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I tell kids all the time, how do you separate yourself?
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How do you stand out from other people?
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So guess what I did?
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I did the dirty work.
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I did the thing that other guys didn t want to do.
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This is the art of charm.
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Learn everything you need to know to crush it in business, love, and life.
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Today we re talking with two-time Super Bowl champion Hines Ward, also the MVP of Super Bowl 40, a four-time Pro Bowler, an all-time leader in receptions, receiving yards, etc., etc.
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There s a lot of stats here.
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We don t need them.
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We re talking about growing up biracial, growing up without a father,
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positivity in the face of adversity, and dancing with the stars.
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Don t forget dancing with the stars.
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And even The Walking Dead.
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Enjoy this one with Heinz Ward, and with that, welcome to The Art of Charm.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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I m here with producer Jason and Super Steelers fan Johnny D. The Art of Charm brings together the best thought leaders, teachers, and exceptional individuals to teach you how to be a top performer in life, love, and at work.
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If you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the toolbox where we discuss body language and nonverbal communication, persuasion, networking, negotiation, and everything else we teach here at AOC.
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Just text charmed to 33444 or go to theartofcharm.com.
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That s C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444 or hit the website at theartofcharm.com.
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We may not have all the answers, but we definitely have some of the questions.
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All right, here s Hines Ward.
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Tell us what you do in one sentence.
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One sentence, man.
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I m the renaissance man.
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Oh, that s a cheat code right there.
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I do it all.
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I ll take it.
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I don t know if I do it well, but I definitely try to do it all.
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I don t know.
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It s hard to say that in one sentence.
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Looking back, reflecting on my career and all the great things I ve done my entire life.
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I mean, I ve done a lot.
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I just turned 40 and there s a lot of people out there who can t say they ve done what I ve already accomplished.
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So I m so thankful, I m so honored, I m so blessed.
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So I just live each day like it s my last.
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I like to have fun and all the different new opportunities that presents itself, I take full advantage of.
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Nice.
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Do you feel like you re making up for lost time in some way?
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I mean, being in the NFL, this is all-encompassing.
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You can t go out and drink with your buddies.
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You can t go on vacation to a foreign country and get ridiculous with friends.
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You can t take a month and go backpack.
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You can t even frickin  buy an Atari because you got no time to play it.
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I mean, I m imagining you trying to order an Atari 2600 off Amazon and being like, what?
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They don t have it anymore?
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Well, yeah, I did have some free time to get online.
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We played Call of Duty and things like that.
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I m just so competitive.
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I can do that all day, but football was my main focus.
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Football took priority over everything, including my family.
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When I got started in the league, I was just happy to be in the league.
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So, you know, sometimes when you re young, you re 21 years old, you re living out your dream of always making it to the NFL, you get caught up.
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but you don t realize that you kind of slack off the hard work that you put in to get you to that point.
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So my rookie year, I m just hanging out, going out to the clubs, trying to be that guy, and being that guy, I wasn t focused on being that player that I needed to be on the football field, so that s kind of when I started to hone in, like, man, I gotta take this serious.
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I gotta get back onto that grind that got me to the NFL, and that s what I did.
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you made your own niche as a great receiver.
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And you weren t the tallest guy.
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You weren t the fastest guy.
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And you found your own thing.
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And when it started out, it was Heinz were the best blocking receiver.
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And then it transitioned to Heinz were the best slot receiver.
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Well, you know,
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The thing, there was a message my high school coach once told me, and I wrote it down, and still to this day, it s a motto that I live by.
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And I go around, I do a lot of speaking engagement, I try to give the kids the blueprint on how to find success like I did.
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And there was this one little saying that I taped in my locker my sophomore year in high school.
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I was a starting quarterback of the varsity team.
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But the coaching, the coach says a lot of things, you re just tired, you don t really listen to the coach.
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But I don t know, this particular day, my coach stood up and said, you know what?
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He called me out in front of the team and he said this, he said, hard work beats talent when talent doesn t work hard.
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Think about what I just said.
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Hard work beats talent when talent doesn t work hard.
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I was like, wow.
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Because I wasn t always the most talented guy on my team.
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But I worked everybody.
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I was the last guy to leave off the practice field.
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I was the first guy to get there at school and watch film and do all those things.
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And it just paid off.
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So I take that same motto and I apply it to everything that I do to this day.
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You look at me, when I came into this league, I was a third round pick.
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Probably a lot of people now, fantasy football world, you wouldn t be drafting Hines Ward, my rookie year, because we ran the ball 50, 60 times with the Jerome Feddes.
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Yeah, I only got three or four attempts a game.
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So I tell kids all the time, how do you separate yourself?
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How do you stand out from other people?
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So guess what I did?
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I did the dirty work.
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I did the thing.
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that other guys didn t want to do.
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Well, you know, that wasn t my way of staying in the NFL.
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Well, I had to go out there and block for Jerome Bettis.
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And I not only blocked, but I kind of played with a chip on my shoulder, because Coach Cowart drafted these two guys, which, not to discredit them, but I was like, man, why are you drafting two first-rounders back-to-back years, and we don t even throw the ball?
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You know, it s not like we re a passing team or running team So I just felt like that was kind of a shot at me that I wasn t getting the job done So I played with the chip on my shoulder and I remember Ray Lewis Baltimore Ravens, that s where it all started Everyone was talking at the time.
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It was the old AFC South we had Tennessee in the division Eddie George and all those guys and I remember playing Baltimore and I
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This was for Ed Reed, but I got hit, I don t know, I kind of got spun around, my calf hit his kneecap, and I went off limp, and he was in the back of my ear like, yeah, yeah, you have Reed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, everything that you possibly can call somebody.
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And man, I was so pissed, man, I said, you know what, I m gonna kill this dude.
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So I took all my frustrations off on the Baltimore Ravens, and I kind of made a name for myself.
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Johnny s a major football guy, as you can tell.
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And for me, I m looking at videos going, okay, what s different about this guy?
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What am I seeing here?
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And what I saw was, you re in the huddle with a smile, even after you get creamed by somebody, all the time.
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And you re known for that smile.
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And people were actually, there s some commentary on the internet, people were even angry at you for your positivity on the field.
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Not teammates, but other people.
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You know, I just enjoy doing what I was doing.
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I m living out my dream.
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I m getting paid great money to do something that I would do for free.
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Man, I truly enjoy everything about football.
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I enjoy getting tackled.
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I enjoy hitting people.
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I enjoy being in the huddle.
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I enjoy being on the sidelines.
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I enjoy running out, seeing the wave of terrible towel.
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Those words can t describe that feeling.
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I still have my terrible towel.
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You die hard.
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Oh man, yeah, no.
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I carry that in my backpack all the time whenever I m traveling.
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You always need a towel like the Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy says, but my towel is a terrible towel and I don t leave home without it.
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Exactly.
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You can go anywhere all over the country and pull out that towel and I guarantee you there s two or three more towels out there that will give you a thumbs up or give you a little wave of their terrible towel at the same time.
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Going from one of the players that everyone would want on their team and everyone loved from all teams and all fans to dirtiest player.
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How did you feel when that popped up?
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You know, I didn t know what to feel.
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I took it as a compliment because you rarely see offensive players on the most dirtiest list.
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And here I am, six foot 205, one of the dirtiest players in the league.
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I took pride in that, man.
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I just wanted everyone to know when I step on the field, I wasn t going to take any crap from anybody.
