The Houston years. Well, I was born in Houston, but the crazy thing is, I actually grew up in Germany. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:36

You know, Mike, you know, my brother was born on the Air Force base in Wiesbaden. Oh, yeah. Not far from me. Not far from where you were. Not far from Mondheim.

SPEAKER_04 3:43

Yeah. And um, but yeah, I came back and went to my senior year of high school in Houston, at least half of it, five or six months. Stayed with my uncle, Art, played football. And Art played in the NFL. He played in seven years, yeah. Atlanta Falcons, Houston Oilers, um, played up in Canada a little bit. But yeah, I stayed with him. He would take me in the front yard and he would try to show me the pass rush techniques and stuff. But I wasn't, I mean, I was a kid, man. My uncle used to slap me around that front yard. I was I might as well have been out there with beacon in the middle. No, it was like 16.

SPEAKER_05 4:15

So I I remember hearing you speak, it was right after you'd won the Super Bowl and you retired, and you were just starting your broadcast career, and it was the March of Dimes luncheon. Remember they you did that, they honor uh uh um an athlete and someone from the business, the TV business, huge crowd. And you you told the story that when you were in um Germany, that you mostly played other sports, that you didn't even play organized football until your late teenage years.

SPEAKER_04 4:41

Is that I played um when I was in in North Carolina at seven, eight years old. You didn't move to Germany. And uh I didn't do anything really. I didn't play, I didn't play soccer. They run too much. I'm like, soccer guys just run, man. A lot of running. They don't and I didn't know until recently, to be honest with you, that if you come out the game, you're out. I can't go back in, yeah. Yeah, I need a break. Yeah, there's no blows, so don't get a blow in soccer. No. So I didn't do that. I I, you know, not a little basketball, a little baseball, but nothing really organized. And till I came back from high school and and to play football. And as my dad said, you're gonna get a scholarship. And I think because I just didn't know it wasn't hard, that it was supposed to be hard, that I did it. Did you start right away as a lineman? Yeah. Yeah, always. When I was seven years old, I played defensive end. Okay. When I was eight years old, I played defensive tackle and offensive tackle. And as a senior in high school, they put me at defensive end. And I went to college, they just kept me there. A little stint here of tight end here or there.

SPEAKER_05 5:47

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 5:47

But mostly the end. Yeah, I don't I don't want to.

SPEAKER_05 5:50

But no, like you didn't have any like real training for football.

SPEAKER_04 5:54

Training was watching TV. Training was watching TV.

SPEAKER_05 5:56

Well, you must have been doing something outside, you know, doing something to be so athletic. I mean, what were you running?

SPEAKER_04 6:01

Well, when I was 13 years old in Germany, my brothers and their friends, I used to hang out with them, and I was the youngest of six, they could call me Bob. And Bob meant booty on back. Okay. Right. Okay. And they had the jokes used to be like, oh, you can reach for your wallet like that. Right. And stuff like that. I started working out. And I I would I bought the Jane Fonda workout book, um, VHS tapes, and I bought the Herschel Walker workout book.

SPEAKER_05 6:27

That's a site I think I'd like to see. You doing the Jane Fonda workout book. I did tapes.

SPEAKER_04 6:30

I did all of it. No leg warmers, but I I did the full thing. Right. But when TV breaks used to come in commercials, I would get on the floor and because Herschel Walker was coming out of the University of Georgia. And I met him, he came to Heidelberg, Germany, and I met him when I was 13 and for doing something with Polaroid. And it was about push-ups and sit-ups and not being needing weights. So I started doing push-ups and sit-ups during commercial breaks. I would do the Jane Fonda leg lifts and butt lift stuff during commercial breaks. And my dad was saw me, and you know, you really asked me what I was doing at first. Then when he realized how serious I was, he said, I'll work out with him. So he went and bought the muscle and fitness magazines, Joe Veter, writers. Yeah, I remember getting those, yeah. And he would write out programs and make books, and we would go to the gym, and you write your weight, your exercise. He had programs out of muscle and fitness, and we did that for years, like three years of working out with my dad. Until eventually, my senior year, he said, You want to play football? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:33

But he saw it before. I never saw anything. And you saw it as a way to go to college, basically, or you were gonna go to college anyway.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

I saw it as a way just to work off my big butt. You know, I didn't want to be Bob. You know what I'm saying? I needed to work off the baby fat. So I didn't want to be Bob. That was my whole motivation. My dad's motivation, I probably because he didn't want to pay for college. Um that's good motivation, right?

