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Episode 504: Seth Wickersham and the Macbethian Tragedy of the American Quarterback
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"You're constantly asking lean, open, neutral questions that start broad and then narrow, and you're asking more lean, open, neutral questions based on their answers. When you do that, it tells the subjects that you're actually listening to them very intensely, and you're asking questions based on the things that they say. And that accelerates trust and intimacy, I think, in a better way than kind of betting on your personality," says Seth Wickersham, the bestselling author of American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback and an ESPN.com senior writer.
Seth Wickersham is back. He is an ESPN.com senior writer, investigative reporter, the NYT best-selling author of It’s Better to Be Feared and, most recently, his best selling American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback, it’s published by Hyperion.
We had a tight window to get this interview done. It was 30 minutes and after the edit it was closer to 25. He was gassed. I think he did this as a favor since I’d been on his ass since July about this book. Well, mainly on his publicists’ asses, then I had to go over their heads. Sidebar: sometimes I think tight interviews are GREAT. Tony the Tiger level great. You can’t cover quite as much ground and get into the granularity of certain things, but there’s still so many great takeaways from this episode even though it’s half as long as the usual. Seth talks about:
- Getting to the heart of the matter
- Interviewing vs. conversations, and how he bristles at the “conversation” angle
- Establishing trust
- Writing out questions, but being OK with deviating
- How doing all this book promotion is just pennies in the bank
- His relationship to quarterbacking
- How he vetted the main quarterbacks he featured in American Kings
- And how the quarterback is a vector for American ambition
Seth is one of the good guys. You can’t say that about everyone. He’s a heavy hitter, he’s steady in the pocket, and his eyes are always downfield.
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Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
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00:00:00
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Oh, hey, CNFers, if you want signed, personalized copies of The Front Runner for the holiday season, you're running out of time for the holiday season, but if you want to go beyond, you can email me, creativenonfictionpodcast at gmail.com.
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00:00:48
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Well, it could get killed still. So if it doesn't get killed, you better believe I'm going feature the owner of the club. Welcome to pitch club. Welcome to pitchclub.substack.com. And lastly, this podcast is also sponsored by the word toxic, not the Britney Spears song, but toxic relating to or being an asset that has lost so much value that it cannot be sold on the market as in a career in journalism is toxic.
00:01:26
Speaker
Especially in the investigative space. It's like once you do investigative stories, it's like people want to just talk to you and tell you more things.
00:01:42
Speaker
Oh, hey, CNF. This creative nonfiction podcast, a show where I talk to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell about the art and craft of telling true stories, whatever. It doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. I'm Brendan O'Meara. Not the pebble in your shoe exactly, but the feeling when the pebble falls out. Seth Wickersham is back.
Seth Wickersham's Book Promotion
00:01:59
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:02:00
Speaker
He's an ESPN.com senior writer. investigative reporter and New York Times bestselling author of It's Better to Be Feared, and most recently, his bestselling American Kings, a biography of the quarterback.
00:02:16
Speaker
It's published by Hyperion. I had never seen quite a book promotional engine as the one surrounding Seth's book. He was doing major book interviews in July, two months ahead of publication. Naturally, he continued through the fall, but it was ah a loaded spring, a loading of the spring I had never really witnessed before, and I pay a lot of attention to how we, as writers, beg for attention.
00:02:45
Speaker
I remember thinking this is perhaps the most aggressive publisher publicity push to get this book on that coveted New York Times bestseller list I had ever seen. You know, and it worked. A lot of resources pumped into that.
00:02:58
Speaker
Deservedly so. But you can start to use you see the math out there. And it's also on just about every year end best book list, which I have thoughts about the list. Not American Kings. How is it that so many of these best books come out in the final quarter of the year?
00:03:13
Speaker
It's just like the Oscar campaigns, isn't it? Okay, you know what? I wasn't going there. I'm not going there. Showing us to this episode and more at brendanomero.com. Hey, bookmark it so you can browse for blogs and sign up for the two very important newsletters, the flagship Rage Against the Algorithm and Pitch Club. Welcome to pitchclub.substack.com. Also, if you care to support the podcast with a few dollar bills, visit patreon.com slash cnfpod.
00:03:39
Speaker
been quipping over there. If you know, you know, it's probably where I'll host the hashtag flash 52 sessions. These will be little writing sprints about 30 minutes or so. and And you know, as I try to write up maybe 52, as many as 52 flash essays this year, hopefully I'll land a few.
