Former NFL Lineman Steve Wright’s memoir, Aggressively Human: Discovering Humanity In The NFL, Reality Television, And Life, delves into his journey navigati... — www.youtube.com
Former NFL Lineman Steve Wright's memoir,
Aggressively Human: Discovering Humanity In The NFL, Reality Television, And Life, delves into his journey navigating the often contradictory worlds of professional athletics and personal growth.
-
From Field to Balance
Wright, a former Cowboys, Colts, and Raiders player, explores the disconnect between the aggressive nature demanded on the football field and the desire for a more well-rounded human existence. He recounts his experiences battling opponents and the internal struggle to reconcile that aggression with empathy and emotional vulnerability.
In our recent interview with Mr. Wright on the Pigskin Dispatch Podcast, the author shares many life lessons from his playing days, including wisdom from legends such as Mike Ditka, Al Davis, and Howie Long.
Steve is offering a discount and signed copy if you order your copy through his website,
WrigthtAuthor.com.
-
Beyond the Game
The book transcends the typical sports memoir. It goes beyond game-day details and locker-room anecdotes. Wright ventures into his entrepreneurial endeavors and exploration of spirituality, showcasing his search for meaning and fulfillment beyond the gridiron.
The reader will gain plenty of football action, too, from Wright's own experiences, including:
-Experiences of Starting his NFL journey
-Training and practice
-Being Traded
-Coping with injury
-Being a good teammate
-
A Trial-and-Error Guide
"Aggressively Human" isn't a self-help manual with definitive answers. Instead, it's a candid exploration of Wright's journey. He shares his successes and failures, offering a relatable and honest perspective on navigating life's challenges.
-
Masculinity Unbound
The book tackles the evolving concept of masculinity. Wright challenges the traditional "tough guy" image often associated with professional athletes. He advocates for a healthier and more nuanced understanding of being a man, embracing vulnerability and emotional intelligence.
Steve is a caring and nurturing dude who looks out for others. He is an innovative, successful businessman from his Cool Mist venture that is on NFL sidelines, the 1996 Olympics, and industry to his part in helping young athletes around the world by spreading gently used sports equipment from the US to deprived nations abroad.
-
Here is the transcription of the full conversation we had with Steve Wright
Darin Hayes
Welcome to a special edition where we get to talk to a former NFL player who played on multiple teams and had some really big games and big moments. He has a book out that we're going to talk about. His name is Steve Wright. Steve Wright, welcome to the Pigpen.
Steve Wright
Darin, thank you for having me on Pigskin Dispatch. I look forward to chatting with you.
Darin Hayes
Steve, we're going to give you a couple of opportunities to do this. But you have a book that's out recently that is going to be the main focal point of our discussion here. Why don't you give us the full name of the book and where folks can get a copy of it?
Steve Wright
Sure, thank you. Yeah, Aggressively Human is the name of the book. It's my memoir. You can get it at Amazon. Another great spot if you want a pretty healthy discount. I will give anybody that DMs me, and you can find my Facebook and Instagram sites on writeauthor .com. I've got a lot of photos in there, probably 30 or 40 photos rotating through there, Bo Jackson and games, and all my blogs that I did leading up to the book's release. But you can get it at Amazon, or I'd advise you to simply write author .com, and if you DM me, I will give you a healthy discount for my book. I'll personalize it to you and mail it out to you.
Darin Hayes
Well, that is an incredible offer. So folks, if you're driving and don't have a pen or pencil, don't worry. I will put it in the show notes so you can get into Steve's site, give him that DM, and take advantage of that. That's a great offer. So thank you for that. So Steve, you know, you have a long, lengthy career in the NFL. You, uh, you know, you were an offensive lineman and played multiple positions on the offensive line, and we'll get into that in a second. What was your inspiration and your attraction to football?
Steve Wright
I started playing in fourth grade with all my buddies. And we had full equipment, helmets, everything, and banging away the Wildcats up in Minneapolis. And then just staying, which I greatly express in my book about staying president. We were just having fun, and the neighborhood guys were all playing on the neighborhood Wildcats. And then, it went into junior high and high school. Then, I started getting offers. And I thought, man, that's gonna be my way. Because I was playing hockey in high school, I played basketball and track. I was an All-American in Shopbook and Discus in high school. But the real calling became football. I was playing tight end, which I just love. Played tight end in college. My freshman and senior year.
Just one thing led to another. I never had any dreams or hopes of going to the NFL. I was just having fun in my freshman year, my sophomore year, and my junior year. I started getting notes, letters, and packages from NFL teams in my junior year. And I thought, wow, is this a possibility? And then my senior year started pouring in. And the draft came and went, and I had an opportunity to sign with the Dallas Cowboys. I signed for peanuts, but I got a free-agent contract. I negotiated my signing bonus as my own agent. I signed for $1,500, it was my signing bonus.
