Are you familiar with the journey of a student-athlete, from the struggles of maintaining a balance between sports and academics to chasing dreams of making it to the NFL? Join us as we navigate the inspiring journey of UVA Football Alumnis, Austin Pasztor & Perry Jones.
Transitioning from a thrilling football career to finding a new passion can be quite a challenge. In this episode you will see there's more than meets the eye when it comes to the life of a student-athlete. Buckle up as we delve into the challenges of transferring schools, the importance of staying focused amidst adversity, and the path that led to each of their current positions.
Whether you're a sports enthusiast, an aspiring athlete, or simply looking for some motivation, this episode promises to captivate you with profound insights into the dynamic world of sports.
Are you familiar with the journey of a student-athlete, from the struggles of maintaining a balance between sports and academics to chasing dreams of making it to the NFL? Join us as we navigate the inspiring journey of UVA Football Alumnis, Austin Pasztor & Perry Jones.
Transitioning from a thrilling football career to finding a new passion can be quite a challenge. In this episode you will see there's more than meets the eye when it comes to the life of a student-athlete. Buckle up as we delve into the challenges of transferring schools, the importance of staying focused amidst adversity, and the path that led to each of their current positions.
Whether you're a sports enthusiast, an aspiring athlete, or simply looking for some motivation, this episode promises to captivate you with profound insights into the dynamic world of sports.
Welcome to the who's Wear podcast, live here in Charlottesville. I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight. There's a lot of fun stuff going on, so we're really grateful to have everybody here. My name is Alice Nansen and, on behalf of our host, we are very excited to bring you this show right here in the heart of. Charlottesville. We would like to thank Starthole Brewery for offering this space for us to tonight, if you were just wondering about who's Wear.
Speaker 3:This is a podcast hosted by UVA alumni that highlights individuals of the UVA community including alumni, students and other individuals that are doing big and exciting things in their communities and careers. We are a podcast that hosts a bill that UVA alumni network through a community through networking content and events such as this.
Speaker 4:At this time. I'd like to thank our sponsors for tonight's event. First, I'd like to introduce Full Strength Physical Therapy.
Speaker 3:Full Strength Physical Therapy helps athletes and active individuals get out of pain and back to higher performance.
Speaker 2:It's frustrating giving up what you love because of pain Full.
Speaker 3:Strength Physical Therapy helps you, give you your active life self back by eliminating pain, no matter how far you go. They give you the tools, knowledge and attention you deserve, with exclusive one-on-one sessions with your doctor with highly individualized plans to get you back to doing what you love.
Speaker 3:To learn more, you can follow Full Strength Physical Therapy on Instagram at Full Strength underscore pt, or visit Full Strength Physical Therapy dot com. Dr Alan Barb is here tonight if you would like to connect, and we also have a QR code that we'll put out for everybody after the show. If you would like to enter for a free session giveaway, I will say I've done a couple of Dr Alan's course or sessions and they are wonderful. Max has also done that, and he can attest to how great that is too.
Speaker 1:We also have Central Virginia Swim Services sponsoring our event this evening.
Speaker 3:Central Virginia Swim Services is Charlottesville's premier private swim lesson company.
Speaker 4:CVSS offers you around swim lessons at their indoor location at 4th Union Military Academy.
Speaker 3:Several lessons are available.
Speaker 5:Key West swim. Intent is love.
Speaker 3:Full Strengths North and CVSS will come to your own backyard or community pool for mobile lessons. For more information, visit CentralVirginistSwimcom. And tonight's event is being captured and sponsored by Web Sludge Photography, an event and portrait and wedding photography photographer located in Charlottesville. Virginia and open to travel throughout the United.
Speaker 4:States For what's photos of today's podcast.
Speaker 3:be sure to check out wwwwebsludgecom or Instagram page at wwwwebsludgecom.
Speaker 4:You can see more of this work at wwwwebsludgecom.
Speaker 3:That's wwwwebsldgecom, or on Instagram at wwwwebsludgecom.
Speaker 1:Last but not least, we'd like to thank our sponsor, uva.
Speaker 3:Clubs for helping us make this event possible. And please enjoy a few bites provided by Angelique's Kitchen. They are right around the corner. We're closed now, but we'd like to thank them for offering our bites tonight and anything else you can grab here at Dairy Market. At the end of the show we will be having a Q&A session. Please feel free to submit any questions.
Speaker 3:You have the QR code. I believe this first bench table here has some QR codes on the scan you can submit for any questions to any other guest, host or anyone you'd like to answer, alright, so I would like to go ahead and introduce our special guest tonight, our first guest is. Uva Football alum Class of 2013, with 8 Bachelors in Sociology Perry Jones. Our next guest is UVA Football alum Class of 2012, with 8 Bachelors in Sociology.
Speaker 3:Austin Astor and your host UVA Football alumni Chase Minifield, class of 2011 with a Bachelors in Sociology and Master million, class of 2013 with 8 Bachelors in Psychology.
Speaker 6:Test it. Test it First. I was giving out. This is our first time doing the host thing.
Speaker 4:I appreciate your help.
Speaker 6:Let's give another hand for our sponsors, especially Josh One City for New York City Club. Thank you, guys, for helping us to take people's role. So show of hands real quick. How many people have heard of the?
Speaker 3:episode or seen it.
Speaker 2:Of the who's Wears Podcast. You can be honest. Alright, we got a couple hands.
Speaker 6:There you go. That's boy, do we start? That's good. So if you go on YouTube who's Wears TV, if you're so much who's Wears TV on YouTube, you can subscribe, watch all the back videos and you can listen to current videos upload a few times a month.
Speaker 4:Then also on Spotify.
Speaker 6:I'll be podcast, who's Wears go on there and so show support. We got about 167 episodes, all done with great UVA alumni. So the goal of us starting this was to make it to where one we could acknowledge our alumni and what they're doing, but also allow for current students or just graduating individuals to have the database of alumni that they can use as potential resources for mentors or just get in knowledge of what they're up to and doing.