00:03:57
Speaker
Plus just imagine how much you'll be helping me out the podcast and other writers by joining the CNF and Patreon community. If you think each podcast is worth 50 cents to a dollar a week, think about it. Give it a try.
00:04:12
Speaker
Okay, so Seth is back.
Interview with Seth Wickersham
00:04:14
Speaker
We had a tight window to get this interview done. It was 30 minutes of raw interview time. And after the edit ended being closer to 25, yeah, he was gassed from a big publicity push, big campaign.
00:04:29
Speaker
I think he did this as a favor since I'd been on his ass since July about this book. Well, mainly on his publicist's ass. Then I had to go over their heads. I keep podcast receipts, man. I keep the receipts. Sidebar. Sometimes I think tight interviews are great. Tony the Tiger level, great.
00:04:49
Speaker
You can't quite cover as much ground as you get into the... you know the the granularity of certain things, but there's still so many great takeaways from this episode, even though it's half as long as the usual.
00:05:01
Speaker
Seth talks about getting to the heart of the matter, interviewing versus conversations and how he bristles at the conversation angle, establishing trust, Writing out questions but being okay with deviating. How doing all this book promotion is just pennies in the bank. And fuck, wouldn't you know they're not even minting pennies anymore. His relationship to quarterbacking. How he vetted the main quarterbacks he featured in American Kings. And how the quarterback is a vector for American ambition.
00:05:28
Speaker
And I tell ya, Seth is one of the good guys. Strike that. He's one of the great guys. You can't say that about everyone. He's a heavy hitter. He's steady in the pocket. And his eyes are always downfield, man. Parting shot on how I'm nudging the podcast in a different direction, but a good direction. Don't worry about it. It ain't video.
00:05:50
Speaker
Trust me, it's it's not it's not that big a deal. but that Oh my God, but you want to know, don't you? Ha. Cue up the montage. Riff.
00:06:05
Speaker
Don't ask this question. Don't go there. The structure should be as simple as it possibly can be. I think email is like the death of all all creativity. This going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:06:29
Speaker
It's all grind. you know like yeah I think book promotion is like... Pennies in the in the bank. You know what I mean? Like you you keep thinking, you know, you're going to like hit one thing that'll take care of it for good. But really it's like pennies in the bank. it's it's you used to It used to be as like if you got an NPR and you knew you were set, right? That was like 20 years ago. And now there's no such mechanism. Like I said, I don't know.
00:06:57
Speaker
it feels like we're all just kind of like – going kind of blind and that's definitely including publishers and their marketing and PR people. Yeah, I know some of the discussion around ah trying to gin up any kind of momentum for the front runner and I don't think it was particularly successful was trying to get it in the hands of running influencer types on Instagram and TikTok and like one Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like one coach ah picked it up and shouted it out. And like, that is kind of like the status thing now versus like nice review in the New York times or something, which might stoke our egos, but actually the influencers shouting out a book might actually have more influence than the traditional paths. It's absolutely true.
00:07:41
Speaker
Absolutely true. And it's, and it's, it's, it's easier on the consumer. You know what i mean? Like, It's literally like a second a transaction that lasts five seconds. You know what I mean? So.
00:07:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. 100%. It's yeah, it's it's wild. And ah yeah, so I just just doing the grassroots thing, you know, for me, just trying to hook up with running groups and stuff like that. It's a it's a pretty simple audience to point it towards and be like, and you know, once I get it in their hands, you know, hopefully, you know runners tend to be readers, too. So it's just like, yeah, check this out and maybe tell your friends buy two copies or something. Totally. Right.
00:08:18
Speaker
Buy like eight. exactly Exactly. Don't be shy, everyone. Yeah. Everyone was always like, guy I can't read to wait wait to read your book. I was like, just buy it. you know If you read it, that's whole other thing. Yeah. It doesn't expire. It's not going to spoil.
00:08:33
Speaker
Anyway, I'm ready when you are. Starting off with some kind of crafty components around this, um and just as a reporter and and journalist and and writer, ah ah you know i heard um and Dan Patrick this morning talking about a certain particular certain NBA players. and They weren't necessarily great at various things, but they knew what they were very good at and they just lean into those strengths and identifying those strengths. And I love pulling on that thread for writers and reporters, too, because it's so multidisciplinary, and we all have our strengths and weaknesses under that milieu. So just for you, Seth, like what do you identify as something that, yeah, like I'm particularly good at?