SPEAKER_05 7:56

That's good motivation.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

I think that's why I took a lot of tennis lessons, too. That helps. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, we all have our motivations. But uh, the great thing about my dad, he was he was a win guy, not an if guy. So we said when, when, when, when it happens, when this happens, when you go to back to the states, when you get a scholarship. And I never, it never let me doubt myself. And I think that helps in my life now. I just look at something. If I want to do it, I figure out a way to do it. And it's a matter of when, not if. And I think that's been the underlying lesson throughout my life that I learned growing up. And um, yeah, he sent me to live with my uncle and end up with one scholarship offer.

SPEAKER_05 8:33

Speaking of B.O.B. Uh, Big Daddy, how how was he with the pizzas on those those nights on Friday nights?

SPEAKER_02 8:40

He was good. I mean, you know, at first it was kind of funny uh when I came the first time. Hey, who's that for? I was like, oh, it's for Stray. And they're like, well, why only Stray? You know, like what's the story? And it was Tiki Barber. So, you know, got a little jealous. Yeah, you know, got a little jealous. I understand it now. So, you know, so and then all of a sudden one led to two, two led to ten, two, ten led to fifteen. Led to the whole team, everything. And it was like, everybody. It was funny. Everybody's like, well, Big Daddy, I didn't know you owned a pizzeria, or what it like, you know, whatever. And I'm like, uh no, I don't. This is just just eat it. Don't worry, don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Yeah, they did. We just brought it in. But the pizzas were great. Used, man. I don't even know how I we had to unload the car sometime with all these pizzas. Yeah, they will have been a phone.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

It was the old stadium, so you could pull down into it into the gate area, and then you know, they'd come out with a cart and whatnot. And it always went in the equipment room. And then I would say, I'm not here to police it. Right. I'm just here the delivery guy. Right. So, you know, you go to the powers that be, and if they allow you to have it, God bless you.

SPEAKER_04 9:54

Well, it was them used to bright green on Friday, so it was after weigh in. Right, right, right. So a lot of guys already weighed in. They could eat a little extra. If you brought it before the next day off, it would have probably sat there and went cold. But yeah, these guys were able to eat it after weigh in. So it was good. But it was great. And that was um, but that was fun because guys became superstitious about the pizza too. Right. And if we didn't get it, there was gonna be a problem with Big Daddy.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Yeah, there was only twice that it didn't come because one time it was it was early on in the year because in 07, because after a loss, you know, you don't want to come by and whatnot. So, okay, got it. Then they, you know, the one thing that was great about that year for me was I felt like I was with on the team because I was going everywhere. Yeah. I mean, home, away, I'm flying with uh the owner, I'm like doing all this stuff. Big time in us, you know, exactly. And you know, and like I'm down on the field, and uh so it was such a memorable run. And you know, the one thing that I always remember about that year that was really fun, and I kind of shared this with a couple people. Remember, you win the Super Bowl, we're on the side, we're on the field celebrating and whatnot, and Biff from NBC comes over to us and says, Michael, how great is you could be celebrating with your dad on the field because you know, I don't remember that. Remember, he thought I was your brother. He do remember. He thought I was your father, right?

SPEAKER_06 11:27

I'm like, there's no way this came from that.

SPEAKER_05 11:33

That is too much. That is too much.

SPEAKER_04 11:35

But I do remember you say that. Oh man. But that that was we've we what we did, we've had a great, I would say easily 25-year run or more. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:48

Pretty darn.

SPEAKER_04 11:49

We've been everywhere that's a good one. It's kind of weird because I think about it like Super Bowl was 19 years ago.

SPEAKER_05 11:53

Yeah, right. Yeah. 19 years ago you retired.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

2007? Wow. After that season.

SPEAKER_05 11:58

Yeah. I gotta ask you, because you said something before about always Michael, always wanting to do something that maybe you didn't know if you could do it, but just trying stuff, which is obviously what you built now your whole career on after football. Did you know that Super Bowl was gonna be your last game?