Speaker 6:So, yeah, appreciate you guys giving him, you guys also for coming. Thank you, you're not to be here. You can't be here. You can't be here. You can't be here. You're not to be here. Alright, let's get started. Let's get started A couple of things. So there's QR codes on the little stickers, the little fees on your tables. If you do scandals, you will be able to ask questions. So Max will be monitoring questions coming in from the crowd and we'll take those questions. You can ask them to individuals, you can ask them to the group, whichever you'd like to do.
Speaker 2:All the questions are screened by me so in case some of y'all have any questions, you can ask the questions that are screened by me, so they don't all get asked.
Speaker 4:That's a fact.
Speaker 6:Alright, so let's get started.
Speaker 5:Let's get started hey so we got Pat Jones man. Pat Jones, I gotta do this.
Speaker 6:I gotta do this. Superman, we have two men in the building. Pat Jones man, how you doing? What are you up to these days, good man? First I want to thank you guys for inviting me back.
Speaker 1:It's good to come back and always talk about life ball with my guys man.
Speaker 5:My wife always said she always shows me about.
Speaker 1:Y'all talk about anything else you get with the guys and you're just like football, football, football, reminisce, reminisce, and that's what we do, so I'm not going to change Every time you're going to hit another dose of it. Today, my high school head football coach and Richmond Virginia, I coach at Glen Island High School. I'm going into my fifth year, I guess.
Speaker 5:I gotta follow Perry's lead and thank my family. Thanks for coming. I have two kids at home, three and one and a half, allen and Bo, so I'm a dude as scientists. Now I'm nearly done with my degree in Masters of Science and Analytics at Georgia Tech, and so I'm doing that, and I also work for a startup. So, yeah, I'm gonna keep busy.
Speaker 6:Awesome. So how this podcast kinda works is we like learning where people are doing now and then we like to take it all the way back. Like how did you get to UVA? What was your experience like before UVA? Where are you from? Those type of situations, so ask any questions as they come. Like don't forget any questions, is on the tip, I'm gonna talk to them. I said you know what I'm touching on. They said everything's good. So I got three rings Alright. So, perry, tell us about pre-UVH. What was Perry Jones' pre-UVH?
Speaker 1:So I'm originally from Chesapeake, new Jersey. When I was in high school, which is kind of known for football, I was playing with a bunch of guys four stars, five stars, all over the place. Colleges would come in and I would be probably the last person to ask for it, so that was always. I always wanted to chip on my shoulder, even to this day. So I just kind of made sure that whenever they come to a game to watch the other guys, that they would come to see that they were gonna leave talking about me, and that's just something that I kind of use as motivation to fight, to make sure that I was always working harder than the next man. If you look at me on five foot, nothing.
Speaker 2:I was 175, 170 pound middle line back in the high school. So, I had to stand out somehow.
Speaker 1:So my objective was just to be the hardest work on the field, the guy that gave the most effort, the guy that tried to be the best teammate, just to stand out a little bit. Unfortunately enough, I got recruited to the University of Virginia by Bob Pruitt. I wish I would have got a got a play form, but he left before I got here and ever since I stepped on the camp I just knew this was a place for me, so don't regret anything.
Speaker 4:I tried to make it the best I could.
Speaker 1:I got my degree, finished a pretty decent football career, and I couldn't ask for anything more.
Speaker 6:Now did you say middle line back in? Yeah, middle line back in. So did you want to stay? Yeah, we want to stay.
Speaker 1:I went 15 and know my senior year I actually played with Tim Smith, who was one of my best friends. I asked him if he was on FaceTime with him before we got here, who, I don't know, is quite out there yet, but I'm going to go ahead and spill the beans before he does. He's now a professional coach in the Canadian football league for the Toronto.
Speaker 2:Bar. I was going somewhere else, but okay.
Speaker 1:So you know just a guy that you know. We tried to. We also went to the house together and we tried to push each other, so we're glad to see he's doing great things, as well as these other guys growing on the stage. I can't appreciate y'all for everybody.
Speaker 6:Now, there, he has an episode already on our roof, where episode 8-9,. If you go check it out, I'm listening to it again this morning and you said that Virginia Tech coach showed up to your high school Pooch you out of class.
Speaker 1:Pooch you out of class.
Speaker 6:Pooch you out of class? Yeah, and what?
Speaker 1:have you done so if you don't know much about high school improvement? Certain periods of time of the year, coaches come around to the high schools and say Coach you know they have ideas about guys that they want to talk to, or they ask coaches like who do you recommend Virginia? Tech came in and they talked to my coach like hey, coach, can you call Perry Jones?
Speaker 4:out of class.
Speaker 1:So I came down like I'm about to get my first offer. You know I don't have the animosity towards him then as I do now, but he called me out of class and I'm excited and he looks at me and say you have the best film in the state, but you're too small. And that was it in the conversation.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's how it went and I was just, I was upset and from that point on forth I hate marooning.
Speaker 6:We got marooning here, but I don't have any. I don't know where those guys are. Austin, talk to us about pre-UDA.
Speaker 4:Now what was Austin's last note to pre-UDA?
Speaker 6:But let me just say that when I see Austin, for the first time I was running on the field for practice and I looked at my right. I was like it was like mountain, you know, over there.
Speaker 2:I was like you know, I'm like 16 when you came out here About 16, in Canada. They built differently in Canada.
Speaker 1:So you know, most of the jobs like that wasn't because I was just so good they couldn't see me.
Speaker 2:So you know we're gonna be there. Oh yeah, man, you can get him out the room now, that's okay, so Austin, talk to us.
Speaker 6:Who was Austin already doing before he came to the UDA?
Speaker 5:Well, I'm so glad Perry said that he played middle linebacker, because in 10th grade I also played middle linebacker. You can imagine, yeah, I was playing football in Canada, right, so that's a hockey country, so they kind of let it go. I played quarterback a little bit too, so you can imagine the kind of team I was on. But you know, I had the dream that I wanted to play D1 football, so I was trying to work that out.