Darin Hayes
Times have changed. Yeah, they certainly have. And I'm sure you probably had the tough negotiator of Gil Brant that you were dealing with at that time with the Cowboys.
Steve Wright
I did. I did. I had Gil Brandt, but I had one of the Scouts out signing me. And then Gil Brandt was the one that finally gave me the call. After it was we, they whittled away 123 agents and got down to about five of us. And I was waiting in the hotel room. We had broken camp and Thousand Oaks. And I was sitting in my hotel room, and he called and tried to act like Steve: hey, I want to thank you. The Cowboys want to thank you. You worked your tail off, and we appreciate it. And my heart has just sunk. I'm just crushed. I'm just waiting for him to say that. And he goes, but on a lighter note, congratulations, you are now on the 1981 Dallas Cowboys. Get your playbook and get over here to practice. And I was like, I go deep into that story. I jumped up and jumped across the two beds in the room and broke one of the beds. I landed on the floor, and he asked me if I was okay. And what was that? Never mind. Everything's good. I'll be over.
Darin Hayes
Now, you played tight end. You said your senior year in college at Northern Iowa. Is that where you played? Northern Iowa. Northern Iowa. How did you go from being a tight end in college to being a tackle in the NFL? That's got to be quite a transformation to your body and your mind.
Steve Wright
That's a great question that always bugged me. I got down to the team meeting, and there must have been 140 guys in with Tom Landry, and he was talking and welcoming us all to training camp 1981. And then, when everything happened, I didn't know anybody. I had met all the different coaches. And so when things broke up, I assumed I was a tight end. And I was just enamored with Mike Ditka, the tight end coach and my special teams coach. And so when he left, I knew I would be with him quite a bit with just special teams. But he took off and went to his room with Billy Joe Dupree, Jay Salti, Doug Cosby, and some other great players. I just followed along. And I'm sitting in there at the start of the meeting, and Jim Myers, the offensive line coach, yanks the door, goes, right, what are you doing in here? You're not a tight end; you're an offensive lineman. So I was like, okay, I'll play anywhere. I could have been a kicker. I was just so happy just to be there. From then on, I was an offensive lineman, but they did use me, and all the teams used me as a tight end on short yards and goal line. I caught a couple of passes in Philadelphia, and the Raiders caught one touchdown in the USFL. I wish the Raiders had used me more. So, you know, 6 '6 and 285, 290. And I got monster hands, and I could just, you know, but I'm happy with how everything turned out.
Darin Hayes
Yeah. And just looking at some of the images, you know, you were extremely athletically built for an offensive lineman from back in the day. You see you next to some of the other folks that you played alongside with and across the line from, and, you know, they were more typical. What you think of, you know, those offensive linemen are just bulky, the low center of gravity. You were a big dude that was athletically built. So.
Steve Wright
And here's an interesting one. When I got to the Cowboys, they found you if you were over two 80. It would; the game was different before 1983 when the Washington Redskins came out with the Hogs, the first 300-pounders. And so once they started showing all that success, they beat, they beat us in the championship game and won the Superbowl, and they had a 300-pound line. You know, at least a couple of guys, but they were heading that way. So everything changed from then on. Now it's time to start bulking up, but yeah, I just, uh, I'm a workout fanatic. Um, I just was with four or five of my buddies, um, came home to, to chat with you, but, um, stay active, watch, you know, really watch what's going in my pie hole, uh, making sure that if anything's going in there, it's full of nutrition, I don't eat junk, don't eat sugar. Um, instead of pretty, I'm in pretty great shape. To this day, I'm in about two 35, um, my wife's on the same program. I stopped eating about two or three o ''o'clock in the afternoon. It's a habit that started in high school and carried into the pros.
Darin Hayes
Well, you're still looking great to this day. So I didn't mean that's awesome. Okay, so you and I played with Dallas for a couple of years, and Tom Landry and Danny White were the quarterbacks then, right?
Steve Wright
anyway, Tony Dorsett.
Darin Hayes
I say this with some angst because I'm from Northwestern, Pennsylvania. So I'm, of course, a Steelers fan growing up as a kid in the 70s. So, you know, those battles that they had with the Cowboys, I was, you know, for being in the different conferences. They were pretty much rivals, And of course, rivals with your team that you would join later, the Raiders, too. I remember some great teams with those guys. They wanted to beat up the Raiders.