SPEAKER_04 12:13

I kind of felt it, yeah. I kind I kind of knew. I I I it was it was had we had we lost Maybe the edge would have been. Because I experienced losing one before and then the next year not even making it, right? I probably would have said that was it. That was as close as I was just gonna get my career. And I I came back that year, not to win the Super Bowl, to be honest with you. I came back that year to have fun. Because all the other years it was I was so concerned about being great or making a great team and being a leader and making sure that every guy, you doing your job, that guy ready, is he ready? And that was the one year I said, you know what, I'm gonna have fun. It's his job to get ready. Yeah, right. Grown man. Let Tom Coughlin take care of that. Why am I over here barking at grown men and trying to motivate grown men? Now, there were times, of course, as a leader, you gotta motivate guys, but I didn't go in every day feeling like I gotta police guys. Right. I would watch guys, I'd give advice, I'd tell guys to pick it up when they need to pick it up. But on the game play, I trusted. Would guys come to you and ask you to? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But I but I trusted guys. And that was the biggest difference in that year. I went back to just have fun and not worry about sacks, not worry about Pro Bowls, not worry about anything. I just want to have fun. And end up rolling into a freaking Super Bowl win, which I look back now and I think I'm like the luckiest man on the planet because that changes your life. Right, you know, when you win it. It really does, especially in New York City. And I love it when I'm out and about and people come up and say, Michael, thank you for 2007. I'm like, no, it worked out well for me. Thank you. So I'm not I'm not someone who takes it lightly on winning, especially here in New York. Uh, I think it I know it's completely changed my life. So I'm I'm eternally grateful to all my teammates and coaches, organization, everybody, um, for pulling that one out, man.

SPEAKER_05 14:05

That was big. Yeah, that was big for New York, yeah, for everyone. Um, going into your broadcasting career, because I've always admired you so much for your ability to jump into being the star in the football world and with Fox, and then even more impressively, what you've been able to do in the morning show on GMA. What was the sort of the leap like, the transition like for you when you first started? Yeah. Scary. Yeah. I know I mean I didn't you're like a little puppy dog. Yeah, right. Well, you make it look easy, right? No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

Yeah, it looked easy to me too. Right, right. Like I was one of the guys at home who watched this football show then go, oh, I could do that. Right. Right. Whatever. And I'll never forget the first, the first show. We don't rehearse. At Fox from day one, we've never had, oh, we're gonna do rehearsal shows, and then we're gonna figure it out. And in the business, it's like think or swim. Yeah. They just put you up there and say, if you're good, you're good. If you're not, you're out. If you're not, you're not. And there was no like NFL had the broadcast school now, they got all these different things during the summer for guys. We didn't have any of that. It was you do interviews and they ask you questions, or then I would do the best dance sports show, period. And during my bye weeks or off weeks or something, I would go like host for the week to get a feel for it. But I had no TV experience in a in a in a bigger capacity than that. And we are rehearsing the first show, and we don't really rehearse. You just kind of go for camera angles. But I am just I felt good. I'm like, I'm gonna crush this man.

SPEAKER_06 15:35

I'm on this, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:36

Hey. Then that camera came on when that show came on, all of a sudden Bradshaw was like how we is Jimmy, but I'm like, oh it's like game time. Yeah, yeah. Only game time. All these thoughts that I had in my head during rehearsal that I was just crushing with, gone. And I remember saying something, and I look at Jimmy in commercial break, and I'm like, man, anything I say makes sense? Right? He's like, I don't know, I wasn't listening to you.

SPEAKER_06 16:04

Thank you. Thank you, coach. I appreciate you. Thanks for the help.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

It was um, it was scary in the first three weeks. I'm like, I'm good. Like, I I giants asked me to come back. I I I think that's what I'm saying. They're gonna come back and play.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Yeah, it was so funny that so now he's doing the TV thing. OC gets hurt. Yeah. I'm not gonna name who right at camp. Yeah, right out of camp. It was the first week of camp. So then I get a phone call, dude. You gotta talk to Stray. I'm like, what am I gonna say to him? He's like, Don, he's already in LA. I go in grief. Yeah, and then grief. No, so the funniest thing is, Big Daddy, what do you think the number is it's gonna take Stray to come back? I'm like, don't even come in here unless it's 10 or up. Right? And I and and I just said that just so they would leave me alone. But all right, tell them it, you know, tens of numbers. So I sent them a note. I'm like, dude, again, I'm in the middle of this, boom. And remember, he was like, he wrote, he wrote back, he goes, Man, that's a tough number, Daddy.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

You know, if not now, like if I retired now and they said come back, I'd be like, number 40.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

And that's why I gave that number because back then. That was then was a lot of money. Yeah, I was like, that'll be the number yay or nay.