00:09:11
Speaker
I think that, and and even after doing this for 25 years, it's weird because I know I can do it. I feel, you know, i've've I've done, you know, some books and some high profile stories and yet, you know, you still wonder like, well, what am I actually good at, you know, in this thing?
00:09:30
Speaker
i think that like, if there's one thing you know, i think that I'm good at at telling stories, I think that get to the heart of the matter. And so I think that like, it takes on a little bit of different shape in magazine writing form versus book writing form. But I think that like, no matter what it is, you compile all of this material about your character. And then I think, you know, you try to you know, see, you know, what are the things that are the most relevant that you've learned? What are the the things that get at, you know, what it is that, you know, the story you try to tell or how you see the character or whatever it is, you know, that process, it's not a good, it's not a clean process for me, but I think that process of trying to like winnow away you
00:10:19
Speaker
you know, binders worth of material for a book into a book, you know, I think that's something that through trial and error, mostly, you know, I think I've figured out a way to do. And I think that when you're writing a book, you know, you, you just want to stick to the essentials as much as you can.
00:10:35
Speaker
You know, I think that like, everybody has enough material for two and a half books. yeah And, you know, as much as you want to like share, I think that like, you, you know, you kind of like want to tell the best story you can in a a way that respects the reader's time, if that makes sense. So I guess that like, those would be the things I think that like, you know, when I'm looking at a character, I think that like, once I figure out the essence of what I'm trying to tell about them,
00:11:03
Speaker
I can figure out how to see everything within that context pretty pretty quickly. Yeah, and getting to the heart of the matter and what is essential to the the heft and the animating force of a magazine story or a book, you know it it can be challenging to sometimes tease those threads out from from your sources and everything.
Techniques and Insights on Interviewing
00:11:22
Speaker
So how have you over the years just engendered what Isabel Wilkerson might call some of that accelerated intimacy so you do get beyond the fluff and get to the the good stuff?
00:11:33
Speaker
Well, I think there's a couple things. I think that like, you know, if you've been doing it for a while, you might have, you know, some notoriety or a reputation. And, you know, what's weird is that like, especially in the investigative space, it's like, once you do investigative stories, it's like people want to just talk to you and tell you more things. And so in a weird way, it's like,
00:11:55
Speaker
I wouldn't say it becomes easier because it's never easy, but like in a weird way, it can be more efficient because you kind of break down the barriers of who you are. You know what I mean? I think that like, especially,
00:12:09
Speaker
in some of the investigative stuff on the NFL I've done, it's a pretty insular and static group of people. I mean, like, you know, owners don't change hands very often. Team presidents don't change hands very often. League executives, there's some turnover, but not very much. So I think you're pretty much always dealing with the same amount of people. So they kind of know you, whether that you actually know them or not.
00:12:32
Speaker
On a more fundamental level, I think that, like,
00:12:37
Speaker
you know, you can gain that accelerated intimacy or trust a couple different ways. I mean, I think that like, number one, you can be the type of personality that people want to be around. And you can bet on your personality at times. And I think that like, usually you can pull that off, but often, you know, but sometimes you can't or, you know, whatever it is.
00:12:56
Speaker
I think that it was, when was it exactly? going to it was like five or six years into my career at ESPN. ESPN hired this man named John Zawatsky, who was an interview expert. And they made everybody who, who whether it was a producer or a quote unquote talent, you know,
00:13:14
Speaker
Anybody who had a chance to compose questions or ask them of subjects, they made people take his class. It was a truncated version of it, but I really, he got a lot of like pushback. He's a really, really smart guy but his presentation style kind of offended a bunch of people who had been doing things a certain way for a long time.
00:13:34
Speaker
But his methodology is geared toward towards producing the best answers. And it's actually very simple and logical. And I got a lot out of it. And, you know, it's kind of based, your you know, your listeners can go and look at it but it's kind of based on asking questions. You know, he has these rules, lean, open, neutral, lean as in short questions.
00:13:54
Speaker
Open as in who, what, when, where, why. Neutral as as in avoiding words that might um become issues within themselves. So like, you know, you have a wife, if your wife ever says, you know, if you ever say to your wife, how is your day?
00:14:15
Speaker
she might um you know answer how see she sees the answer. But if you say, did you have a bad day? She'll seize on the word bad. And so there's a subtle difference there. And I think that like it really helps to follow his methodology. And um what I found is that like when you do that and you kind of try to adhere to those principles as best you can,
00:14:38
Speaker
his his His other strategy is to is to start broad with questions and narrow from there based on the answers that people give. So you're constantly asking lean, open, neutral questions that start broad and then narrow.