Speaker 5:I had started my senior year of high school in Ontario, canada, and that summer I went down, I played on the All Star team and we scrimmaged against the Fort Union Military Academy, which is a few miles from here, and I was playing defense event at the time and you know I had a pretty good game. And so the coach called me and he said hey, you know we're going to bring you up here movie to tackle and you're going to get a scholarship. So I dropped out of school I'm an official Ontario job out and then I went to the Fort Union and, yeah, sure enough, you be an ended offer to me. And you know, just being with Coach Gro and being around grounds, I knew right away that's the place I wanted to go. So I came in a few days later.
Speaker 5:And there was.
Speaker 2:So did you know what?
Speaker 6:played hockey.
Speaker 5:I didn't know that, like any good Canadian boy, the first sport I ever played was hockey. I was a goalie from like years old. You're a goalie, then that's bigger than you think. I don't know why I'm a goalie.
Speaker 2:I'm like wait a minute. You gotta be, flexible too. You can do splits. Every goalie that I've seen do splits. Those are professional goalies. I'm gonna ask you to do it here. If you can do it, I can do a headspin.
Speaker 5:Oh wait. So I played goalie all the way up through ninth grade. At that point, basically, I was grown out of my equipment and goalie equipment is very expensive and I just decided to play basketball instead. So I played basketball football high school. Did a little track. Well, not a track field. Honestly, throw a shot at putting discs in a shot.
Speaker 6:Alright cool.
Speaker 2:Okay, so did you always want to go like when you were getting this doubt from other people, from colleges and things of that nature did your? Dreams ever deter you as far as playing golf go.
Speaker 6:Is that what you always?
Speaker 1:wanted to do Like.
Speaker 6:I never.
Speaker 1:My dreams never wavered. I always had just this. Even from when I was young, I've always been self-motivated. No one's ever really bothered me, because I knew what I was capable of. I knew it's hard. I worked harder than everybody. At some point somebody was going to notice it and give me an opportunity.
Speaker 1:So again as my teammates in high school are getting offers from everywhere South Carolina, unc, florida they're just coming in. I never showed envy, never showed jealousy. I rooted those guys on because I knew that that was just going to make me better. So I just kept plugging along, took it step by step, day by day, kept working Everybody going home on Fridays getting ready to go to the movies. I'm on the field by myself. And that sacrifice I'm just thankful that I had it within me at such early age. Because, again, that's the reason I'm here with you guys right now and I try to instill them in my players. Because, again, a lot of those guys, they don't have all the physical tools. Some of those guys, all they may have is there in addition, and I see it and I'm not going to see it again Most of these guys probably none of my guys are going to go play 10, 12-year career in NFL. That's my motivation for us guys.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to watch it, but I'm going to start it here and I'll tell it to them. That's your goal, and me telling you that is, yes, you're not going to make it.
Speaker 1:Who knows?
Speaker 4:But the emphasis I'm trying to make here is my goal is to make sure that my players are valuable assets to society.
Speaker 1:Football is. I can take the lead. I don't need to coach anymore, but I know that my purpose now is to pour into my players. So whatever I need to do to make sure I'm going to that the highest level, exposing them to different areas that's what I try to do.
Speaker 6:So, first of all, you're the better man in here, because if I was the best player in the team and somebody was getting off of it, I'm going to have to have a conversation with them. But essentially, who's kind?
Speaker 2:of your mentor.
Speaker 6:Who gave you the mindset early to not work and to you know, not even the next hand, but continue to work on whatever. Your plan is whatever your set of goals.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was me. It was me my first sport that I ever played. I was a wrestler. My older brother was a wrestler in middle school I think he was going to sixth grade at the time and I just went to one of their Saturday practices and I was probably in the third grade at the time and he was like hey, you want to practice with us?
Speaker 1:And I'm like okay, went out there and I became a really good wrestler and I think and that's why I encourage my guys now to wrestle, because I know that I guess football is difficult, but wrestling is by far the hardest thing I've ever done, because it's it's literally you in another name, that's it. You can't rely on ten other guys. You know so that all of that has to come from within, and I learned a lot through wrestling and again, I just took it with me in every aspect of my life Awesome.
Speaker 6:Before we move on to Perry why did you choose UBN? Be honest. And what are the options about your foot?
Speaker 1:So my first college scholarship came from Boston College. They came in, gave me a scholarship offer and again, this is my junior year Boston College came in first and UBN came in second. And just speaking to Coach Pruitt, he was a I don't know if you guys remember, I know y'all was probably there with him for a little bit. He was a funny guy man, he captivated my heart and he made me want to come here. On top of that, it was close to home. You know, I don't come from very much money. I wanted to come to a place where I knew my parents would be able to get to and I knew, as I learned more about the school, I knew it was an academic year. It's a great school, you know could be.
Speaker 1:So when I added all those things together, memorial Day my junior year, I committed Park Coast bro. I actually just had left my cell phone at my godmother's house. So when I knew I had got the offer, I committed. The day after I got the offer and I was like where's my phone? I got to call those girls, got to call them. I called them. His wife picked up and she gave him the phone and I committed. And you know, from that point forward, I knew like this is where I wanted to be Awesome.
Speaker 6:Shout out to Coach Pruitt. So, austin, what did you see when you were going there, when you were coming up and made you say I want to play football? Wasn't it just like looking at the mirror and saying that's the fact? That's what I was talking about.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, I had an uncle who played football and he was really interesting and instrumental. He gave me the play football he was. You know, you come over to the house and be like Austin, you got a play, you're a master in the park, yeah. So yeah, I started playing, probably like 4th or 5th grade. I just fell in love with it. One of my favorite things about each playing football was when it was just raining and raining, you just had a lot of hits all over the field and we would just, we wouldn't bother running the plays, we would just hit each other in the mud pit and it's like, I don't know, it's the most fun thing you can do. It's probably the part I miss about football the most still is just giving the like very good, especially, I guess, right, you know, just showing someone else around the mud.
Speaker 2:To me, to me, to me, to me. When you're in Austin size, that's fun. When you're in normal size, like, that's not fun for us. So it's just my favorite because when we did that that wasn't fun for me. That makes sense to me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, thanks for that.
Speaker 6:So, austin, what made you choose UVA? What were the options that you had for me?