SPEAKER_04 17:25

No, you know what? I really deeply thought about it. Yeah, he wrote, I remember when you wrote me, you said I I'd already I was I know I was going, man, 10 million. I knew what Fox was gonna pay me. Wasn't 10 million, and I'm I'm sitting there in Greece, and they were like, You can come back, we're not gonna wear you out in training camp, we're gonna take care of you. And the reason I didn't come back is first of all, I'm in Greece. I'm thinking about Greece and I'm thinking about New Jersey. I just but on top of that, I never cheated game football. Never cheated it. I gave you everything I had, every play, every day. In practice, I was not the guy to take time off and say, let the young guys do it. I practiced every day. I did everything the right way. And I realized that my heart wasn't in it. And I could have come back and stolen 10 million bucks, but I didn't want to steal anything, and I didn't want guys to look at me and you know, like I said, I'm chasing money and lose respect because I played for respect more than anything else. And that was the catalyst for me to say, nah, I'm good. I'm just gonna stick with this TV thing. But three weeks into the TV thing, I thought I made a mistake.

SPEAKER_05 18:36

You did. Because this was this happened in the summer, and then you started the TV thing when like a month or two later when the season started.

SPEAKER_04 18:42

Yeah. And you moved to LA full time. And I moved to LA full time, and I I start this start Fox three weeks in. I'm like, this is not for me. I'm done, man. I I can't do this TV thing. I I may call it Giant. And a moment happened on the show that changed it forever. Wow. And I've learned never say I got this many points. I got two points, I got three points, I got four points. Never say that on live television. I said, I got three points. I got one, I did two. After two, I realized I forgot three points.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

You forgot the third. Right. And I'm like in my head going, oh crap, it's not coming to me. And I'm running out of words on point number two. What's the neck? What's that?

SPEAKER_04 19:23

And then I started acting like I was choking. And the other guys picked up and continued the conversation. And then I remembered, I'm like, oh yeah, again, let me and finish up. Right. And I finished it up. And I thought to myself, all right, you can do this.

SPEAKER_05 19:40

If you could think like that, but also you also understood that those guys, like, because when you do that type of show, which I've done before as well, with the you know, the little group, it's a team game, too.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:49

You're like, I always found the most important thing is to listen, to listen to whatever you want. So they were obviously listening to you. They saw, okay, he's struggling, we'll jump in. But I wasn't really struggling. Yeah. I was fake choking.

SPEAKER_04 20:01

You were struggling with the because I had not, I didn't know what number three was. So I figured the only way to get out of it is like a medical emergency. Right. So I started fake choking my coffin. They finished up, then I came back and finished my point. And I realized if I can think that fast on my feet in that moment like that, then I can do it. I can do it. And it's a lot of work. And I think people look and they they see now and they go, oh, yeah, it just happened. The transition was easy. Transition was not easy. And I've done plenty of things that haven't worked. I don't look at things as failure. I look at them at opportunities that I did something that I got a chance to learn from so that I can know what I was doing.

SPEAKER_05 20:42

What did you do that you failed at?

SPEAKER_04 20:43

Uh I'm not gonna say failed, but I did a sitcom on Fox for one year called Brothers, which is great. And um could have kept going, but I realized I didn't have a passion for acting as I had for other things. Right. And one of the worst things to me is to have a job and take a job of somebody who does have passion for it just because you can. Right. Just get to get it. So um I did that, but I enjoy acting in certain ways, but just I I realized that wasn't what my future past was gonna be. And um between that and and and business ideas and different things or shows you want to work on and produce, and you know, my partner and Constance and I, you know, we have Smack Entertainment, we have more going on than we can handle. And you're starting your own podcast now, yeah. We've starting our own podcast um network actually called the um the intersection. And then she and I uh have a podcast on on our on our site called Hustle Like You're Broke. Which which is a slogan I came up with years ago with one of the athletes that we represent.