00:14:52
Speaker
And you're asking more lean, open, neutral questions based on their answers. And so when you do that, I find that it shows it tells the subjects that you're actually listening to them very intensely.
00:15:03
Speaker
Yeah. And you're asking questions based on the things that they say. and that accelerates trust and intimacy, i think, in a better way than kind of betting on your personality or by you know learning how to kind of you know be friendly. They always see these people as like, oh, I interview, I have conversations. Like, I don't like that. you know there's There's moments that can be conversational, but I generally don't like that because both the subject and you know that you're there for a reason and you're there to learn about this person that you're around. And so I think that like own it, you know and i mean? Don't pretend that you're friends, like ask these questions, listen intently, ask all the questions based on it. That to me is the, is the best methodology to really establish trust and also, um you know, show the person that you're writing about that you're,
00:15:59
Speaker
interested in hearing about the things that they have to say rather than kind of introducing your prejudices prejudices or biases into it long answer but that's it oh that no that's beautiful uh and when we last spoke you brought you had brought up saworsky at the end of the conversation i went on like a real deep dive with him and it really yeah helped ah inform a lot of the prep i do and i even have like a kind of like a coach call sheet i devised that is a coach call scene yeah and it's got columns that prompt me like with what hows and whys and whens to make sure that i'm i I am being as lean and open-ended as possible with ah the the the line of questioning, if you will. And yeah, I have an interviewing question to pose to you too. It's just like, to what extent or how much prep do you do versus going with the flow of the conversation to get where maybe you ultimately want to go?
00:16:53
Speaker
So this is Zawatsky sort of has a ah philosophy for this too, and I've found it helpful. So I think that like you want to have an outline of what you want to learn, right? So if I'm interviewing um John Elway for my quarterback book, you know, he's 62 years old on the day that I'm interviewing him. So he's lived a lot of life.
00:17:20
Speaker
I can't cover his entire life
The Making of American Kings
00:17:22
Speaker
with him. You know what I mean? like that that' So what I want to do is pick the topics that I want to learn the most about. And there was different themes that I had. So like, I wanted to learn kind of like when, you know, his, his origin story, why did he become a quarterback? And then, you know, pressure, fame, you know, he was the first quarterback who was the number one player in the country, first pick in the draft, first ballot hall of famer. So I knew intuitively that like, if you survive that, that's a lot of pressure, it does something to you. So like, I had an arc of what the the things I wanted to learn.
00:17:58
Speaker
And so you structure questions in a way that gives you like a loose roadmap to try to learn those things. And you know you want to try to be ready to understand when a turning point comes up so you can capitalize on that because it's change. And anytime we write a story, you need change. You know what i mean? like I think that that helps quite a bit, especially if it's organic change.
00:18:22
Speaker
The second thing, though, is that no matter what, if you're so sitting with someone, they're going to surprise you. They're going to say something that was unintended. Something that you weren't prepared for, something that was new, and you have to decide whether you deviate and go down that rabbit hole.
00:18:36
Speaker
And so generally speaking, those are the the ways that i think about interviewing. um You know, i definitely... organized topics.
00:18:48
Speaker
I have questions written out. You know, I don't always ask them all, but I think as an exercise, it's good to kind of like have your brain thinking along those lines. And then again, you know, when the subject says something new or different,
00:19:03
Speaker
You know, if it's something that you want to capitalize on you know, be ready for that. So if John Elway says, i played quarterback, I started playing playing quarterback when I was 13, but I really knew i could be a good one at age 14.
00:19:19
Speaker
So why was that? You know what i mean So that might be, ah you know, something I wasn't quite ready for. What happened when you were 14? Yeah. And then follow up questions for that from there. And how did you approach the the curation of the quarterbacks that you prominently featured in American Kings?
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, so that was a good lean, open, neutral question there. um ah How did I do it? So i I did two books that weren't, laura they were like binders. but like So I researched every quarterback in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
00:19:55
Speaker
And read as much as I could about them and wrote like a bio sketch based on the things that interested me about their story. Then I also did the same for the college football hall of famers.
00:20:08
Speaker
And then I did the same for quarterbacks who weren't in the hall of fame, but were important. Um, you know Michael Vick, you know for instance, or Jim Plunkett, whatever it might be. you know These guys who, you know they they matter, even if they weren't great.