Speaker 5:So initially most of the offers that I got were from schools that were closer to home. You know, I think schools like Parry Loot too, like one of my players, would be relative with us at home. So you know, I had like Buffalo, western Michigan, schools like that. And then UVA came to the picture. This is probably December, november, december, my senior year, and you know I took the visit and I was really sure I wanted to go. I decided to talk to my parents and shortly thereafter Miami offered me and, uh, whoops, yeah. So you gotta remember these official visits are a lot of fun, you know, for the weekend, all expenses paid, the players take you out, have a good time, show you to school, show you people, yeah. So I went to military school. So I was like, ah, I couldn't, uva, I'll probably be going this trip. And I told my dad, told him that, and he was like, ah, probably a good idea.
Speaker 2:So my brother was really good hockey player and he had a similar situation to have with him actually.
Speaker 5:And he was being recruited by a couple teams. He wasn't sure where he was going to go and the first team that had said you know that we got a spot for you he was kind of like well, I'm going to see what my options are, and then it turned out that first team was like well, if you're not going to be interested in us, then we're not going to be interested in you, and he lost that opportunity. So from that, that's when my dad was like you're not going to Miami.
Speaker 4:And.
Speaker 5:I told him that you can't and I was like well, but I'm going to military school and I can go to Miami for a weekend, and so I didn't go. But I'm glad I'm in Superhavio and I'm going to give you a ride.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I think we're from Florida and we played Miami later here, right?
Speaker 5:For sure, and actually the year that I was in high school was the year that we went down there and made them 48-nothing in the board school, so it wasn't like you had the board school then. Exactly, yeah, you guys were there, yeah.
Speaker 2:You guys were there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so football lies. You know, like obviously Miami has a very good reputation. But at that point I was like, well, I'm still going to the better football school.
Speaker 6:So I've got a couple questions. If y'all don't get asked, then that's great.
Speaker 4:We're a team of some.
Speaker 2:All right, okay, thank you. That's my question. All right, all right, what advice would you give someone who's football career has ended, and how do you get on the hurdle of chasing the passion?
Speaker 5:That's repair.
Speaker 2:Right, that's a funny one. You've used couple years in the league, so that might be a review. Yeah, that's a good one. Okay, first of all, let me know what you played and how long you played?
Speaker 5:Okay, well, I played eight seasons in NFL. I started with Jacksonville, I went to Cleveland, atlanta and finished in Tennessee. Yeah, so that's a very interesting question and something that in the football community we talk about. A lot is like trying to figure out what you're going to do next. And one of the hardest things is when you're in it. You think if I start preparing for what I'm out, I'm not really giving my all to what I'm doing now. So how much do I really want to devote to preparing for what's next? And that was the hardest thing. I'd deal with A good friend of mine and these guys came Johnson, he was playing with me at the time. He was like, dude, they're offering, you know, you could go get your NBA, and it felt the pain for it. We should do it. We'll be ready or we'll as soon as we're done, and I've always been interested in business. When I went to UVA I told myself that's what I was going to study. Then it turned out that way, so I was like alright, here's my chance.
Speaker 5:I'll get my business degree, and you know, during the off-season's, when I have time, and so I did. So I started in my like I think it was my sixth season, started in the off-season's and graduated shortly after I retired. But the truth is, and what I found is it's really hard to figure out who you're going to be after you're a football player. It takes up a lot of your time and energy and focus, and so it's you know, converting that to something else is difficult. The thing I found for me personally was the very last course I took in business school was business applications and machine learning, and from that course I was bit by this bug of computer programming and data science and I just loved it, and so I started investigating more.
Speaker 5:I started, I applied to Georgia Tech and I started learning how to code and all of a sudden I realized I could spend my entire day coding. I could spend six, eight hours just grinding it out and I was like, wow, I found something that I love as much as I love football. So I mean, I guess the advice there is you know, explore as many things as you can. Find something else that you think you love as much as football. That's the best lesson I can get as far as that goes Treshe.
Speaker 6:do you have anything you want to add?
Speaker 1:on that. Yeah, so I'm a little bit different because, you know, fortunately I didn't make it to the end of the field. And I said fortunately because I had to get to a point where I had to change my mindset.
Speaker 2:What did that happen though?
Speaker 1:Because a lot of people know Perry Jones. You're Holly Cowell, You're the face of the program. You know what I'm saying. When I came in, I thought I was going to be a face of the program.
Speaker 2:You didn't. I was not even told to come out of high school. I thought I was a man.
Speaker 1:And then can you display the.
Speaker 2:Perry. Jones come in and the coach didn't have to have got my name, so it's a little great. So what's the light for somebody who's Holly told him Everything? When you play is that you go to the NFL. So what's that change like?
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people in my life did get this service from a little kid by telling me every day, every time I play, every time I had a game, you're going to the NFL Because that's all you believe. That's all you know that's all you aspire to do. You don't have a backup player, which in some cases, yeah you know something to say, oh you shouldn't have played, because the threats were playing there, In this case with football. I don't believe in it anymore, and again so when I didn't make it.
Speaker 1:I had to try out the Arabians and this was the year after they won the Super Bowl. There was staff, a lot of guys on the team at the time, I think Ray Brescher still on the team, and I was making jokes like, well you know, and Steve with a punch his wife a year earlier maybe. I would have been. I can't go for the.
Speaker 2:NBA.
Speaker 4:We don't have this now.
Speaker 1:I can't. But no, all just aside. Like once, I didn't make the team, I became really depressed. So that's the first time that I was introduced to like what I consider from my own perspective. I was depressed. I sat in the house playing Cannon Crush all day, waiting for my family, and it never rained and it took.
Speaker 1:And this is why, you know, I put no one above except God, above my wife, because at some point she didn't tell me what I wanted to get. She told me what I needed to do and at some point she said you're nothing, god, if I thought of love when we were in there. I don't see the ambition, I don't see the hard work, and just because you don't have football, okay, you don't have football, what's next? What's next? And it took me a while to try to figure that out and once I found, I fell in.