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You know, it was going to be a dogfight.
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during warm-up.
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I m not even talking to guys.
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They were coming, all right Hans, don t come with that craziness today, man.
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Come on, man.
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We got to keep it clean.
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So mentally, they were already psyched out.
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They were more worried about me than worrying about the game, even though that was my mindset.
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I was going to take their heads off anyway.
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getting in their head right.
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You have to be mentally tough and not only physically but mentally tough.
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I mean the fourth quarter I was able to withstand and still take the same approach from the first quarter all the way into the fourth quarter.
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Those guys were running away.
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They didn t want any parts of it, you know.
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So mentally, I was already in their mind.
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So some guys tried to combat me and go toe for toe, but over the long haul, you know, I was just going to wear you down mentally, physically, and just physically beat you up.
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So when you left that game, I just wanted you to know, like, man, that 86, man, he was a hell of a football player and I don t want a part of him.
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Heinz Word was here.
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That s what that means, right?
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Correct.
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That was my mindset.
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That s how I wanted to make a name for myself.
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I didn t really come into the
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to set goals and set records and things like that.
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Of course, it was always a dream of mine to win the Super Bowl, but I never thought, I mean, every year seems like it was a reunion from the teams in the 70s.
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During training camp, man, I would catch probably 2,000 passes by myself.
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I always tell kids, it s not what you do when coaches expect you to be doing it, it s what you do when they don t expect.
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When all the coaches and all the players, I was the last guy on that training camp field.
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I didn t care about dinner, I was working on my craft.
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I knew what time meeting was.
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I ll make it, but I run in there and grab some banana, peanut butter, jelly sandwich.
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I walk over to the dorm rooms and I go to meeting, but I got it in.
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I put in the hard time.
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Like I always said, that motto stayed with me.
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Hard work beats talent when talent doesn t work hard.
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I knew there were other guys that were more talented than I was, but I wasn t gonna let anyone outwork me, so I made a point to be the last guy off that practice field.
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Now, do you think that your positivity, that again, going back to the smile, helped you stay intense for 14 straight years?
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Because your career is like, what, three times longer than average or something like that?
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I mean, it s kind of insane.
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Most people burn out.
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Yeah, you need a little bit of luck.
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I didn t really have any serious injuries.
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But at the same time, man, I really enjoy playing football.
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I didn t go into it thinking that I would play 14 years.
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Hell, after my second, third year, I thought I was gonna be cut.
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I drafted two first rounders in front of me, but I ve always tried to find something positive in a negative situation.
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I tell kids all the time, at some point, you re gonna face some adversity.
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I think all the great people out there who s had success,
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At some point in their lives, they had to face some type of adversity, and it s what you do with that that builds character and gets you over that hump.
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Jordan, I mean, you have a successful podcast, but I m sure growing up, you didn t have a clue what you was gonna be doing, and I m sure that you
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You had met some people and had to overcome some difficulties to get where you are today, but I find that in all successful people is how you deal with adversity.
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So for me, I never let negativity creep in.
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I never listen to the haters and things like that.
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I mean, I got Twitter, I m working with NBC, and I said Deshaun Johnson by accident.
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I was thinking of someone else.
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but his name is Deshaun Jackson, and my Twitter went crazy.
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Oh, you can t remember a name, you re stupid, but I don t feed into that, because I look at all those people, oh hell, I m working on NBC, what are you doing?
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That s just my personality overall.
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I just don t buy into the negativity, man.
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I like to think of myself as Forrest Gump.
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I m the modern day version of Forrest Gump.
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You know, I m just jumping in every opportunity I possibly can, and that s why you see me do Dancing with the Stars.
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You see me do the Iron Man.
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You see me do Batman.
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You know, I ve done a lot of different things off the field because playing for Pittsburgh for 14 years created those opportunities, and I took full advantage of those.
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it s obvious you ve applied the positivity and the attitude off the field as well as on the field.
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It seems like when you re a young player, you feel invincible.
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You kind of alluded to that earlier.
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At what point now, you mentioned Dancing with the Stars and Iron Man, at what point do you start worrying about your health and what are you doing now to protect it?
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Because you were still active is all heck.
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I mean, you re still going.
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But I think a lot of what we see on TV, you know, concussions, injuries, I got back pain, I got this.
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When did you start protecting yourself
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in your health, or were you just really lucky that you didn t get seriously injured during your career?
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No, it was a little bit of both.
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As you get older, you start hitting 30s, you re like, man, I don t know how much longer I can play this game.
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So for me, I was already planning the backup plan.
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So while I was playing, I was still going to ESPN, doing interviews and stuff like that.
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networking with so many different people.
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So when that day came, you know, I was already in good with all the people and all the different networks.
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So making that transition was easy for me.
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But there s a lot of guys that I played with that are just sitting at home playing Xbox all day.
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still trying to find their niche and I didn t want to be that guy.
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But as far as health wise, man, we know when we sign up for football that there s going to be some repercussions or playing the game, especially as long as I played.
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I mean, I ve been playing football since I was in seventh grade.
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We understand that.
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I mean, I jeopardize, I ve lied to doctors just because I didn t want to be Wally Pipp.
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I didn t want nobody to come in taking my job due to a concussion because the thing about it, football contracts aren t guaranteed.
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Yes, only guys who are making real big money are the quarterbacks.
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Why?
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Because they get that high signing bonus.
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As far as everyone else, there s probably a handful of guys on each team that can sit there and say that they re really secure.
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But for a lot of guys, and when I was first in the league, I was only making $300,000, $400,000.
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Well, taxes take out half of that, and then you buy a nice little Mercedes, about $80,000, then you buy your mom a place.
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Hell, I was broke my rookie year.
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I wasn t broke, but I wasn t banking like that.
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I wasn t doing big things, but I was an injury away from losing it all.
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But my goal was to pay my mom her house off to make sure that regardless of whatever happens with my football career, that I took care of my mom so she never had to worry about a mortgage payment.
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And then slowly over time, I just started stacking my money up.
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I bought my first townhome and then signed my big contract, my second contract, I bought a house.
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But I live life to the fullest each day.
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I don t worry about what life is going to happen 10 years from now.
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I don t.
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I mean, I try to eat healthy now, but at the same time, I would get me a nice hamburger from time to time from five guys and indulge with my son, because those are the memories.
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I don t want to sit there with my son eating five guys and I got a damn salad on my table.
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That s not how I live life, man.
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I m gonna sit there and I m gonna indulge with him.
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Now, I m not gonna do it every day, but I live life to the fullest now, man.
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I save money away.
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If something were to ever happen to me, my family would be taken care of, but I put it all on the line to put my family in a better position than what I had growing up, and I did that, and that was my ultimate goal.
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And we ll get there.
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I definitely have questions about the way you were raised.
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I did see you drink your body weight in chocolate milk during the Iron Man, though.
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You know what, that was the craziest thing.
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They asked me to do an Ironman, and I was like, Ironman?
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What the hell s an Ironman?
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It s like a football game, but it s three days long.
1
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Yeah, so imagine playing five football games, hurry up offense, no TV timeouts.
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No halftime, it s going.
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Why did I sign up?
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I don t know.
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It s like, hey.
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Free chocolate milk, dude.
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You can t turn that down.
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Let me try it.
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I get to get in shape.
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But I had to learn how to run.
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You know, being an endurance runner, you just can t go out and run a 40 time.