SPEAKER_05 21:45

You know who used to say that too, by the way, was Jimmy Connors. Yeah. He used to say, play the next point like you're broke. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

You gotta hustle like you're broke, man. And then and that's just the way we've run the company. And and I know I operate in Constance operates in her life, but there were times when we would be. You know, pitching things and being meeting, feel like you're almost close, and you just get the door slammed in your face. Doesn't happen. Slammed in your face. But you got to stick with it just like everything else in life. So a lot of failures along the way, a lot of rejection along the way, but never a loss of commitment and and and you know desire to push forward. I've learned so much, and it has not been easy, but it's been fun when I think back on it. And I kind of like, you know, going from you know, when we met and being the football player, and when people would see you, and they go, oh, you're the football player, or you're the tennis guy, you know, or you're the pizza guy.

SPEAKER_05 22:39

Yeah, yeah. The big pizza guy.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

Yeah, but you know, inside, for me, it was cool when I was a young player. But as I got older, and you're like year 12, 13, 14, 15, and somebody's saying that, it's it was irritating to me. Not irritating, I don't fault the people for saying that, but it was just kind of ache my soul because I saw myself as being more than just a football player. And I think that's because I didn't grow up playing football. Right. So it wasn't everything in my life. It was something that I kind of You kind of fell into it in a way, yeah. Yeah. But it it wasn't everything for me. It was, I gave it everything I had when I was there. But after that, it was time to give everything I had to something else. And now I just enjoy doing things that people don't think that athletes or former football players or should be able to do. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

And keep pushing until they tell me no to something. Presented by Volition America, which gives 13% of its profits to Fold Zavon. Sponsored by Fire Department Coffee, veteran-owned and run by firefighters.

SPEAKER_05 23:42

It's amazing to watch you do what you do in the morning. I love watching it. Do you think I mean I think I know the answer to this, but easier to be interviewed or be the interviewer? You tell me, Big Daddy, what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 23:56

That's what I'm gonna. Exactly. No, no, I'll be honest with you. The in being the interviewee is a lot easier than being the interviewer. Absolutely. And I've noticed that um you've got to do your research when you interview somebody. Like obviously with you, I don't have to because I know the whole book inside out. But with other people that we you know we've uh interviewed, I've had to read and look at what who they're doing. Yeah, put the homework in, you know. Uh we interviewed Ed Burns last week.

SPEAKER_06 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Oh, he was great. Great guy. Great guy. And you know, we hit it off right away, Long Island guy, and then he's a big Giants fan. Yeah. And big Knicks fan, big sports guy. And uh, so that was easy. But then there's other ones where you go, all right, wow, I gotta study and at least let me know what I'm gonna ask. And if he asks me something, I gotta know the answer.

SPEAKER_04 24:52

And that's the thing. I think being an interviewer is harder. Yeah, yeah. And that's different from sports when you're You're just answering questions. Yeah. And then it's almost like a play today. Yeah. Yeah, you know, yeah. You can decide, you kind of have a built-in memory bank of quotes or or things that you would say. And and so that was always easier. I think interviewing obviously is harder because you have to, even if you know somebody, you should have to listen. And for me, GMA has been doing live with Kelly was different because that was kind of general brush surface stuff. Right. Pretty, pretty simple. Um, but you made it look simple, by the way.

SPEAKER_05 25:29

Not simple, that's not simple either. Or kind of personally.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

You can get on there, do your smile and straight hand smile. Yeah, you're good. Get some facial expressions.

SPEAKER_04 25:37

You're not gonna but GMA is different because you have to do something different. Hard news. Yes. News, yeah. I gotta do tragedy, I have to do joy, you have to do, you know, triumph and despair, and you have to have a full range of emotions and transition from one emotion to the next like that. But then when you're interviewing somebody, says it's a serious topic, so you have to understand how, you know, what's going on, obviously, but also anticipate. Right. You just don't ask you you ask a question and you're listening, but you also have anticipated when you've gone through my notes or questions about what the answer may be if it goes this way or that way. You gotta be prepared to go a few different directions, right? Prepared. And it's a it's a mentally a lot of work. And I think even when I'm sitting at the desk and I don't have a story, say George is talking to Robins, talking to Terry, Howie, um, Jimmy at the time, Kurt. I'm studying them. Like I'm just not sitting there on the show like passively. You're looking at stuff. I'm actually watching how they deliver. I'm watching their tone with their speech. Um, I'm I'm watching the follow-up questions. I'm watching how they, you know, sometimes they hear those questions so wordy. And George is a master at like getting straight to the point. Right. And BS. He just pick, pick, and I love it. Got to be some hot water here and there. Yeah. And he's fearless about it. He doesn't care who you are. George come at you, man. Uh-huh. I even told him one day, I've watched him interview somebody, and I said, hey, if I ever get in trouble, I'm not coming to you. Yeah, right. You're not interviewing me if I get in trouble, man. Hey, nope.