00:20:25
Speaker
So then you know i did a bunch of research about the history of the quarterback, not of the forward pass, but of the quarterback, and you know the moments that kind of reflected you know American culture. and and gay and So if you're looking at how the quarterback started from a position that handed off in the 1880s to, you know, now where it's a lofty American cultural job, what were the touchstone moments that did that? And how did they reflect what was going on in the country at the time? How did, you know, American culture at the time open up something for quarterback to kind of come through and take advantage of? So like I had all of that stuff mapped out.
00:21:06
Speaker
And then I think that like what I did was I picked the stories that were either stories that personally interested me. So like, I knew I was gonna tell John Elway story. I knew I was gonna tell Warren Moons.
00:21:18
Speaker
I knew ah that Steve Young was gonna be a big component because of the way that he talks about quarterbacking and how philosophical he can be. Then there was guys, who culturally had to be part of it.
00:21:30
Speaker
So like Bob Waterfield in the 1940s, Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, like guys like that who like, you cannot tell the story of quarterbacking without getting into them at some point. And then there was other guys who were in interesting situations Even if like as characters, I didn't, you know, I wouldn't have done them standalone, but their situation was interesting. So Caleb Williams looking to blow up the draft to maybe give himself some agency over his employer. Arch Manning and the recruitment of Arch Manning and how it's the most intense recruitment in, you know, college sports history.
00:22:06
Speaker
as a way to also let you talk about the Manning family. And then this guy, Colin Hurley, who's at LSU, as ah who wanted to, you know, he was 14 when I met him, and he wanted to be, you know, on the fastest track possible, the most precocious of the precocious. And so I used him to kind of tell the story of what it's like to be a high school quarterback nowadays.
00:22:28
Speaker
So that yeah that's ah it's ah that's a bloated answer, but that's how I picked him. Right, yeah it's um yeah. Throughout the course of the book, like ah to me, like a ah theme, and this is my own projection of
The Quarterback's Burden and Ambition
00:22:41
Speaker
it, too. It just struck me as here's um this very coveted position in the American culture and certainly in American sport, but there were there are costs and consequences to taking on the burden of quarterback. And that's one of the big capital A abouts of of this book. Sure.
00:22:58
Speaker
When does a theme of a capital A about of that nature kind of reveal itself to you over the course of your research and reporting? Honestly, it was ingrained from the beginning because I played a bit of quarterback in high school and I knew enough about it to know that. it And I also played other sports and I knew the quarterback was just fundamentally different. Like you don't play it. You are a quarterback. Yeah.
00:23:19
Speaker
Steve Young and I sat down and I asked him, like, what are all the titles, you know, what are all the hats that a starting quarterback for an NFL team has to wear? yeah And, you know, he goes into field general, matinee idol, spokesperson for a multibillion dollar organization, amateur psychologist.
00:23:35
Speaker
Chief cheerleader, breathtaking asshole, all these things. And so like fundamentally, it was always different. And how did it become that way? And so and then I kind of knew, you know, throughout my career of just observing it and writing about it, but also wanting to tell it on at a deeper deeper level that like.
00:23:52
Speaker
It takes a certain hard wiring to go from one of 16,000 starting quarterbacks in high school every year to 958 at the highest level of college to 32 in the NFL to 10 being one of the 10 good ones to being one of the three Hall of Famers in any given year.
00:24:10
Speaker
I knew that surviving that winnowing, that filtering, you know, you you do things to yourself that are incompatible with life without football. So like, I always knew that that was the arc that I wanted to follow. You know, one one of the things that I really try to show was how the intensity that we place on quarterbacks, especially youth quarterbacks nowadays, turns them into something that, like, can be really difficult. Like, when I was at Elite 11, which is one of the highest-profile quarterback showcases for high school guys, you know, one of the longtime people there was like, look, we're just breeding little asshole.
00:24:48
Speaker
And, you know these are, like, you know, 16, 17 years old. And so i think that, like... Those themes I wanted to introduce early and show how they get formed at a young age and then you know what it is like to live with them throughout life. you know like you know I think that to be a quarterback, gift to be a little delusional.
00:25:11
Speaker
yes You have to kind of believe that you're special. I think you have to believe that like there's so much pressure and criticism and scrutiny on you that I think that... to enter a game without feeling doubt, you kind of have to somewhere believe that you're superior to the teammates or the coaches and whatever it might be and a little aloof.