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You run out of gas real quick if you re taking those strides.
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So I had to learn how to run, I had to learn how to bike, and I definitely didn t know how to swim, more or less swim in open water.
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You know, I hate it.
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I don t go to the beach, and I don t know about you guys.
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Even when you re at the beach, you just put your feet in.
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You re not like going all the way out there when you re swimming.
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You probably just stand up to where the water comes waist high, that s it.
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So imagine swimming 2.4 miles in the ocean,
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Growing up as a child, Jaws messed me up as a kid.
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I hated that movie, Jaws.
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So imagine me swimming, and all I keep hearing is, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
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So I got right in the middle of all these people.
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As I say, if a big shark were to come, that they were going to eat all the people around me first.
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Yeah, there you go.
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but it s still not like I can out-swim a shark.
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I was gonna be stuck anyway, but just to do something that I thought I never could do, man, I wanted to be inspiration for those people who are on the verge of trying to do an Ironman, and here I am, no background whatsoever on how to be an endurance athlete.
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I found a way to cross that finish line, and there s no greater feeling in the world than hearing Mike Riley say, Heinz Ward, you are an Ironman.
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When I crossed that finish line,
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When I got off the bike, so you swim 2.4 miles in the open water, then you take a 112 mile bike ride, my ass was hurting just sitting in a car that long riding for 112 miles hurts.
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So imagine riding that bike through lava mountains and lava fields, man.
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I started hallucinating.
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You know, at the time, I was working with NBC, I was doing Notre Dame football.
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I looked over, I started seeing little leprechauns in the lava field dancing.
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Like, what the world?
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I get off the bike, I start my marathon, and next thing you know, I hear this crowd actually cheering.
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I was like, well, what the hell they cheering for me?
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The guy
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was finishing up the winner of the Ironman was a guy he was finishing up and I was just starting the marathon part of it man it was so demoralizing there s no place but you know I just stayed course I took one mile at a time but then that last mile running down
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coming into the town, seeing the finish line, man, was the greatest feeling ever.
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I ve been a part of so many great events in my life, and winning the Super Bowl, I won it twice, been named MVP, but this was all me.
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This was mind over matter, me versus me, and crossing that finish line and hearing Mike Riley say, Heinz Ward, you re an Ironman, man, I felt like I can conquer the world.
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There was nothing that I couldn t do for me, so it was just a great feeling to do that.
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Did you feel like the Ironman, for you personally, was a bigger
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victory than the Super Bowl itself?
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No, because I always dreamed of playing in the Super Bowl and winning the Super Bowl, but this was something I didn t know if I could ever do it.
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So it was a more, a moral victory for myself, being able to do something that I thought I never could do.
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And that was the same feeling like dancing with the stars.
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Hell, I grew up in the hood.
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We don t know how to spell Pase Doble, more or less dance the Pase Doble, right?
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Some people in the hood definitely know how to spell Pase Doble, that s for sure.
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You know, to sit there, and I used to do the stanky leg, the nae nae, and all the different dances.
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Oh, you should have done that.
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You should have done those.
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Yeah, well, you did win.
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Yeah, now I m doing the Vietnamese waltz and all that.
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I was like, what in the world?
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But I applied all the things that I learned in football.
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and I applied them to dancing, and I never went into it thinking that I was gonna win Dancing with the Stars, and so to do that, when I thought I couldn t do it, man, I just started building confidence, and I went to school, I majored in economics.
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I used to hate public speaking because I was so nervous, I used to hate reading in front of class, because kids would always tease me, but here I am, I did a lot of different interviews,
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I got on with NBC straight out of retirement.
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Now I have my own podcast, man.
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I just wanna be an inspiration to those kids out there who, you know, I didn t use my environment as an excuse of why I can t find success.
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Yeah, were you drawn to football in that it s a meritocracy?
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I mean, you re judged on performance because looking back at your childhood, and we ll get into that in a second, you maybe needed a little bit of an escape.
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Yeah, sports was an escape for me because growing up I was teased.
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I hated being Korean.
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I hated being biracial.
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because the black kids, they wanna hang with me because I got a Korean mother who you have to take your shoes off when you come into the house.
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You have to smell this awful kimchi smell that my mom likes to eat.
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The white kids, they wanna hang out with me because I was black.
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They didn t understand.
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The Korean kids, they wanna hang out with me because my mom married a black guy, so it was just crazy.
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The kids, I used to get teased all the time.
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Bruce Leroy, Jackie Chan, you name it, I was called.
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Bruce Leroy, though, that one s kind of clever.
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That was pretty good, actually.
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It wasn t until when I got involved in athletics, probably my sixth grade year, where the teasing stopped because I was the best player on the team.
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So they accepted my mom.
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They accepted me for being biracial.
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So it became more of a brotherhood, me being the only child.
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My teammates were my brother.
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Yeah.
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This was an outlet for me to overcome some of the teasing and bullying that I had to endure growing up as a child.
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Listen to Ways to Win wherever you get your podcasts.
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You started to go back to Korea.
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Well, why did you start going back to Korea?
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At the time, I was just turned 30.
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I had achieved every possible goal that I ever wanted.
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I made money.
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I was a Pro Bowl player.
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Just won the Super Bowl and I was named MVP.
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That s something that I think I needed as a man for myself because I ve achieved everything I wanted, but there was still an empty part of me inside of me that my mom and I, we never really embraced our heritage.
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My mom hated it.
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because of how she was treated and how she was treated like an outcast to the Korean community for marrying an African-American man.
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I never met my grandmother.
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I seen my aunt once.
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So it was shunned upon.
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My mom sacrificed everything.
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She sacrificed
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coming to a country not knowing the language with our only son left all her family behind to come to the States.
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And there s not enough money to ever repay my mother back for the sacrifices that she made for me growing up as a child.
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So I despised it.
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I despised my Korean culture because of it.
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I looked at, oh, they didn t want to hang with me.
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My grandma didn t want to hang with me because I m black.
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So I hated everything about the Korean culture and I was ashamed of my mom being teased.
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And you know, man, as a young man, you don t want to make your mom cry.
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And I remember my mom taking me to school one day, man, and all the same kids was right there in the front.
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And I was like, crap.
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So I ducked down in the car.
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And then when I got out, they didn t see me.
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I got out.
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I looked back to close the door and my mom was crying.
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And she said, you know, here s my mom who works three jobs, and here her son is ashamed of her as my mother.
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That was the worst feeling for me, man.
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I felt like such scum.
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Now, rage came in because I started getting pissed.
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So I started fighting kids.
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They say anything remotely Chinese or anything, because I wasn t even Chinese.
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They just grew Korean and Chinese different people.
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It s the 80s, man.
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Exactly.
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I got in a fight, man.
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I used to beat kids, and back then, my mom wasn t going for that.
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She was already pissed that I was ashamed of her, and then here I am getting in trouble.
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That s something that she wasn t going to allow because she thought by me getting in trouble was a reflection of her.
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I straightened up real fast.
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I was almost a parent to my mom.
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My mom didn t understand why the cable bill went up $20.
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Well, here I am sitting at the age of 12, 13 years old calling the cable company and saying,
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My name is high as ward my mom sitting right here she doesn t speak great english she wants to know where bill went up fifteen dollars and then i had to translate what the lady was saying to my mom so i had to grow up real early that was the dynamics of the relationship that my mother and i had.