Steve Wright
and everybody wanted to beat up the Steelers, the two dominant teams. I loved watching the Steelers. I was just, I'd do anything to watch Jack Lambert and Mean Joe Green. Yeah, those guys helped light the fire under May, along with many Raiders. But yeah, great team.
Darin Hayes
Well, I've got a special day. I mean, just for the audience. So, we are not filming or airing this and will film it on March 29. And this is a special anniversary of something that you live through. On March 29, 1984, the team you were playing for, the Baltimore Colts, left in the middle of the night and moved to Indianapolis. This is the 40th anniversary that you and I are speaking about. So I feel quite honored that we're talking on this this day. Wow.
Steve Wright
That's an interesting fact that rocks my world for the better. I was traded from America's team to Frank Hush and the Baltimore Colts. And I just, I, you couldn't hit more rock bottom. I was crushed. I had just closed on a house. My girlfriend and I were living there. I've only been there for about a month and got through with the last preseason game meal, and Tom Landry leaned over and said, Steve, take a walk with me. And when you leave today at one o'clock, and it is like eight, any o'clock in the morning, I am on the plane at one o'clock.
I go into a funny, long story with this and just packed up. Could I say goodbye to my buddies and go off to Baltimore and Baltimore state, the Baltimore city? I didn't like the Colts. I think, you know, roughly 65,000-seat stadium. And it was 20, maybe 30% to capacity. It was just that there was nobody in the seats. And they hated us around town. They didn't like the Earth and said they didn't like the players. We suck. Um, I think it is one of the most brilliant moves for Robert to say, to just sneak out in the middle of the night. Cause he was going to get he was going to get a hard time either way. Just get out of town. So he goes to Indianapolis and pays a $1 rent for a packed stadium at the new Hoosier Dome or something at the time. Um, yeah, so it was. It was just a great move, and the first time that the Colts brought me back, the Cowboys never brought me back for a thing. But the Colts bought us all back for the 40th reunion about two months ago. And it was great seeing all these old buddies, teammates, and everything else. But today's the actual date.
Darin Hayes
Yeah. Today's the actual date when the semi trucks were on ESPN in the dark, and
Steve Wright
It was a shock to all of us. I was at my house in Dallas and watching; I don't know if it was ESPN or something. I was like, what? So I had to go ahead and fly back to my apartment, rent a car, get a U-Haul truck, and haul all my stuff over to Indianapolis. And it was; I was so excited to do it.
Darin Hayes
Now, was that sort of the mindset of the whole team, but there was everybody sort of excited for this new endeavor and
Steve Wright
It was a tired old facility; the town didn't like us. And then to get over, and we still sucked, but we couldn't do anything wrong. The mayor was just doing so many things for individual players and the team; doors were open everywhere to anything we wanted to do; it was beautiful.
Darin Hayes
Wow. That's awesome. And I'm glad I got to talk to you on this day, too. I didn't realize it until a couple of days ago when we scheduled it, but I wanted to surprise you with that a little bit. Maybe that would stir a memory, and it seems like it did. So now you had some; you had two different numbers during your playing days. You were number 73 in Dallas. You were number 66 later on with the Raiders. And I think 73 with the Colts, too, if I'm not mistaken. Was there any significance to the numbers that you chose?
Steve Wright
I liked 66. I was given 73 and didn't even think of asking for 66.
Darin Hayes
tight end right when they gave you 73.
Steve Wright
I was just happy to be there, you know, trying to fight for my life. And that's all I cared about. I didn't care what number I had or anything else. Just, you know, get me on the field and work my tail off. It was; I've just been invited back to my university for homecoming in Cedar Falls, Iowa. So I'm returning there for the homecoming on October 26, the head coach whom I've never met before. He's invited me back to speak to the team after the Friday walkthrough before the game on Saturday. Yeah. My whole thing is just staying present. And so I will talk to these guys about staying present in the game. Don't think about the homecoming parties and everything else. But that's how I survived, I believe, the 120 other free agents. I had five other roommates as a free-agent rookie. And so six of us are sitting around in a room. And these guys were all talking about the scrimmage game, the first preseason game against the 49ers or the Rams. All I could think of, and I didn't realize until I started writing the book, was that I couldn't think of anything besides tomorrow morning's practice.