00:25:33
Speaker
You know, that to me was really fascinating because i really believe it's an essential part of the job. And I also believe it's one of those things that really corrupts people on the other end when they're not playing football. Yeah, I'm not sure it's reversible. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And, know, one of the more tragic moments in the entire book, and it revealed very this the Macbethian cost of ambition, really, was it's really just a 36 word passage about three quarters through the book. And it's when Caleb Williams texts his dad, I need eight.
00:26:07
Speaker
after Tom Brady's retirement. And, you know, you break it off. and It's 36 words. It stands on its own. And to me, like, that summed up the the curse and the vi the almost um infectious disease nature of the position, meaning he needed eight Super Bowls for him to really to be the to be the greatest. And to me, I found the sickness of the quarterback – was very prevalent in that passage alone, and it's very tight and punchy. But I don't know, I just wanted to get your sense of maybe what you thought of that when that came across your ledger, and you're like, wow, that is that is some pathology right there. Well, it is, and it's also like...
00:26:47
Speaker
it's the bar that's constantly being raised, you know, for these guys. And so, and they often are doing the raising themselves. And I think that like, you know, as much as it's a book about quarterbacking, it's a book about American ambition and the perils of it. And I think that like, you see some of the perils of it in the book where you see guys who struggle with the game and without the game,
00:27:11
Speaker
you know like Colin Hurley, the last chunk of the book with him, he's in the ICU um because he goes to college at age 16, which is far too young to go to college, but he's a good enough player that he's second string at LSU.
00:27:26
Speaker
And he has a car because of NIL money, and he has an apartment off of campus because of NIL money. And his dad... Charlie, who's like a fascinating guy and he's like a well-meaning hard-ass, but you know, he's very intense throughout the entire book and kind of your classic quote unquote quarterback dad.
00:27:46
Speaker
But you see as the book goes on that a lot of the things he was very, he was really worried about the premonitions that he had came to be true when, you know, Colin ends up running his car into a tree at three o'clock in the morning and ends up, you know, not knowing if he'll live, you know, again, it's like,
00:28:04
Speaker
These are all things that, you know, when I was talking about earlier about trying to get to the heart of the matter, you know, you have to look at, you know, the essential pieces of reporting that you have that reveal something about the characters you're telling them and then how it ties into the job. And almost everything, quarterback is such a way of life that almost everything that happens in a quarterback's life ties back to this job that they had and what they had to do and build within themselves to do it.
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah, and you know you brought up earlier, and you start the book with ah you know your your personal story and your personal arc as ah as a high school quarterback and being that and wanting wanting so desperately to be that guy.
00:28:47
Speaker
Over the years, even though ah after long long after having not played the position, but how much of your identity is still in some way tethered to that the ideal and the idea of quarterback? Well, it never left me, even though...
00:29:00
Speaker
even though You know, I obviously am not a quarterback, but like, you know, there's something inside again that like it just doesn't really go away. And I knew if I went through that as a high school kid in Anchorage, Alaska, not trying to sound like the Alaska Uncle Rico here. But if I went through that, then, you know, just imagine what it would be like for some of these guys who do it at the highest level. Like at the early stages of the book, I was reporting this Andrew Luck story.
00:29:30
Speaker
um about why he walked away. So I spent a shitload of time with him. But, you know, the the the constant theme that was kind of emanating from our conversations was self-identity and that, you know, everybody wanted to know, like, why was it that he walked away from professional football at age 29 at the peak of his powers? And like,
00:29:51
Speaker
You know, that was interesting, but the real question is like, what did that decision do to him? And who did it turn him into? Because for his entire life, he was a quarterback, and then all of a sudden he was not.
00:30:02
Speaker
And he was still dealing with the aftershocks of that decision years after the fact when we were together. And so those were the things that kind of you know, were the, were the powerful facts and ideas that drove a lot of the book.
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah, and there's a revelatory moment towards towards the end where you run into your friend Aaron from high school. And it's like you had put so much blame on yourself for not being able to embody the position. But he's just like, we couldn't block for you. You had no chance.
00:30:37
Speaker
like yeah Just in that moment, did did you feel a lightness that you were absolved of the blame for not... well taking the ball. It's so embarrassing. So like, you know, the book is not a morass of my career as a quarterback, but you know, my, my morass as a quarterback informs a lot it a lot, you know? So yeah, later as I was reporting the book, I got drinks with, with a friend who, who played center on our high school team. And I was sitting there with him and I'm like,
00:31:07
Speaker
don't, don't ask this question. Don't go there. Like nobody, like, you you know, you're, you're in your forties. Like, do we really need to do this? And, you know, even though I've seen a million, you know, Springsteen concerts where he plays glory days. And even though I think I've adhered all the lessons of it, I still couldn't help it.