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in my early teenage years and early childhood.
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So it made it difficult.
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So I said, you know what, man, I got to go back to Korea.
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I ve accomplished everything.
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And it gave her opportunity to tell me where she grew up, where she had her first cigarette, where she had her first beer.
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She showed me the hospital I was born in.
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And I needed that.
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I needed
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closure.
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I needed that chapter in my life was so empty for so many years.
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I despised it for so many years.
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And then when I got there, it was crazy because I don t know what it was.
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Everybody just kind of jumped on the bandwagon.
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Now they re accepting me.
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Koreans, they have no idea what football is like, but they understood the story between my mother and I and the sacrifices that my mom made.
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And now to see her son have success at the highest level, but repaying my mom back.
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And I think for that alone is what
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drove the country to really embrace my mother and I, and people start to look at biracial kids differently.
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You know, I don t want to compare myself to Martin Luther King, but it s kind of crazy because that s how biracial kids were treated over there.
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I started my own foundation, the Heinz Ward Helping Hands Foundation, to help biracial kids overcome some injustice and being bullied and being teased.
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And when I was over there, it was almost cool to be biracial.
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So for once, that
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All the biracial kids, they kind of walked around with their chest out high, and I was their biggest hero.
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Literally the biggest hero.
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You must be so huge in Korea, physically and, I guess, metaphorically.
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Yeah, physically, I was one of the tallest guys over there, but I always look back, I m so thankful, man, because, you know, I want to make a difference.
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I want to use my celebrity status to make a difference and make a change in Korea, because that s the dark side of my culture.
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So, going back to Korea, I would never have the opportunity
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that I had here in the state if my mother didn t decide to pick up and leave Korea, because I wouldn t be able to play sports.
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You couldn t do anything.
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Over there, by virtue of people, you re either an entertainer or a janitor or something.
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It was crazy because I was walking downtown Seoul, Korea, and I didn t see any other race other than 100% pro-Koreans.
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I didn t see any mixed people.
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I didn t see anything.
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It was crazy.
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So going back to Korea for the first time was like, man, I only could imagine what it was like growing up in the 60s and 70s with segregation and all that.
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I couldn t even fathom that.
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So I said, listen, if all these people want to put me on their television shows,
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You know, I want to be inspiration to all the biracial kids out there knowing that because what was happening, these military guys would go over here, serve in Korea, have babies, and they go back to the States and they leave these kids behind with the mothers to have to deal with being teased and ridiculed and all that.
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So I understand it.
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And that s why I started my own foundation there because it hit home for both my mother and I.
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So my friend Minjung, she s a full South Korean, married a white guy and her mom and her family live in South Korea.
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And she tries to bring her family back and they still get that same kind of, you know, rebuffment when they get there.
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Yeah.
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It s really heartbreaking.
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So she stopped taking her family back there and trying to introduce them to the culture.
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And then she ll just bring her family back to America,
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where they can, you know, kind of let their guard down because there s not that peer pressure of the societal pressure on, you cannot have mixed race children in South Korea.
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So I think what you re doing with your foundation is fantastic because she really wants to introduce her children to her Korean heritage and it breaks her heart when she goes back there and she s shunned.
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I can relate to that because my mom kept me away from it.
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I said, mom, why don t I ever get to see grandma?
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We make money.
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I ve been in the league.
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Why did it take me eight, nine years?
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But it was because she understood how society would treat us or how they would look at us.
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And so it was almost you had to close the chapter of that.
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And I didn t understand that.
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So at the time, it was crazy because I had already booked the tickets.
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I said, hey, right after the season s over with, we re going back to Korea.
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Ironically, I end up holding out that year, being in the news for the wrong reason.
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Hinesville, we re holding out, training camp.
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I end up going back to camp.
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I signed my big contract.
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I got a $10 million bonus.
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Now I m like, oh man, I ve arrived.
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And then we go on this crazy, magical run, being a six seed, go all the way to win the Super Bowl.
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I m named MVP.
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The next day when I came home, in the front of my driveway, there was a whole bunch of Korean news was sitting out in front of my house.
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It was kind of crazy how, man, my mom, she hated it because she knew they were only doing it because they re just trying to jump on the bandwagon.
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But I said, hey, it s a great opportunity for us to be an example to others who lived, kind of experienced what we ve gone through as far as being shunned and kind of outcast in the community.
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So now they were able to accept me for who I am now.
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then I felt like they can for surely accept the kids who live there, who eat there, who go to school there on a day-to-day basis.
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So it was me just trying to make an impact, make a difference.
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And that s when I felt like there was a bigger purpose on Earth for me than just football.
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You know, to be able to use my celebrity status to do bigger and better things for others out there.
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I think it s pretty amazing that you embrace them after all those years of racism and discrimination.
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But didn t you feel a little bit resentful when you went back?
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Because as a celebrity, they love you.
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But before that, it s like, oh, we can t even let you see your grandma.
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I mean, that s kind of crappy.
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Yeah, it is.
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You know, as I got older, I didn t understand as a teenager.
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But you know, as I got older, oh, I see it.
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You guys are ashamed of me.
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And it had nothing to do with my mom.
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You know, my mom married a black guy, but you guys didn t want to be around me.
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Well, you know, I took offense to that, but going back to Korea, I didn t know it was going to be like that.
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I thought we were just going to stay at a hotel and go sightseeing.
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No one s going to pay us any attention, which is cool.
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But then I go by and it s just a whirlwind.
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It was crazy.
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When I got to the airport, man, literally there was probably 10,000 people there.
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We had a security team that they had like a do not cross line that yellow tag.
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That s how I walked around in Korea.
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You were like the Beatles coming back.
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You know, it was the craziest thing because I never experienced that.
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And here I am.
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I just won MVP of the Super Bowl.
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And even here, I didn t get that love.
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You can only imagine it was overwhelming for me because I what the hell s going on.
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You know, walking in Korea and I got 10 security guys holding this little do not cross line, this yellow, look like the little man in the bubble with all these security people.
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People see like a group walking down the street.
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Now everyone else is intrigued.
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Now everybody else wants to join.
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And literally, it was just like Tiger Woods walking down that gulf.
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That s how it was everywhere I went when I went back to Korea.
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The other thing, Hines, is you ve never been one of those Terrell Owens kind of guys who put a lot of work into putting their name out there outside of football.
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No, I m not wired like that, man.
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I m so humble, and I m so blessed.
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I m loving life, man.
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Life is too short to be negative.
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It s always positive, man.
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And even when there is negativity, now, I m not perfect by any means.
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I made mistakes.
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I ve done stupid things, but I learned from them.
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That s called growth, and you learn from your mistakes.
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You don t make the same mistakes twice.
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I don t think that I m better than anyone.
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I treat everyone like I want to be treated.
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So I felt like, you know, those are what my mom instilled in me.
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Those were the values that she had.
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So I m in my second marriage, but my first marriage because football took priority.
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I didn t care about family life.
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You know, I felt like I made the money, I sacrificed time for my family and I got caught up in the world.
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And that was the reason why, you know, my first marriage struggle now.
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I embrace my marriage now.
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I look forward to coming home.
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I look forward to family dinners, and I love taking my son to school.
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I love picking him up, you know, when I have him.
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So things like that, now I get a greater appreciation.
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Yes, I had to learn the hard way.
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I had to go through some hardship, but, you know, I think I m a better person overall now today by having gone through all that.