Speaker 1:I always knew I was going to be a football coach. It just happened a lot sooner than I would have liked. So once I was able to get out there and I'm not sure if it's still here, but I have a couple of my former players which is crazy and I coach these guys at high school. In there he was, you know, every finished college and he watched me in his podcast man and that's a cool like cool 360 man and you know that's what I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about giving what I know to the next generation, giving the things that I learned from not making it to the NFL to these guys.
Speaker 1:So they know I have to prepare myself for something else, but still give everything you have into football. Give it all, don't Give it a take. Give it a take, and if it doesn't happen, you just got to be ready to rebound and do something else.
Speaker 2:Shout out to the people that will tell you the truth and work the best when you know. You know what I'm saying. That's extremely important. Especially if you shout out April. You know, I saw Cam Camotisha. I said hang on a minute. I'm Prager Barnes. Never know what TVA, you know our better hands Sometimes we thought we were above everybody, but they might have stopped that. They never forget that. Any more questions.
Speaker 6:A couple more, so I'll take one more. Yeah, one more.
Speaker 2:So we'll go. What's your favorite memory at UVA? Let's start with you, chase.
Speaker 6:My favorite memory at UVA, I don't know. I think I would probably have to say after we beat Florida State and Miami. And I'm saying here and came back and you know, uva shout out to the UVA football fans Y'all are silent, but let's not act like y'all are. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 4:It's a level of UVA fandom and fandoms that cause football.
Speaker 6:But after we won that and we were maybe number one in ACC and something like that in the Coastal and we came back on the bus and like everybody was lining up on the street down there at 3 am.
Speaker 6:And I was like, okay, this one feels like I'm playing out of BAM, and I was still like it was playing, but I was like, look at what's in that corner talking about, but that was one of the times where I was, like you know, feels like the fans are coming behind and lining up with football teams doing and it looks like we can do something special in the whole community. Who's just like on top? So that's probably one of my favorite memories.
Speaker 1:They were waiting for us back when we got off the bus. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was pretty late and to see the fans like we got off the plane, got back to the BQ Center and fans were out waiting for us when we got back in, I was like that was pretty cool, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:You can't use that with parents, so blame. It was the favorite mouth.
Speaker 1:I don't have an individual favorite moment. I think my eyes closed when I was talking to you. Know, shout out to my other friends back over here colleague Shepard, I was talking to them a couple of weeks ago, and I was just telling them what I miss most, what I like the most. My most fondest memories is practice, Practice. I love practice. I love being in film session with the under running back.
Speaker 4:If y'all see how I match this now, that's how it was in In film.
Speaker 2:we didn't get nothing done. I was a position coach in the back of the room going to the film laughing themselves.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, we were still able to be productive, but we had so much fun in there. It was a lot of laughs we always enjoyed about how rich Max was. Good word is joke. I was serious, though. I was going to tell Max he came to UVA on a helicopter. I don't know if you guys know that.
Speaker 2:I'm not in the helicopter.
Speaker 1:I'm talking to my teacher. It was just a lot of fun, those bonds. My most fondest memories is just creating those relationships with these guys. Again, today is just a testament to that. If we didn't have those relationships, they wouldn't have called me to say hey, man, we got this going on, we're coming back.
Speaker 4:Again, I can't thank you guys enough.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it.
Speaker 4:These type of things are something that I need for myself.
Speaker 1:That's what I work for. My best friend was Awesome.
Speaker 2:You had some time, I had some good work, oh yeah.
Speaker 5:I had it all teed up for the North Carolina game, my first year.
Speaker 2:My first step down with me. I thought that was going to be your favorite memory.
Speaker 1:But you were nearer than their team. Who knows?
Speaker 5:But favorite brings up such a great point when you start talking about that. I start to think about all the memories, all the silly stuff I did in college, cool parties etc. And how much fun that was. That's definitely up there, but I think, football-wise, the two things- that stick out of my mind are my very first game which we played against USC, and Scott Stadium was packed and loud.
Speaker 5:That's totally in there. That was so like I'm just a small town kid. I never played more in front of more than 100 people, so I have like 75,000 fans there. That blew my mind and the feeling of running the tunnel into that environment was definitely special for me. And then, as I said, the North Carolina game. I always go back to that, I think, and I really got to look this up to make sure I get this right, because I feel like I change my story every time I tell it. But we were playing North Carolina at home and it went into overtime and we're on the goal line and if we score we win and they call it power, which is just the best play ever invented, especially in the play-guard.
Speaker 2:And I completely went for my god.
Speaker 5:Luckily I was living inside your Juvenile row.
Speaker 2:We, just, we, just, we just pulled down the box. It was a double team right.
Speaker 5:So, I completely missed. But G just like mashed the dude, and I just remember like feeling the running back jump over us in an end zone, crowds going wild, crowd gets on the field and just I don't know. To me that was just. It's almost like if you were to, if you wanted to have a movie about what it was like to be a college football player, you would, you would want that scene in it, you'd want to be a part of that, and so you know that that to me was, is still my favorite memory and you know, sometimes I tell the story as if I was a pulling guard and made a great applause. Yeah, but I'm pretty sure I would have time. I'm gonna get the film on that, see what actually happened.
Speaker 2:Alright, slow motion, I mean mine, I don't think the period, but the locker room, locker, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4:The dirt training camp all of the month of August when everyone's party and ready to come back to school.
Speaker 2:We're, we're at camp. We have practiced three times a day. Sometimes, you know, two times, three times a day.
Speaker 4:We're easier than the training center from Alright so while we're talking about UBA let's get on like so, let's switch, let's switch it up a little bit.
Speaker 6:How was your transition from high school to college academically and dealing with the rigor of UBA academics?
Speaker 1:So when I got UVA, for some reason Coach Bro didn't think I needed to be in a transition program. So when we get there, I'm just jumping from high school to the college course and I'm just like you're talking to me for three hours and I just had a workout for two and a half three hours.
Speaker 4:Now I have to listen to you for another three and a half hours.
Speaker 1:I can't even keep my eyes open. You know, I just didn't know how to take notes. I didn't know how to study.
Speaker 4:And after my first semester.
Speaker 1:I remember my grade it was yesterday had B 2S and a C this was April, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, I got called into the Dean's office.