SPEAKER_05 27:09

Ain't happening. How about Robin? She's I've always admired her for ESPN and all she loved.

SPEAKER_04 27:14

Robin, Robin helped me so much. Um I've been doing live with Kelly and Michael. I'm at the Oscars for the first time on the red carpet. And I'm nervous. And she was hosting the main ABC show. I was doing it for our live show, and I people and we put it cut into our show. She's doing a live ABC show. And before the show, we're all on the red carpet, and I see her across the room and across the red carpet, and she's like, Hey, Michael, hey, I go over there, and she looked at me and she goes, You are you nervous? And I go, I am so scared. I'm scared to death. And she looked at me and said, You belong. Wow. She goes, I came for sports too. You belong here. Just that little simple thing of kindness from her completely relaxed me on that red carpet. And I had the time in my life and did it years and years. And then she and I ended up hosting the red carpet for ABC ourselves for a few times. So she's been an important part of my broadcast or post-football career than anybody else. And very simply just being there for me in that little moment completely changed my.

SPEAKER_05 28:20

Give you that confidence. Confidence, yeah. What about um this pad right here, the man cave here? Because you talk about, you know, your interest in other things. And you got these incredible cars here, many of them German. A lot of cars. A lot of German.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

I got Americans, I got everything. I it but I kind of they kind of I'm kind of like uh rotating through a rotisserie circuit, right? Well, some of these I've had for a long time. Some I will hopefully not get rid of. But it's, you know, I kind of go through cars a lot, but I try to be do it in a smart way. But I love cars. I think as growing up in Germany, the kid, older brothers who love cars, and we'd be on the school bus and be like, that's my car, that's my car, as they pass by and argue over. No, I named it first when none of us could afford a gas, a cup of gas. And um, so now to be able to kind of do something that I enjoy, and this is my passion. I love cars, I love I like your I like your tequila. I like your tequila stock there too.

SPEAKER_05 29:21

You love golf? I might come over here again, Michael, if I get the invite.

SPEAKER_04 29:24

I'm kind of I guess a dude dude, man. I know all the things you think that guys would like. I like them before. And I like them. And I love it. And I love, you know what? I love my friends. I enjoy coming over here and hanging out. And and I'll throw, like when the Knicks were playing, I'd throw, they were on the road, I'd throw a party over here. It still smells like smoking a little bit to me because we had a grill, guys were out there smoking barbecue and stuff, and it was flowing through the through the building. But I I love like having this this space is like my man cave, but at the same time, I've had more fun here sharing it with people than I ever had over here by myself.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

So we talk about cars. I was sharing a story before and see if you're how your memory is. I'm in LA.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

Oh, how could I forget?

SPEAKER_02 30:16

So basically, I was basically living at Michael's house. Yeah. On the beach. You get a house on the beach, man. All of a sudden you got a lot of friends.

SPEAKER_04 30:25

You got a lot of friends who decide they want to come visit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

So it was funny. We would meet, he was playing, and remember when I had we had we would we would meet at the airport. I'd be like, oh, here's those tickets for the game this weekend, because we had a box then. And uh I'd be like, here. Literally, he was flying out of one gate, I'm coming in on the other one. We'd meet. I'll see you at the end of the week because I would fly back for the game. Yeah, you know. But he'd go stay at my place.

SPEAKER_04 30:51

Oh, yeah. He stayed in more nights than I have, guaranteed.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

No, that was the down at Hermosa. But the funniest thing, the funniest time that I ever, the the fun, it was at my expense, though. Uh, Michael says, Come on, we gotta take this car from Hermosa up to Brentwood. And I'm like, I'm not looking at what car it is, but I'm like, all right. It was like that. It was a Ferrari Lamborghini?