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How does your mom feel about going back?
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My mom hated.
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She hated every minute of it.
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She said, I don t want these people trying to capitalize and act like they accept you being Korean when they shut me out a long time ago.
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And I understood she had every right to feel that way.
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But I say, Ma, it s not just about us.
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It s bigger than us.
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We went to an orphanage, the Pearl S. Buck Foundation.
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They have an orphanage where parents give up biracial kids because they can t deal with it.
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They can t deal with being an outcast.
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I m reading the letters.
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Here you have eight-year-old kids talking about suicide because they are ashamed of who they are.
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Kids are getting spit on by people.
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People have to wear wigs when they re out in the street.
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They almost cover themselves because they don t want anybody to know they re a mixed race.
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Not just African-American Korean.
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These are whites with Korean.
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Just look normal Korean kids to me.
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But the stories that they tell me, the stories that the mom was saying, telling my mom.
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My mom got choked up.
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She was crying.
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I said, this is what we have to do.
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You know, we have to start our own foundation.
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And I think the thing that kind of changed my mom s thought process, because my mom resented, she hates Korean people to this day because of that.
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But at the same time, she has a heart for people who dealt with similar situation that she had to go through.
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Because you don t imagine, you know, you can t help who you fall in love with.
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You know, you can t help all those things.
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Like I said, I didn t grow up in the 60s and 70s.
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That s probably what happened back in the day.
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And here I am, living it, seeing it, live in person.
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It was just crazy.
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So I said, you know what?
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Yes, I know all those bad things happened, Mom.
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I know how your family treated you.
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I know how society treats you.
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But it s bigger than us.
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So let s use this celebrity status to make it cool to be biracial.
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Yeah, I would imagine going back to school the day or the week after Heinz Ward visits, people are like feeling pretty stoked about themselves because they re special now as opposed to outcast.
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They re more acceptive now.
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My message the whole time when I were doing interviews, hey, I m 50-50.
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Some kids are 50-50.
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And if you can embrace me, you can embrace these kids because they speak the language.
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They go to the same schools.
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They eat the same food.
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I m going back home to the States.
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I don t even live here.
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So if you guys want to embrace me, then you embrace these kids.
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And everywhere I went, I started my own foundation.
3
SPEAKER_01
I started picking out kids with the Pearl S Buck.
3
SPEAKER_01
I teamed up with that foundation.
3
SPEAKER_01
And every year while I was playing, I started flying 10 to 12 kids from Korea to the States.
3
SPEAKER_01
I paid my own money.
3
SPEAKER_01
I did everything that I wanted to do.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then we put the kids up.
3
SPEAKER_01
We had host families that actually adopted some biracial kids from the Pearl S. Buck that actually lived in Pittsburgh.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I got a chance to meet some of these great families that took these kids in and let these kids stay with their family and felt like being a kid all over.
3
SPEAKER_01
You didn t hear about suicides and all that.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s crazy, man.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re 12 years old talking about being suicidal because you re a mixed race.
3
SPEAKER_01
I could never even fathom that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so now it s crazy because when I meet them off the plane and they were so shy and timid and always looked
4
SPEAKER_01
They didn t want to look up.
4
SPEAKER_01
They came in on Thursday.
4
SPEAKER_01
By the time Monday after the game, I would bring them out in the field.
4
SPEAKER_01
We d put them on the jumbotron, and all of Heinz Field would wave a terrible towel and cheer on the kids.
4
SPEAKER_01
It just gave them confidence.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a couple kids that, you know, I get an update.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a couple kids that actually moved to the state.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a dancer that goes to the University of Washington.
4
SPEAKER_01
Man, she writes and emails me all the time, like, thank you, thank you, thank you.
4
SPEAKER_01
for giving me hope, giving me inspiration.
4
SPEAKER_01
I want to go back to Korea and give back as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
So for me, to be able to have an impact on one child, that s amazing.
4
SPEAKER_01
But to hear her story, hear how passionate she is and how she wants to go back and do bigger and better things, that s what it s all about for me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Where did you originally get your work ethic?
4
SPEAKER_00
Because a lot of guys get it from their father and you got it from your mother.
4
SPEAKER_00
Obviously, the father wasn t the case for you.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I read that you never reconciled with your dad after he left.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well, I mean, the thing with my dad, you know, understanding, there s always two sides of the story, what happened with my mom and my dad, and I don t really care.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, just over time, the true colors are going to show.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I can t do this because I lost my job here.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, I heard that through my whole high school career.
4
SPEAKER_01
Then I started to make a name for myself, and then he showed up.
4
SPEAKER_01
at one of my college games with an old homemade Georgia jersey with Ward Sr.
4
SPEAKER_01
on the back, so now he s getting praise from all the fans, and my mom didn t like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
My mom was like, dude, don t do that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was like, chill out with that.
4
SPEAKER_01
We exchanged numbers, we tried to contact each other, which was rarely, but then when I made it into the league, now it s, oh, my car broke down, can you help me, can you send me money?
4
SPEAKER_01
I was like, hell no.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I try to always be the bigger and better person, but every time I reached out to my father, it s always been about money.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s not about trying to rekindle our relationship, it s been about money.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I just chose just to close that chapter in my book and move on.
4
SPEAKER_01
But as far as my work ethic, man, I saw my mom grinding, man.
4
SPEAKER_01
Here s the day, my mom had three jobs.
4
SPEAKER_01
She had to start, be at her first job at 6 a.m., so she would make me eggs and bacon, put Saran wrap over it, leave it in the microwave.
4
SPEAKER_01
I set my alarm clock, I wake up at 7 o clock, I ve got to catch the bus at 7.30, school starts at 8.
4
SPEAKER_01
I could have easily skipped school if I wanted to, you know, but it was a teamwork effort.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s where I learned teamwork, the value of teamwork.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I watched my mom grind, so she worked six to one o clock.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then she would work a part-time job where she d go to this hotel and clean bedrooms from probably about, I think, five to probably about nine.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, so she would come home, make me dinner, kiss me goodbye, and then go to her job.
4
SPEAKER_01
Then after that, she d come home, tuck me in bed, make sure I m always good.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I used to get scared, because I used to stay in this apartment by myself.
4
SPEAKER_01
Here I am, a nine-year-old kid, staying in this apartment, and we stay right next door to apartments.
4
SPEAKER_01
We re connected by a wall.
4
SPEAKER_01
When the neighbors would walk up the steps, I m thinking, somebody s walking up my steps.
4
SPEAKER_01
So as a child, man, I had a bed under my bed.
4
SPEAKER_01
I tore out the screen window.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had a little ladder.
4
SPEAKER_01
I tested it out one day.
4
SPEAKER_01
I dangled down.
4
SPEAKER_01
In case somebody came up, I was gonna jump out.
4
SPEAKER_01
Growing up was tough.
4
SPEAKER_01
I hated it.
4
SPEAKER_01
But my mom had to do that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t think you can do that now.
4
SPEAKER_01
They come take your kids away now if you leave your little child.
4
SPEAKER_01
But that s what we had to do back then.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if I ever couldn t sleep, my mom worked directly right across the street.
4
SPEAKER_01
There was a convenience store.
4
SPEAKER_01
I would go over there and get a bag of chips or a bag of Cheetos
4
SPEAKER_01
She said, what are you doing?
4
SPEAKER_01
You re supposed to go to bed.