Speaker 1:I don't know how I get into the same patient and he told me yeah, you do this again, we'll kick you out of school. I said what my mom told me I can't come back. So from that point forward I really buckled down in school. The next semester I got straight B's, then stayed for all three sessions of summer school. The next summer I got two A's in the B during summer school and again I really buckled down and understood I need this.
Speaker 5:This is not optional.
Speaker 1:I need this, not only for me, but for my family. I need something for my siblings back home. I was the first one, I'm the second oldest, but I was the first one to graduate college, and my older brother just graduated college this year. So again, I don't know if I had anything to do with it, but I would like to thank that that I gave them an example, saying hey look, this is the way I want to be an example for my kids my daughters.
Speaker 2:I got my bachelor's.
Speaker 1:That's the minimum they can do. Their mom got her master's, got to add me in the doorstep, so that's really the minimum. So now we want them to get their PhD. We want to set far high and make them reach for even higher. So it was definitely a transition for me. But I got straight and never had to issue a game and got my degree in three and a half years.
Speaker 6:That's good stuff, man. Austin. So you said you wanted to go to business school. Why did they let you do that?
Speaker 5:Well, I don't know if it's a superstition. I mean, I'm not a fan of it.
Speaker 2:I started at the same speed, I think what they say football is optional, but so is starting. Practice is optional, classics is optional practice, but starting is also optional too, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 5:I go to something like that, but I won't pin it on anyone else. I was fortunate to start as a true freshman. I made the 9th mistake at 17 of looking at who was the other of its line at UBA. I started as a true freshman Brandon Ellberg, eugene Monroe. I was like, oh, I'm a first-time pick, perfect.
Speaker 6:So yeah, I did find in my first semester.
Speaker 5:In the spring semester, when I didn't have football, I got to be a little free. I ended up down the wrong path a little bit and ended up on the heck out of the warring myself. But that was a pretty good wake-up call, like, hey, you gotta go to class, I gotta do the work. So that's what I did and I ended up making the fruit.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I did.
Speaker 5:I'm gonna answer the question.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's good.
Speaker 6:So what did you guys do?
Speaker 2:We don't have to do it for you. You don't know what it was. I never remember. Okay you might not want to be a big, active morning. I was watching this.
Speaker 6:Now what I did do. I got into UBA as an engineer and I was always wondering when we got our little tags.
Speaker 4:Mine's an E and G and it's like yeah, c-l-a-s.
Speaker 6:And I was like why are you guys to say something different than mine and I go to talk to my academic advisor and he says you're an engineering. I said oh, I made you fall people on TV.
Speaker 4:It was my class though, like you know what I'm saying, and they said you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 6:And I said all right, let's switch me to the C-L-A-S. So I didn't go to the setup. So yeah, that was my experience in academics here Before we move on, would you look at the question? No more. All right, man. So let's say, outside of football, outside of academics, talk about the culture in UBA and how it was for you. Do you have any regrets of things that you weren't able to do because of football, or just gives you an overall general experience as far as going to school, being a student outside?
Speaker 4:of academics. Why don't you guys?
Speaker 1:pick me up once. I mean, I was just kind of so focused and locked in.
Speaker 4:So again, once I kind of got my stuff together.
Speaker 1:I knew it was football in school. That was pretty much it. You know, every time. You know I didn't really have too much of a social life. The only person that I didn't see, that didn't go out as much as me, was Chase. Never really saw Chase, so he was focused.
Speaker 2:But, somebody that did see every time I went out was this one. Oh no, so again I didn't go out much so whenever I did, everybody was like yo, it's been a very key mouth, what you know.
Speaker 4:so he was like, yeah, but yeah outside of that, I was just kind of focused and locked in on the task.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you can't trust Max.
Speaker 6:That was the first year and I was then I didn't drink, but fresh out of actually you know close with me drink, yeah, that's fresh. I don't like that, so I'm like I'm not drinking Max to you, but we were like I'll pass Max, was like I don't drink pizza, and it was true at the time I had breakfast for O'Heal one day like Wednesday morning.
Speaker 6:Sunday morning and I went back. I'm going to pass Max going to O'Heal and before he reads he's really going to drink. But that's okay, trust that guy Max, he'll take me to the here.
Speaker 4:Oh, what about you, austin? I was sure of just like being a student experience at the University of Virginia.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I had an awesome time.
Speaker 2:I was much more in the Max camp. Max and I were up together all the time.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So yeah, you know, I really fell in love with this city and that's why I move back here. Look here now. It's such an incredible place to be. I like the small town feel. I like the mountains, I like the corner, I like the downtown mall. I mean it's such a fun place to be Going through school here. I mean I had it. It really was. It really was the most fun time of my life. So, yeah, it was awesome.
Speaker 6:Okay, so we know you were in the NFL, right? I mean I expected you to go to the NFL like something just bills for you. You know what I'm saying. So what was your experience at the NFL? Did you know you were going to the hotel when you were here playing? Were you like I was at NFL, or were you prepared for possibly not going to the NFL?
Speaker 5:Well, I like to think I'm pretty modest. So early on I was like, well, you know it might have been formatted, it might not. So that's, you know, trying to keep a cool head about it as I was going. You know, later in my career you start to see players you've played with for two or three years and you see how they do in the NFL. You think, well, I'm relatively equal to him in talent and. I'm better.
Speaker 2:Bigger, smaller and full. We don't even do it out of like an eagle, Well, you just think of it Like you never know right.
Speaker 5:So I, you know, I was undrafted, I signed to Free Agent with Minnesota and they cut me out of training camp and there was no one there to sign me. So I came back here and stayed with my wife, all issues, and she's a nurse, and so I slip up and catch basically like, oh man, when someone's gonna call, when someone's gonna call.
Speaker 2:That's a big couch.
Speaker 5:My feet were hanging off, so yeah. So then, finally, the call did come, and that's really you know, and that was for a practice spot spot. So I did that for most of my first year and then, luckily enough, I was able to start the last three games. But that was you know mostly due to the fact that I was playing for the Jaguars who had like two wins. They're like, yeah, I'm for this guy, I don't care, I don't think it's any worse.