00:31:26
Speaker
And, you know, I do ask him like, you know, you know Why do you think I didn't make it as ah as a quarterback? And you know his answer was very swift and declarative. And it it did allow me to kind of like i don't know if it like, I don't know if I felt lighter because it wasn't like some psychological thing that was weighing me down. But...
00:31:45
Speaker
You know, I think that like it reminded me something about that's essential to the job and that's that it is interconnected and its success is dependent on other people. And even though you might think, you know, I failed or whatever it might be, the truth of that might be a little bit more complicated and nuanced.
Personal Reflections on Football
00:32:04
Speaker
and Knowing what you know about quarterbacks and what it what it does and and on every level, um yeah would it be so something you would still sign up for? I ask that of Joe Namath. At the end of the book, um I ask him that exact question. But I will say that Namath has lived a little bit more life through that lens than I have.
00:32:25
Speaker
my My answer is absolutely. You know what I mean? like I remember, like you know I always look back to my years quarterbacking. And they had this cloud over them. Like, you know, i had I had not lived up to my potential or I had not lived up to what I wanted to do.
00:32:39
Speaker
And I remember talking to someone and they were like, you know, look, you got to play, you got to do this cool thing. You know, this very unique experience. You know, you got to do it for a couple of years. Like, how cool is that? And I never had really thought to look at it through that kind of glasses half full lens.
00:32:56
Speaker
That's really well put. And the book's a masterpiece. And i you know I read it back in July. And I might i have so many things underlying, comments in the margins, sticky notes sticking out of the whole frigging thing. It looks like ah a psychopath read the book. And I guess you you could say that's partially true. it's ah It's such a great book. And I'm so glad to have read it and get to speak to you about it. So just thanks the Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I'll take you know a soopath ah so a psychopath ripping from your your book as a compliment. So I'll take it that way.
00:33:24
Speaker
Thanks, man.
00:33:28
Speaker
Yes! Pretty cool, right? It's always nice when people come back on the show they've once they've been on once or twice before. That's always validating. It's always fun because you can get to like different levels. And you have a rapport, man.
00:33:44
Speaker
feel like I have a rapport with Seth. In any case, it was a tighter interview, but that's what I call concentration. We reduced the sauce.
00:33:55
Speaker
Man, that's what I call a two-minute drill. Thanks to Seth for throwing ye ol' CNF paw to bone. a little A little pass out into the flat. And we took it, and we ran. We got like six yards, but it's alright.
00:34:09
Speaker
Maybe we moved the sticks. I don't know. Even though it's the best podcast of its kind, ye old CNF pod, it can be hard to convince some of these big publishers that their great white shark should patrol your waters.
00:34:21
Speaker
To that I say, Fogum, Seth is the best, though. I'm very happy to call him my best friend now. Yes, I know how to make it weird. You know, I have a quick QB story.
00:34:32
Speaker
So, my dad played quarterback for Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. So even though I was more entrenched as a soccer player, when I was 12, he signed me up for football. And I don't remember. Maybe I expressed interest in it.
00:34:48
Speaker
I can't remember that much. I have to talk to him about it. I thought it could be fun. I really wanted to be a running back. yeah I was a pretty fast runner, and I was always a bit on the thicker side.
00:35:00
Speaker
I could have been a penny store Jerome Bettis, maybe the VW bus if Bettis was called the bus. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But I guess my dad told the coach, Coach Walsh, put him in a quarterback. you know I about had a panic attack because I had a hard time remembering some of this new technology, you know, A-gaps and B-gaps, whatever. And most everyone had been playing Pop Warner for a few years, so they were already comfortable at the speed and motion of the game.
00:35:33
Speaker
And i yeah I quit after three practices. I called the coach on the phone. You know, shout out to 12-year-old B.O. for calling the coach. And said, and I quote, I'm not ready to play quarterback. It was kind of a spineless way to say I wanted to quit, but I was like, I'm not ready to play. And he said, well, I think you are. And I said, I'm going to stick with soccer.