4
SPEAKER_01
I said, I m scared.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, she ll sit there and I ll sit there and bag groceries with her or help her out, you know, kind of work up the story.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m eight or nine years old.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I saw it growing up my whole life.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, my mom was always saying, hey, in life, nothing s ever given.
4
SPEAKER_01
You got to earn everything.
4
SPEAKER_01
and my mom had to save every ounce.
4
SPEAKER_01
My mom used to buy toilet paper to double stuff and split the toilet paper.
4
SPEAKER_01
My mom was very frugal on a lot of different things.
4
SPEAKER_01
She worked at the grocery store, so she got deals, and that s the type of deals she would get.
4
SPEAKER_01
She would get double stuff and then sit there and unroll, while she s watching TV, unroll toilet paper to make two toilet papers.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was my way of living growing up as a child.
4
SPEAKER_01
When my mom and my father got divorced, the courts ordered me to stay with my father because they felt like my mom wasn t fit to be a parent financially.
4
SPEAKER_01
She didn t have a job.
4
SPEAKER_01
She really didn t speak good English.
4
SPEAKER_01
So there was no way they were going to allow her to kind of raise me without stability.
4
SPEAKER_01
You got to think, not only did her family kick her out of the country, or society kicked her out of the country, now the courts are taking her only son away from her.
4
SPEAKER_01
So my mom had to save every ounce that she possibly could.
4
SPEAKER_01
Still to this day, I made it.
4
SPEAKER_01
She still wants to do the same thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
No, you need to save your money, save your money.
4
SPEAKER_01
I understand you want to save your money, but you have to enjoy it, because you can t take it with you.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I wouldn t change it for the world.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s where I learned my work ethic.
4
SPEAKER_01
I understood and learned the value of hard work.
4
SPEAKER_01
I watched my mom do it my entire life.
4
SPEAKER_01
She didn t want to retire.
4
SPEAKER_01
My mom just wanted to do it for benefits.
4
SPEAKER_01
She didn t want to do it for money.
4
SPEAKER_01
She never wanted to be dependent on me, so it took me a while for my mom to retire.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think when I retired in the league is when she retired, and that s when she came to live with me.
4
SPEAKER_01
up here in my house.
4
SPEAKER_00
Are you worried your kids might be a little bit spoiled with a famous dad?
4
SPEAKER_00
I haven t met your kids, so I m not calling your kids spoiled.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know what?
4
SPEAKER_01
I try my best, man.
4
SPEAKER_01
You want to give your kid all the things that you never had.
4
SPEAKER_01
They got Xbox in the car.
4
SPEAKER_01
I saw that.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, from time to time I take him back where I kind of grew up from.
4
SPEAKER_01
I grew up with some hard times, but he understands.
4
SPEAKER_01
I just want to teach him the value of a dollar.
4
SPEAKER_01
When I give him a dollar, I said, hey man, you don t have to go buy iTunes gift cards every day.
4
SPEAKER_01
If you get money, put half of it away and then you can splurge the other half.
4
SPEAKER_01
At least start saving.
4
SPEAKER_01
My son does that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I give him five bucks, so I look at it and it s like, all right, I m going to put this five in my piggy bank.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then I give him another five bucks.
4
SPEAKER_01
Hey, Dad, can I get an iTunes gift card?
4
SPEAKER_01
I put that $5 away.
4
SPEAKER_01
I said, oh, crap, it s working.
4
SPEAKER_00
You want to teach him some saving, have him hang out with your mom.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think when I got drafted, man, the way I found out to draft is through my friends because my mom was too cheap to buy cable.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I couldn t even watch ESPN, just the basic cable.
4
SPEAKER_01
She s like, I m not spending on that.
4
SPEAKER_01
You find out when they call you.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was like, ain t this a bother.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wait, when you were in the draft, you couldn t watch it because your mom wouldn t pay for it.
4
SPEAKER_00
So she said, they re going to call you anyway.
4
SPEAKER_00
You don t need to watch.
4
SPEAKER_00
Correct.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s ridiculous.
4
SPEAKER_00
So all my friends were calling my phone and we had two way, you know, call waiting.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
The next day I was up.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
My friends were calling me like, Hey man, they just drafted man.
4
SPEAKER_01
You better in here.
4
SPEAKER_01
Hey man, stop calling me.
4
SPEAKER_01
You clogging up my phone line.
4
SPEAKER_01
Get out the phone.
4
SPEAKER_01
My draft day was an experience because I didn t watch any of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because your mom didn t have ESPN.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you found out you got drafted because your friends were calling you and not because they got a hold of you and not because you saw it on TV.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, they called me first and then they were saying, hi, it s Coach Cowher, thinking about drafting you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Would you love to play?
4
SPEAKER_01
I was like, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right when I hung up with them, my friends said, Hey man, Pittsburgh just drafted you because they saw it on the board.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then they called Pittsburgh, end up calling me back, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Maybe two or three minutes afterwards.
4
SPEAKER_01
I say, Hey, you re Pittsburgh stealing.
4
SPEAKER_01
So that s how it all went down.
4
SPEAKER_01
Unbelievable.
4
SPEAKER_00
Are you going to let your kids play football now that you know what the gridiron is like with all the potential for injury and everything?
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, he s still growing.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s still developing.
4
SPEAKER_01
When I learned all my skills as a child, I learned in the backyard.
4
SPEAKER_01
I play streetball where we play touch.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s where I learned all my juke moves and everything.
4
SPEAKER_01
I didn t get involved in organized football until I was like maybe fifth or sixth grade.
4
SPEAKER_01
And even then, I still was too early, because I hadn t developed.
4
SPEAKER_01
I remember I shot up, I hit a growth spurt, I think, in sixth grade.
4
SPEAKER_01
I went from the smallest kid, the athletic kid, to the tallest kid on the team.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everybody was smaller than me.
4
SPEAKER_01
By the time I went to seventh grade, so I was like, man,
4
SPEAKER_01
So there s no rush.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was one of those kids.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had a football in my hand during football season.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had a basketball in my hand.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was passionate about sport.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now, if your kid s passionate about sports like that, let them get involved.
4
SPEAKER_01
But the contact, just hold off.
4
SPEAKER_01
I ll wait to contact football, at least probably around ninth grade.
4
SPEAKER_01
when they re able to start to get into the weight room, start to develop in their bodies.
4
SPEAKER_01
And even then, they start to learn some toughness, start tackling, but they ll hit another growth spurt probably their 11th or 12th grade year.
4
SPEAKER_01
It happened.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think so many kids, so many families,
4
SPEAKER_01
let their little four-year-old, six-year-old kid that just runs circles around everybody because they re just coordinated.
4
SPEAKER_01
But they end up being the same size through high school.
4
SPEAKER_01
They still end up being little Johnny when all that Johnny was killing everybody in Pee Wee, in Pee Wee League.
4
SPEAKER_01
And now, you know, big boy Larry is somebody now who s coordinated would kill Johnny in high school football.
4
SPEAKER_01
So give him some time.
4
SPEAKER_01
For me, if he wants to play, I wouldn t mind him playing, but I would just hold off and let him play flag football and just understand, you know, what it takes to play football.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then when the contact comes, then I let him go.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I wait to probably eighth or ninth grade before he gets involved in contact.
5
SPEAKER_00
All right, so first contract, you had bills to pay.
5
SPEAKER_00
Second contract, you signed again for about almost $10 million.