The 120 guys went way in every day, and next to the scale was a list of all the players on the field. And every day there were guys, there were just black marks. It just redacted, like these guys are gone. One of them was one of my teammates, an All-American from the University of Northern Iowa named Owen Doctor, who I knew would make the team over me. I got up on the scale one day and looked at his name, which was crossed out. So I had run blocking. And afternoon practice is pass protection and all that, the passing game. So I couldn't think about that. I had to just focus because I might not make it to lunch. I might have had a crummy morning practice, and they were pulling guys out at lunchtime, and they disappeared. They would be there for the afternoon practice. And so I just stayed focused on what I had to do during the next practice and drill, just down to the minutia and the finest point. And it worked for me. That's my message to the players when I get to Cedar Falls. It's just that you hear it a lot; it's cliche, but in this conversation, state president and whatever it is, you're not thinking about doing something else. And it's just you're so much more successful.
Darin Hayes
Great advice now; that's a great segue into a part of the book you talk about. You mentioned a few times that you had some great inspiration. Somebody you just mentioned earlier, coach Mike Dicke, said a couple of things to you that inspired you, and you carried that inspiration with you throughout your career and life. But maybe you could share some of that experience with us.
Steve Wright
Um, a couple of different times, he'd see me as a rookie, um, just frustrated in practice. Um, maybe I got beat or something. He'd come up, and I call them the wisdom walks, and he came up and threw his big arm around my neck and just dragged me away. And for some reason, he liked me. I think he liked the fight I had in me cause I was getting into fights quite a bit. Um, just a lot of that's just out of frustration. Um, and he'd take me for the wisdom walk and say, Steve, everybody here has the physical tools. This is what's going to separate you from here up. You're going to get your ass kicked; figure it out. Don't deal with it. Figure it out and correct it. And if you don't, you're gone. Your time here can be very short. So if you don't get it figured out, don't make excuses, don't point fingers, just get up and kick Somebody's ass the next play. But you're all going to get your ass kicked here today. You know, so, accept it, deal with it, learn how to, you know, counter it and, uh, you know, hold your own. And then another one that was cool that, uh, I talked about in the book is when my offensive line coach was always yelling at me, and he took me aside, and he said, man, Jim Meyers, my, my line coach, he's just driving you crazy, and he's always yelling at you. I see it, too. And that's got me driving. You go, yeah. And I had tears in my eyes. I was just so frustrated because I was trying as hard as possible. He'd say, Steve, you start to worry if he stops yelling at you. And I just went, whoa. I just remember my head spinning. It was like, wow, he cares. He cares. And he knows that he can squeeze a little bit more out of me, and he's going to see if he can squeeze that out of me. And he called it later. He called putting a whip to a racehorse or a donkey; the racehorse is going to go, and he wanted to see if I was a goat or a donkey or a racehorse. And so just a couple of those things hit me like a ton of bricks in such a good way. So I've tried to share that with younger football players and the people in life. They're good lessons, and this is going to separate you. And then in the other parts of my book here, you know, my entrepreneurial and getting on Survivor and everything else, it was the complete opposite: keep this out of it and go with your gut. I always think that our guts have been developed over a million years of evolution, and they know how the parasympathetic or the sympathetic, you know, run or fight or flight. So I've moved it from up here to my gut with everything else I do. If it feels right in my gut, don't try to overthink it. It might be a date. It might be, you know, going out with a girl. What is she all about? Does it feel like trying it and just checking it out, or is the door opened up for Survivor? And I could have said, well, let me call you tomorrow. I don't know. But my gut just sounded like this might be interesting. It might be that I might not make it on, you know, on the show. But when I got asked, I just said yes. When asked to cool the Olympics, I said yes and figured it out. But when the door opens, charge through it. And that's what I think I try to express to everybody: that you're here for such a short time, and your will can turn upside down or end quickly. If there's a cool opportunity you think sounds interesting, and it might be a date or whatever it is, go do it. Business opportunity, anything, you know, and figure it out along the way. It's like they say, whether they build a plane as you're dropping. Just go ahead. Life. Go for it. You know, you're responsible for yourself is in my book.
Darin Hayes
Yeah. You're in. You portray those messages a lot in the book. I mean, even if it's great for the youngsters, you know, older folks like myself are reading the book. It was quite inspirational to me, too. And some of your life lessons shared are very inspirational. So very well portrayed and conveyed.
Steve Wright
I didn't want to be a you should because I'm like, I don't want to tell anybody. As soon as Somebody tells you you should do this, it's like I put the brakes on it, but if I am just trying to share what worked for me and some possibilities that might be interesting, check out a different way to live life.
Darin Hayes
Yeah, most definitely. I guess I get the third phase of your pro career before we get into some of the stuff you had afterward. How did you end up being on the Raiders team? And you were played predominantly in LA, right? You weren't in Oakland.