Speaker 5:So, yeah, no, I would not say that I thought all the way that I was gonna be in the NFL. The one interesting aspect for me was being a Canadian citizen. The CFL has sort of like a quota system where they try to have a certain amount of Canadian players. So if you have a Canadian citizenship you're more highly coveted than an American player, because it helps them out. Obviously, if they could take as many American players as they wanted, they'd probably be almost all American. So I was actually drafted fourth overall in the CFL draft. So I kind of always knew if NFL didn't work out, I could still play football in the CFL.
Speaker 2:So I think I was definitely focused on.
Speaker 5:You're going to be a professional football player one way or the other, so I'll just try and make that happen.
Speaker 6:OK, so about you, barry. I know you was locked in. You won the Best Plays on our team. Did you start preparing for anything after the near-filt, or was your mindset just enough that it felt like?
Speaker 1:nothing, I did start to prepare for the CFL. I wanted to give it a shot. Unfortunately I didn't have a very good agent which I got, I told, a bunch of false information which I don't really understand, because the more money I made, the more money you made. I just think they were at their job. But again it worked out how it was supposed to be. Again, no regrets. But again it was also during that time of my life where I was not in a good place. Yes, I wanted to meet the NFL and then I was like, well, I'll settle for the CFL, which that's already now a good mindset to have, just trying to achieve something. So I did prepare for a little bit. I went to a couple of tryouts, thought I was going to be there for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Again, never really worked out and I really got off of that Probably after two years, I think. I tried. Now I was like you know what I was trying to get a little more of that. I accepted it. I gave it my all. It's not my try, my best, it's nothing more than I feel like I could have done to make it. And once that was finally my never-ending relationship finally hit me. I was okay, I was content with what I did, I was happy, and then I moved forward and got into coaching. Now I'm just in my game.
Speaker 6:Did you watch NFL games and say I'm better than this guy, I'm better than that guy, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Again, you know how that's going to be.
Speaker 2:You can check it out.
Speaker 1:The guys in your class. Okay, what did he do? He was right out of the game. All right, what did this guy do? What did he do? And a lot of those guys are outplayed. That's just what it is. I outplayed those guys. They may have been in a better program, they had a better agent, I don't know. One thing that a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of guys in NFL, some guys, are not that good. They just there for one reason or another. Kudos to them for getting there. I did it. But when it just comes to just flat out ability, the best guy does not always meet it, and I do think I was a part of that. You two were there, so y'all probably saw some of that, but it was hard for me to watch football for a while.
Speaker 1:I didn't watch football for like two years, like two or three years. I couldn't. I would get this sick pain in my stomach. I felt like I was going to throw up. It was just really hard Again, especially watching guys. I played against you in college and you were dirty.
Speaker 5:But you out there doing your thing.
Speaker 1:That was kind of hard to see. But again, no regrets. I'm happy with how everything turned out.
Speaker 6:Two years. I still am watching Personally. But Austin, how was the undrafted practice while life? Did you experience anything like being a guy that was making the least amount of money? And I felt the business of business. You know it's different in college where talent rises, right. You could be making, you could be better than someone, and they're making 10 million more dollars than you and they're going to get chances over you. Did you run into any of that from your experiences of trying to work your way up your roster?
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's definitely the case, right? So if you're a general manager of a team and you draft a guy, that's on you, you own that player's record now and so you're going to keep giving that guy chances or something random guy. You signed to the practice squad 10 weeks ago that you made the news, right? That's just job security. You want your guys to turn out and you normally care. I don't even know what else to do with this. So, yeah, I came into it. I think ultimately, you just have to. You just have to have the mindset.
Speaker 1:Coaches that gave me opportunities and I didn't just sit back and you know, and just try to. You know, come to practice for two hours and that's it. I put my heart into it. I wanted to pour back into the kids. I wanted to give them, like I said earlier, I wanted to give them things that they could take with them. Just, you know the mistakes I made or the experiences that I had. So I'm always prepared, like I was the coach, that what you need, coach, you need this. I want to do it because the best coaches that I coached under they, they showed, they showed the way before before they told you to go there. So that's kind of my thing. Like before I asked any of my coaches now to do something, I've already done it. I've washed the clothes, I've safely taken kids home because their parents are working late. I've done it all. So again that that is my thing and I've always prepared myself to step into that role.
Speaker 1:So when I got to Glenn now the high school I was a defense coordinator for two years the head coach just kind of stepped down and spurred him on like a month and a half before the season started and when he did, I wasn't gonna. You know, my media thought was I wasn't gonna take it because, well, I'm already spending a lot of time away from home. I didn't know what my wife was gonna think. I thought she was gonna be against it. So I was like like I'm good, and then the kids start texting coach me the proper job, me the proper job. So like, okay, we may ask my wife, she's like absolutely that matched with the kids wanted me to do it. I applied for the job, got it, and you know, here we are five years later. I was 28 when I got the job.
Speaker 1:So I again, I always know I'm gonna be a head coach. I just didn't know what would happen that soon. You know, I'm glad that it did. Again, I'm enjoying this. It's something that I really, I really hold in my heart and I'm gonna be doing it for a long time. Do you want to do that? The next level, I absolutely do. Again, you know, right now I'm really focused on my guys, but coaching at the next level is something that I have to do. I do what Spire's do.
Speaker 1:So you know, like I said, I can't get to. I can't just say, oh, I'm done coaching high school, now it's time to go to college. Yes, I'm a high school man football coach, but obviously I have to start mentally preparing myself to at some point whether that's two years, three years, ten years to be able to make that jump. Because I do believe that I'm a good coach. I do believe that my kids are lucky to have me and if you guys like you, know, guys, know me the best, I don't I don't talk like that like me, me, me, me. But I do believe my kids are lucky to have me as a head coach because of the things that I try to implement and I try to instill in them the hard work and dedication of being good citizens. I'm trying to prepare again society for the next wave of guys. I keep in mind that I am coaching my daughter's future teacher and he has to be ready to teach my daughter. He has to be ready to hire my daughter to I don't know at Chick-fil-A, whatever it is.