00:35:54
Speaker
And I did. And I was an okay soccer player. But I wasn't built for it, you know, to be a really, really great one. But I was okay. Anyway, what I should have said was, like, I just really wanted to keep, if I really wanted to keep playing, was that I prefer to be a running back. But instead, I took the easy way out and just quit. Now look at me. all The real gag of it all was the person who then stepped into whatever hapless void I left behind would become the eventual varsity quarterback of the high school and more or less a grade A douchebag and a politician in Massachusetts and just an all-around unenjoyable person.
00:36:29
Speaker
The gag is that I unleashed a monster on Massachusetts by quitting football at age 12. And thus he became a quarterback. And as Seth talked about in this episode, like QBs are just you're almost you're grooming assholes, the future assholes of America.
00:36:45
Speaker
You know, that said, ah this guy and I, we were always cool. you know, we grew up playing baseball and all that stuff. So, and I was, I never had much by way of enemies. He didn't become a total goon until after college, but I haven't seen the guy in close to 30 years. So who the hell knows?
00:37:03
Speaker
Alright, here's the real parting shot. And it has to do with some increased structure to the podcast and not necessarily an overt structure where the structure is blatantly broken up into chapters, but more for my own organization. Okay, so I routinely draw up a call sheet, not unlike a football coach. You know, those laminated cards that are color-coded and provide situational plays depending on down and quarter and distance, etc., whatever.
Podcasting Philosophy and Future Plans
00:37:29
Speaker
I say it like I know what I'm talking about, but I kind of know what I'm talking about. To keep my call sheet organized, just a piece of printer paper I fold into three columns or four columns. it's a To keep my questioning as lean and open-ended as possible.
00:37:44
Speaker
it's ah So I write write down, you know like I said, those three columns, but it broken up into what's, why's, how's, and when's. It's just a prompt for me to make sure I don't get too long-winded with questions. yeah Keep it lean and keep it open-ended.
00:37:59
Speaker
And I color code based on super important questions I need to ask. Then others are based on crafts or routines. And of course, the work at hand. If there's a work at hand, that must be promoted.
00:38:09
Speaker
I also have several questions I have there so I can effectively pivot based on answers the guest is giving. So I can keep advancing the ball. I really love these football metaphors for constructing an interview podcast that lasts 60 raw minutes.
00:38:24
Speaker
15 minute quarters. But it's all jumbled together and sometimes they lose the thread. um Given that I record for 60 minutes, I'm experimenting with breaking the interview basically into four quarters or four phases. You know, craft and advice, process and routines, general malaise, and the work at hand, be it a book, an article, whatever. And under these major categories will be my lean, open, neutral questions broken up by category so I don't lose track of them as I have done numerous times in the past. you know Keep it personal, practical, and tactical.
00:38:55
Speaker
yeah People like to know a writer's connection to the work, how how they do it and how they deal with the usual crummy feelings of doing this kind of work. And practical advice for for doing the work in the face of great resistance and self-doubt.
00:39:09
Speaker
and tactical things that you can play with, you know, be it a certain kind of notebook or spreadsheets or waterproof things or but books and binders and bags, file systems, cocaine. just okay joe Just kidding on that last one, but for someone who has never done or never will do cocaine, I sure like joking about it. It's a fun word to say.
00:39:31
Speaker
Also, while I never share questions with guests, I can say, like, these are the four phases of the interview, you know if they're not unfamiliar with the show, like, boom boom, boom, boom, boom. I kind of sort of do this instinctually, but I'd like to have it more intentional on my end.
00:39:44
Speaker
And that's how I can think, that's how I think I can maintain the core ethos of the show, but improving it... in a way that kind of streamlines each section and it has like more of a logical progression to it. yeah No video, that's for sure. yeah There will come a day when people will swing back to audio instead of this pathological push to video.
00:40:05
Speaker
Like, remember the days you know podcasts were meant to be listened to on on audio. and In a real candid moment, you know Rob Harvilla his 60 songs that explained the 90s of The Ringer.
00:40:20
Speaker
Doesn't want to be on video for his ringer work. But since they are now owned by that vile Spotify company and have been for a while, their video push is upsetting and defeats the spirit of this medium. yeah Make TV shows if that's your thing, but get out of my audio lane. And not everyone is meant to be on camera. Am I right?
00:40:38
Speaker
i know i know my I know what lane to stay in. So stay wild, CNFers. And have a nice holiday week if you celebrate this major holiday coming up. This is the penultimate podcast of 2025. So let's get ready and douse this year in gasoline and light it up.
00:40:54
Speaker
you can't do interviews. See
00:41:11
Speaker
ya.