SPEAKER_04 31:18

No, it was a lot smaller than that. Oh, wow. It was a Ferrari. It was an F 430 spider. And uh Silver with a red, red interior.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Red interior. And he's like, come on, we gotta go. And I'm like, Oh man, I'm like, I ain't gonna freeze. Are you gonna play golf?

SPEAKER_04 31:35

No, just take it for where we were going. We were going, we were. It was a bad choice of cars.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Yeah, right. Right. It was definitely not suitable for me. So I kind of like, you remember the movie Gator with uh Burt Reynolds and the guy Bones? Yeah, he drove the guy who was like seven foot tall, sticking out the ball. That was me. And he was driving. And so everybody's looking at it, I was like, wow, look at those two idiots, especially look at the big dumb guy sitting next. He didn't fit in that car, and I'm going to myself. And then it was like what should have been like a 20-minute ride was like an hour and a half ride on the 405.

SPEAKER_04 32:10

And we're like getting him to crew to roll out of it. That's all we do. Yeah, get out of that thing. I wish I had cameras back then. I wish we had fold back then. That would have been classic.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

That was like it, you know, and we talk about fun moments, right? So now we're at the Kentucky Derby and he's sitting down at a table. And, you know, I'm standing behind him. So right away, wow, that must be stray security guy or whatever. So some guy comes over to me and says, Hey, um, are you for hire? And I'm like saying to myself, like, for what? I uh yeah, for what? Like, what are you what are you uh what are you implying? And he says to me, Well, aren't you Michael's security guy? I go, nah, man, there's just no room at the table, so I'm standing there. You know, and it was like the guy was like like I burst his bubble because I said no.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

Well, the good thing is at least you're big enough to be my security guy because if whenever I do have had security in the past, it's like that little guy's gonna protect. What's he gonna do? He has a gun. I know.

SPEAKER_06 33:16

He's got me.

SPEAKER_05 33:17

All good. I know that the um recently there was a little military honor receiving for your family as well. You seem pretty emotional about that. Why did why did that mean so much to you?

SPEAKER_04 33:28

You know, it's it's something. Um, USAA, I went out to uh DC because USAA did this installation where they put all the names of 41 million military personnel over the years, or 250 plus years. And they had the names of each one of them displayed on this double-sided flag, and the the the flag, the stripes were were were named. It's like an LED screen. Um, but it you it looks like they were engraved in and limestone. It's really beautiful. And at night the way it lights up, but you can go there and find your family member, the friend, or anybody you know served in the military and have their name displayed on it. And it was just like to see my dad's name, to see my brother's name, who both of them have passed away. Um, my sister is still living, thank goodness. Um, you'd like to see them and know that they're seen for what they did and and the service that they gave to the country. Yeah. Like that that hit you. And growing up on military bases, it's just that's just what you do, and you're around the military and you see how they operate and the excellence and the teamwork and the camaraderie and and all those things that make them great. But I think sometimes it gets lost. We kind of just they're just there. Right. You know, like like like underwear. They're just there. You don't even think about it. Just there. Yeah. And but they do so much. So for me, it was it was emotional to see them being recognized, but also the entire installation. And um USA did an incredible job at that. Really?

SPEAKER_05 35:06

It just seems like you've taken kind of what you grew up around, right? What you were just talking about with the military, the camaraderie, pulling for each other. You've kind of brought that into everything you've done. You know, you have this amazing personality, which is obviously part of it, and a talent as a player, but you kind of brought this mindset into everything you've done. You think that's why you've been so successful?