5
SPEAKER_00
At that point, are you starting to be like, wow, this is the real deal?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, because you grind to get to that.
5
SPEAKER_01
And at the time, my agent was telling me, no, don t sign that deal.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re lowballing you.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because here it is.
5
SPEAKER_01
My rookie year, I only had 15 catches.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was a special teams guy.
5
SPEAKER_01
My second year in the league, I led the team in catches.
5
SPEAKER_01
I had 61 catches, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
We drafted Troy Edwards.
5
SPEAKER_01
My third year, we drafted Plexiglas Bergers, another first-rounders, back-to-back first-rounders.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I went from a starter to the number fourth wide receiver, because we already had a slot receiver that only played slot with three wides and a three-wide receiver set.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I went from a starter to the fourth guy, and I still led the team in catches.
5
SPEAKER_01
How do you go from a starter to the fourth string wide receiver and then still lead the team with 48 catches?
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, now I m going to my fourth year.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, how much money can you really ask for with 48 catches?
5
SPEAKER_01
That ain t tearing it up on the football field.
5
SPEAKER_01
So my agent was saying, man, don t sign that deal.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re better than that.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was like, what?
5
SPEAKER_01
hey, I might not ever make this money ever again.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I signed a $2.5 million signing bonus, and every year it added up to be $10 million over the next four years.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, guess what?
5
SPEAKER_01
When I signed that deal, guess what happened?
5
SPEAKER_01
I went to four consecutive straight Pro Bowls.
5
SPEAKER_01
So here I am in the huddle making a million six and all the other guys are making $10 million.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you re still smiling.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m still smiling.
5
SPEAKER_01
Hey, I can count their pockets.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m good with my, you know, I bought me a townhome and my mom s house paid for my townhomes paid for.
5
SPEAKER_01
Shoot, I thought I was on top of the world.
5
SPEAKER_01
Football were the end, everything was paid for.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s good.
5
SPEAKER_00
The science shows that your relative level of wealth dictates a lot of happiness, so it s good that that didn t get to you because a lot of people fall into that trap where at some point, somehow, a $10 million over four years, you feel like you got the shaft, which is ridiculous.
5
SPEAKER_01
I lived it, though.
5
SPEAKER_01
Listen, I made some stupid decisions.
5
SPEAKER_01
A lot of people, they don t understand because they don t live in the world.
5
SPEAKER_01
Say you sign $10 million, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
Jordan, you give you $10 million, how much you think out of taxes, what s that gonna take?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m gonna end up with less than half after all the expenses and investments and taxes, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
So five million, say you blow half a million dollars on jewelry and get a Ferrari and get things, then say if you get divorced, now your wife s taking half of that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Now you re still trying to live a lifestyle, the NFL player with a million dollars left over.
5
SPEAKER_01
Good luck.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it happens all the time.
5
SPEAKER_01
I tell guys, I see it.
5
SPEAKER_01
When you have a divorce and they take half the money and the government take half, you really only got probably $2 million out of a $10 million deal.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re probably staying in a house that you haven t paid off and now the banks are coming to get that because you only got
5
SPEAKER_01
a million and a half left over out of that 10 million, you can t afford to pay the mortgage payment like that.
5
SPEAKER_00
The next time you sign, you sign for 25 mil.
5
SPEAKER_00
Are you then elated, or is it just like, okay, money s starting to become a number because you can t wrap your head around it?
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I m elated, but once you get through that, now you re starting to try to worry about the rest of your life.
5
SPEAKER_01
How do you make money?
5
SPEAKER_01
And here s the problem.
5
SPEAKER_01
Here s a scenario that I experienced personally.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, my agent at the time was saying, hey man, just concentrate on football.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, I never really got in any business investments or anything.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, my agent who found my financial advisor who was friends with my insurance guy, I was laying with a bunch of snakes.
5
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s the people that I thought that had my best interest at heart really didn t.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I didn t really make any crazy, but now my agent wants to build a car wash.
5
SPEAKER_01
Hey man, we can get this car washed, we can get the land for cheap.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well the banks were giving out loans at the time.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I was like, oh shit, all right, well if you say it s gonna make money, it ll make money.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well I asked my financial advisor, well of course my financial advisor s gonna say yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Why?
5
SPEAKER_01
Because the agent put me with my financial advisor.
5
SPEAKER_01
So basically my agent was the puppet over my financial advisor at the time.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so then, the insurance guy wanted to say, hey man, the best way to save your money and make it grow and whatever is life insurance.
5
SPEAKER_01
So you put life insurance, but they put me in this high ass premium thing where they got cut back, they get their little cuts out of the premiums off the life insurance, that s how they made their money.
5
SPEAKER_01
Now he s giving under the table cash to the agent, and he s like the puppet.
5
SPEAKER_01
He was telling my financial advisor to tell me what to do with my money,
5
SPEAKER_01
telling the insurance guy to put him in this so he can get some money, and he gets cut back from it.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s how easy, when you hear some of these stories, that s how it can happen.
5
SPEAKER_01
Luckily for me, I found out while I was playing.
5
SPEAKER_01
I looked at this bogus little financial report that they gave me.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was like, this ain t adding up.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I found out early, and I was like, all right, so I fired everybody.
5
SPEAKER_01
And luckily, while I was playing, I was able to recover and get out of some of those bad situations that I was involved in.
5
SPEAKER_01
And here s the kicker.
5
SPEAKER_01
This is on one particular project.
5
SPEAKER_01
A lot of times, when you go into a bank and you re sitting there with your financial advisor,
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you really look over the entire contract?
5
SPEAKER_01
Of course not.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, I was an attorney and I still glance at things and go, this is probably fine.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s boilerplate.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s nothing new in here.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, guess what I did?
5
SPEAKER_01
My financial guy told me to sign there.
5
SPEAKER_01
The guy, I ended up putting me as a personal guarantee on this bad property.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s crazy.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
You d have been broke.
5
SPEAKER_01
You d have been bust on that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Correct, and that s why some of these players, they get so embedded with their agents and financial advising to be those guys because of greed.
5
SPEAKER_01
They want to steal money from the players.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I go around, I do a lot of different speaking engagement to not only high school, college, but pros as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
Luckily for me, I found out and I was able to recover from a lot of different stuff.
5
SPEAKER_01
I took some losses.
5
SPEAKER_01
But imagine me finding out after my career was over.
5
SPEAKER_01
I would be a part of that statistic.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I didn t really spend crazy money like that.
5
SPEAKER_01
So it happens.
5
SPEAKER_01
When people sit there and they read these stories, there s more into that story that goes into it that a lot of people don t know.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s no way I could lose that money.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes, this is how you can do it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, happening right before your eyes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you ever watch Ballers?
5
SPEAKER_01
You ever seen that show?
5
SPEAKER_01
I see it.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s just a bunch of stories that people kind of live up and tell, and they kind of fixate it to make the show look good.
5
SPEAKER_01
But they shouldn t do football players, because football players  contracts aren t guaranteed.
5
SPEAKER_01
They only can do Ballers because it s in the city of Miami.
5
SPEAKER_01
And in the city of Miami, you always have the crazy fun stories, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
they ought to do basketball and baseball players.
5
SPEAKER_01
Those contracts are guaranteed, and these guys are on the road for a week in baseball, in every other city in basketball, and they make 10 times the money as football players.