Speaker 6:He has to be ready and I have an obligation and duty to make sure that he's ready so they can turn around and pass down some day to the rest of my future son and play for Perry Jones, and I'm gonna need to tell him that I'm gonna put that high standard on it for sure. So, austin, what is their size look like for you going forward?
Speaker 5:so as a career, yeah, so I'm currently working for a startup and at that company under the chief data scientists, and we have about there's four of us on the team, and so you know, sort of helping them along, getting them squared away, it sort of speak, and also communicating with the CEO and what does the startup do.
Speaker 5:Well, you know, we're kind of secretive about that because I just signed an MBA, so I won't say too much about that, but but anyways, and then, of course, the other thing is that I'm nearly finished with my degree at Georgia Tech. After this semester I only have one class left, and so I'm looking forward to that to that end, and then, yeah, we'll see. I mean this fall, then I'll really be in the ground running looking for, you know, a new full-time job, and really what I want to do as I was, I was saying in my last answer is, you know, data science, machine learning, the eye. It's a very broad, big, big terms that encompass a lot of things. What I'm most interested in is applying it business wise, as I said to, to help companies optimize and come up with strategies that'll, you know, increase profits essentially. So, you know, hopefully I can do that this fall yeah.
Speaker 4:So right now is like a lot of students just got admitted to colleges obviously perspective soon athletes as well. So what is your advice? We spoke about this in the last podcast but love your y'all advice on keep you said both y'all keep your head down kind of working hard. We got this on transformable situation. So what would your advice be to incoming student athletes in this new modern NCAA world that we live?
Speaker 1:in. I think my advice will be embrace adversity, that's that's your life's biggest teacher is the heart, the hard time, hard things. We grow when we go through the hard things. You grow when things don't go our way because it forces us to have to adapt, have to learn, to have to find new ways to achieve our goals. And you know the transfer portal things.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I feel like, yes, there are situations where that might be the best situation for that particular player, but I do feel like it's other situations where if you're a first-year guy and you go to a major D1 college and you're transferring out to your first year and nothing really significant has happened to make you transfer, it is just simply because you're not getting enough playing time. That's not it. You're not gonna learn, you're gonna be running forever. So that's that's what I was saying embrace adversity, understand everything's not gonna go your way and let that adversity and that fire drive you to keep going and keep going to you know, keep doing your best. Because I mean, you got guys who are going to two or three, three different colleges. How many those friends are transfer? Not all of it and it's hurting them in the long run and they happen to pull it on. Some of guys don't don't ever make it out, which is unfortunate. So that will be my advice for you know, that's that is too bad yeah, it's a very, very basic, really good points there.
Speaker 5:I think the way I've been thinking about this is, you know, in our era it was, it was very difficult to transfer and in the situation that created was where we were all kind of together. We kind of knew, hey, we're all gonna be here together. I've been with all these guys at least three years, some four, and you know you, when you, when you spend that much time with someone, you go through that many training camps with that many Matt drills and all the other stuff you have to do, it really creates a bomb. As Perry was saying. Like you know, these guys can call us up and say, hey, we do this one. Of course I will. I don't really think I'm really the type of person I, you know, wants to share his opinion with everyone over a microphone posted on the internet.
Speaker 4:But you're right, because they asked me to right, so I think.
Speaker 5:I think, as Perry said, you should be really careful about deciding transfer out. You know, like the grass is always greener, right I. Unless there's a real, obvious reasons why you should do it, you might end up in the long one being a lot happier deciding the state where you are. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:I think, that's the whole thing, right like if and that's a such a hard decision to make at 18, 19, right like especially. You know most people aren't coming from a lot of money and so they're gonna. You know, well, there's money, like I should follow it. But, as I just said, what you're giving up is is a bond of friendship with players. Probably, more, probably, your education is gonna suffer so much, very, very little too. But so what's that really worth and like in the long run is I don't, I don't mean I don't know how much these guys are gonna pay to transfer, but yeah I, that's a tough decision, but I think, I think you probably best to say what you're doing again, like the people at the top don't even really know what's going on.
Speaker 1:What do you think? The 18, 19 year old? He don't know what's going on. Even so, he's just going by what he hears, which a lot of time, maybe not accurate information, yeah, and I think you know it's here. It doesn't seem like it's gonna be one anywhere. So again, it's close to it. But even from my perspective and my position as a head coach, okay, how can I use this for the better than my players? All right, let's educate them about it. So just recently, a few weeks ago, I had somebody reach out to me like, hey, we come talk to you team about in. I am like this, I'm in high school. They're not thinking like, yes, they're in high school. This is, this is the time to start educating yourself about how to use it properly, like what not to do. You know, do your research and figure out what words best. You do something that you're interested in or partner with businesses that you want to potentially work in when you're dead playing football. So again, it's pros and cons, everything. Again it's not going nowhere.
Speaker 1:So hopefully that you know you kind of put some guidelines around it to, you know, to make it a little bit more solidified, but yeah, before we close up, I want to just put it out for you.
Speaker 6:My guy questions hey, I'll bring the money. Nope, all right, that well, can we give a round of applause to? Perry and Austin but you tell me where to keep up with you, where they can reach you at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so my Twitter and Instagram are soup jumps and you know I also want you guys to follow my, my team's page. Lay down the football on Twitter, instagram. Just come check check out some of the good stuff my guys are doing, man, try to highlight them as much as possible, just to try to get them some exposure. The guys who show come to me, to the coach. I want to make it a college, like all right, I'm gonna try my best to help you get there, but it also comes with holding you a little bit more accountable. And I'm doing everybody else and sometimes they're not ready for it, but I this is what you told me. So now, now I'm gonna, I'm gonna hold you to that. So, glenn, out of football, come check them out, see what those guys are doing. You know some great stuff you try to get out in the community. There we got videos of working hard in the weight room. Try to post their highlights from the season. So I got a bunch of great kids and you know I love them a lot.
Speaker 5:So again you guys can go check them out that's my first or last day, so I have a Twitter you can follow family's wife Instagram.
Speaker 2:That's very popular.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah well, that is a wrap for our live Charlottesville. Who's where podcast we?
Speaker 4:appreciate everyone coming out.