SPEAKER_04 35:28

Yeah, yeah. I think everybody people look, oh, you know, I trust me, a lot of luck, but a lot of people behind pushing me and encouraging me. And my dad being the first one, my both my parents, but my dad was the one who said, You gotta go here and you're getting a football scholarship. When I wanted to quit after my first semester, I took the light bulb, man, out the lap. So I wasn't going back to college. And my dad was the one who said, Well, you're not staying here. You better figure something out. What are you gonna do? But it made me realize, okay, you have to take care of yourself. Can't depend on your parents or anyone else to take care of you. And no one owes you anything. And and that's the thing I tell my kids when, not if, obviously, but no one owes you anything. You gotta earn it. No one owes you a job, no one owes you respect, no one owes you anything. Everything you get in this life, you gotta earn it. And and that is just kind of, I think, the military side of my dad and uh the fact that when I was seven years old at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he would take us and make us go run with the troops in the mornings. When I was in Germany growing up and I decided I didn't want to be Bob, he used to wake me up at 5:30 in the summer to go run in Ker Tall Woods, and we go out there and run for miles. But it was all of those things that I think in in my life when people go, you work hard, you do this. I'm like, nah, trust me, this is not hard work. Right. Hard work what it took was what it took to get here. This now, not that I don't work hard, but it tells a comparison to what it took. I I I just I think back, and I I know I've been very fortunate. But I think about working out when everybody in college is home for breaks, and because my parents were in Germany, I couldn't afford to fly back every little break. So I'm in a dorm room by myself. But instead of sitting there doing your Jane Fonda workouts. Yeah, doing my Jane Fonda workout. Doing and that's what I was doing. I was literally working out where everybody was on break, and I'm here for a week or two by myself in a dorm room. I'll I they gave me a key to the weight room. So I would go work out and I would do all these things. And I was never in college just to be in college, I was in college to get out of college. Right. I was in college to I wanted to make my family proud. So for me, I've always had that thing where I'm always pushing to be better for the next thing. And not saying that where I'm at is not good enough. But I kind of want to challenge myself. That's why you're starting a new company. Yeah. I have friends, you don't need to do that, right? You have enough jobs. I'm like, yeah, to be honest with you, yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_05 37:58

But for some reason, I just want to see how I can do with it. I gotta ask you this. So just when we're getting to the end, because we appreciate all the time you've been giving us. Um when you think about all the things you've done, you know, which are plenty and the success you've had, is there still kind of one thing that you would say as Michael Strahan right now? Man, that's something pretty cool. Like I never thought I and I'm talking, maybe not a job, just something like you've been able to do. You've but you've done so much. You've been at the Oscars, you're doing the, you know. Like the space. Then I was about to say, there you go. Maybe that's it.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

Hey, I mean, I mean, that's just so far out.

SPEAKER_04 38:34

Yeah. Oh man. Well, I gotta say, going to space, Blue Origin was like, you know, that was that was pretty amazing. If there's something I haven't done, I'm pretty sure there's plenty. But I I think that the things I haven't done would would definitely not be work-related. Probably be um just like pleasure related. Like I want to take a trip over to Asia. I've never been to Asia. I've never had enough time off in my life to go for more than like even now when I work, I get two weeks max off before I have to be back at work in my contract. So I I want to do stuff like that. I want to travel more, I want to see a little bit more of the world and really just experience those things. But outside of that, man, professionally, I've pretty much done everything I've thought about doing, and a lot more than I never imagined. I'm freaking, you know, hosting a hundred thousand dollar pyramid, a Dick Clark show, and I'm like sitting here on, you have no idea how many times I sit places, and even to this day, a GMA or there or football, and I go, what am I doing here? Right. You know, how did I even get here? Do I even belong here? You still have those things that come through your mind. Um because you just it's I'm in disbelief that this has turned out to be my life. Because you never know growing up where it's gonna go. You just work hard and hopefully it ends up.

SPEAKER_05 39:55

As Robin said, you belong, my man. Thank you, my brother. We appreciate you uh letting us come here. Big Daddy's my guy, he's your guy for a long time, and love what he brings to the table, too.

SPEAKER_04 40:05

I love what he brings to the table, but he didn't bring me any damn pizza, so I don't know. I even know why I let him in the building.

SPEAKER_02 40:11

You know, you gotta go to Umberto's because, you know.

SPEAKER_04 40:13

Oh, he's now see that's another thing. You get your own show, you can't even bring your friends pizza no more.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

They gotta go pick it up themselves now, they gotta do it themselves. Well, look, I'm trying to get lean and I'm trying to get leaner and fitter like you.

SPEAKER_04 40:25

So, you know, I'm trying to we we we know about your work ethic. Nah. Nah, I'm just trying. You know my whole motivation working out? I don't want my teammates and friends to see me on TV and text me, going, boy, look like you gave up. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 40:39

So Michael, thank you, my man. Pleasure, Michael Strahan, everyone. Ah number one guest here on Mac Daddy. We love it.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

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SPEAKER_01 41:16

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