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So I say yes, it s great, it s a good show, I watch it, but I want to see a show on basketball and baseball players.
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I think they will have much more of an interesting story because they got way more money, and they re in different cities all over the place throughout the whole year.
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Imagine baseball.
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You re in the city for three days, and if you re a pitcher, you probably don t even pitch.
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So you re just in the city doing whatever you want to do.
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So imagine the stories that they would have.
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Yeah, they can t even put that on HBO, probably.
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Exactly.
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I m a big fan of ballers, but I want to see the real deal, because football contracts aren t guaranteed.
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So if you could pick another sport, what would you pick?
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If you were picking, not necessarily for love of the game, but knowing, hey look, these contracts aren t guaranteed, would you be a golfer or something like that?
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I m into golf now, but I actually got drafted in baseball.
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I got drafted by the Florida Marlins and I love baseball.
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I just hate it in high school.
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I hate it because our team sucked.
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I was the best player on a bad team and shagging balls every day at practice when all my other teammates couldn t even hit it in the outfield.
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So I was like Kelly.
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You remember Kelly on the Bad News Bears?
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I was snagging everybody s ball.
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I was catching everybody s pop flies and all over the place.
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So for me, I love playing baseball, but I just hate it practicing.
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I hate it doing the little things.
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So summer league baseball was actually fun because we played every day.
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We played 60 games in two months.
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I mean, it was every day and we practiced before and after we played.
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So I love that because it just kept me going.
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How d you end up with a part on The Walking Dead?
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I mean, I can imagine it s like, can you act?
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Nope.
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Can you shamble and drag one leg behind you and growl?
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Yep.
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All right, you re hired.
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The producer was a huge Thriller fan.
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They were filming in Georgia.
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I think Irony, one of the characters I played, he was a walk-on at Georgia, so they wanted me to come down, make a guest appearance.
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I spent three hours in makeup.
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It was some cool makeup graphics and everything.
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And it took about five minutes to walk like a zombie.
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I never really walked like a zombie.
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When it came on air, you only saw me for two seconds.
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I got shot in the head.
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But it was well worth it.
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I m a big fan of the show.
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I m still disappointed how I got caught by zombies.
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I thought I was a better athlete than that.
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How bad was it with the heat down in Georgia in all the makeup and everything?
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It was hot.
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It was miserable, but it was cool.
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SPEAKER_01
I need to get that makeup artist during Halloween because I want to go around scaring everybody.
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It was cool.
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I did my little Michael Jackson thriller dance and I was loving it.
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So it was a great opportunity.
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So I m working on my speaking role next.
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That s what I want to do next.
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I want to get a one liner in a movie.
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For sure you could get on Ballers.
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It s not a movie, but it s a step.
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Yeah, and Miami s not too far.
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You can commute down there in like an afternoon and hop on the set.
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Well, Heinz, is there anything else that we haven t asked you that you want to make sure you deliver to the Art of Charm family?
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You know, you guys paved the way with the podcast and me doing my own podcast show.
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When Michael O Neal came to me about podcasts, I really didn t know anything about podcast world.
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I want to say it the way I want to say it.
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You know, working with NBC, hey, we like this, but say it like this.
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You know, we like this, but do it like this.
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It s hard to have conviction behind words that aren t yours.
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So, for me, the podcast allows me to be me.
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I think my fan base, they really like it.
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So, I think I have a great story.
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And there s Stiller fans all over the world.
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I don t want it just to be about a Stiller show.
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You know, so many fans out there, celebs out there that are huge Steeler fans, and I just wanted to have those guests that are MVPs in their own field.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so bringing them on the show, getting the opportunity to discuss life, football, and everything else in the middle, man, that s what it s all about.
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So I ve lived a blessed life, and now I kind of want to give back.
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I want to share in some of the stories that I have.
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And really to inspire people, entertain people,
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Maybe the listeners out there can get something out of my stories.
6
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Like I said, I m kind of the modern day version of Forrest Gump.
6
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I never used my neighborhood or background as an excuse.
6
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A lot of kids say, oh, I can t do it, because I let, no, you can do it.
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I grew up in a single parent home, my mom struggled, we found a way, we made it happen.
6
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So having a podcast just gives me that opportunity to connect with my audience, with my fans, and being able to bring different guests on from time to time, not just football fans.
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We had Guy Fieri, I was on the Rachel and Guy cooking show, he was telling us about
6
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some cooking tips and things like that, man.
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So I had Coach Cowery on.
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We just had a four-star general, Michael Hayden, on last week, man.
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So we got a wide variety of celebs that we bring on, but they re all Steelers fans.
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That s how they re connected.
6
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So it s a lot easier.
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Hey, would you mind doing the Heinz Ward Show?
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SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, I love Hines Ward, he s a big fan of his.
6
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And so it s great to be in that position to get opportunities to interview these celebs out there.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I m excited about the podcast and I appreciate you guys having me on the show.
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And I appreciate the opportunity and the interview.
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I appreciate you guys.
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Thank you, likewise.
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Take care, Hines.
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Yeah, definitely, likewise.
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And if I ever see you in person, you re gonna sign my terrible towel.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, well you re gonna have it, because you bring it everywhere.
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SPEAKER_00
It goes everywhere with me, man.
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SPEAKER_00
Everywhere.
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Thanks, Hines.
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Wow, that was awesome.
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He s so open, which I love.
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Jason, he s not afraid to talk about anything.
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I love that.
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when he s carrying the ball to the end zone and like making fun of his blockers or just, you know, getting in his way.
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SPEAKER_02
He s like, get out of the way, dude.
6
SPEAKER_02
You know, talk about like somebody with a lighthearted spirit who just lets everything run off of them and just looks for the goodness in the world.
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Yeah, I mean, not to be super cheesy about it, but he s just an awesome guy.
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I don t care about football at all.
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I could not care less about that, and he still was super, super interesting, super open, and just seems like a great guy.
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So there s no fanboy stuff going on here.
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I m just a fan of his attitude at this point.
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I love it.
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Yeah.
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You know, I mean, I grew up with the Steelers.
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I have my terrible towel, which I mentioned on the show.
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Yep.
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You know, that s just a Steelers fan, but I wasn t even around for when he was a Steeler.
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You know, he embodies that Steelers mindset where it s just like, yeah, we re going to go out there and win and have a good time and be awesome people.
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All right, if you enjoyed this, don t forget to thank Heinz on Twitter.
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We ll link that to the show notes.
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And you can tap our album art in most mobile podcast players to see the cheat sheet for this episode.
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We ll link to the show notes right on your phone.
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We ll link to Heinz s podcast as well, now that he s got his own.
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And I m also on Twitter, at The Art of Charm.
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It s a great way to engage with us and the show.
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You can find info on our sponsors in the show notes, or go to theartofcharm.com slash advertisers.
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And don t forget the Art of Charm Challenge at theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed to 33444, that s C-H-A-R-M-E-D, to 33444.
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It s all about improving your networking and connection skills, inspiring those around you to develop a relationship with you personally or professionally.
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We ll also email you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier in the show, and I m doing regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward.
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It will make you a better networker and connector and a better thinker.
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That s theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed to 33444.
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This episode of The Art of Charm was produced by Jason DeFillippo.
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Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor.
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Show notes on the website are by Robert Fogerty.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else, either in person or shared on the web.
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Now stay charming and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
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All right, see you next time.
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Thanks for listening to The Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.