Steve Wright
Always, always in Los Angeles. I tried to renegotiate with the Indianapolis Colts. I didn't get any, and I didn't get where I thought I deserved. There was a lot of money flying around. And it wasn't going out to the Colts players. And then the USFL stepped in, and they had wheelbarrows full of money. And so, in a heartbeat, I just signed with the Oakland invaders and ended up in Oakland, playing with under head coach Charlie Sumner, who had been the defensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Raiders for the previous ten years. Great guy players coach, we'd go out and have a couple of martinis. I think I wrote a funny story about that as well. Before a game, he wanted me and another buddy to go have some martinis with him before we jumped on the game the team was playing. But then we played the 80-45 season, and the league folded. We were in the championship game, which was awesome. And then the league folded, and he went back down to Los Angeles once a Raider, always a Raider, even for the coaches. So they took Charlie back, and Charlie brought Anthony Carter and me back to the Raiders. And I spent the next seven years there until I retired at 94.
Darin Hayes
You also played with some incredible players in your time with the Raiders. Could you tell us a little bit about who you played with?
Steve Wright
Sure. My practice partner for the seven years was Howie Long. Howie and Greg Townsend. And they just kept me on my toes. I had to up my game just in practice. And I've always said, I'd rather get my ass kicked in practice, which Howie, you know, took me, you know, schooled me quite a bit.
Darin Hayes
Iron sharpens iron.
Steve Wright
I said I gave it back to him, and we worked hard to improve each other. Yeah, they're blocking for, you know, having Marcus Allen in the backfield, Roger Craig, and Bo Jackson blocking for both runs. Yeah, it was a phenomenal team with just amazing talent. You know, guys that have been around the league that you know they had heard of, so it was a really a veteran group of Guys that knew how to play and fight to stick up for each other. It was a real team, more so than the Cowboys, the Colts, or the Invaders. We were a solid group of guys. What's cool? I think I mentioned it earlier, but the Colts, that was the first time they'd ever brought me back to the Cowboys. Was there an 182 I played two seasons? They never invited me back for anything. There was no grudge at all. I'm fine with that. I don't care. It's just pointing out that The Los Angeles Raiders Oakland Raiders Every single year invite every player back that has a form, and they pay for the flights that we're going back. We'll be returning this year, but they just threw it out to us if anybody wants to take advantage of it. They're having their first wellness weekend, and so June, I don't know, is in the middle of June for three days. We're going back to Oakland, and they're having all kinds of doctors there. This is all on their dollar. They're putting us up at the hotel.
Darin Hayes
And they're doing it in Oakland rather than Vegas, huh?
Steve Wright
all the food, drinks, everything. Yeah, and then all the doctors and, you know, some of them are going back for that. It's just incredible. But they don't, they don't miss a thing. And they care so much. And that started with Al. Mark is taking the baton and just looks out for the players. You know, you bled for them, and I gave them plenty of cartilage, bones, blood, and everything else. And they appreciate that. And they're always paying us back with the generosity of setting us up for autograph sessions, or that's awesome. Yeah, it's just that I could say enough great things about the Los Angeles Raiders.
Darin Hayes
Yeah, you have an incredible story. Now, this isn't, you know, you don't hear this often; you'll usually only hear the bad when players are getting ready to leave the NFL and for life after the NFL, you made some great business decisions, great financial decisions. And why don't you tell us a little about some of the business things you got into while exiting the NFL?
Steve Wright
Thank you. It's one of my more prideful times, even almost over the top of making the NFL and playing as long as I did. I did this really on my own as well. But two or three years before I retired, I brought the mist cooling system fans to the NFL sidelines. I was in Palm Springs. I saw I was having a couple of margaritas with a few friends, and we would start training camp in about a month or something. I also talked to the manager about how to do this. He showed me how to get the pumps, motors, misting, fans, and everything. And I just took that idea and gave it a new application. I put it on the sidelines, and it was a huge hit. And then at the end of the game, one of the ball boys came over and said, hey, there's a couple of guys in the stands that want to talk to you if you got a second. And so, with my equipment on, I ran over and talked to these two gentlemen who had a lot of horses at Hollywood Racetrack, which the SoFi Stadium is built on top of now. They gutted this old horse track I used to go over quite a bit. But they want to talk to me about putting this misting system in the barns. And so I had my first meeting in my equipment and went over there. I don't know what, but six months later or something like that. We started installing it, and the network got around. And I didn't do much marketing. I picked up a buddy who had a double finance major at USC. He and I became partners. I gave him 50% of the business because I couldn't survive without him. And I'm a team guy. And I'm sales into marketing. And so, we just started knocking it out between the two of us. We were in plastic extruder plants, cooling off the molds so that the kayak could drop out of there faster and they could fill it and up production. So the application
Darin Hayes
of the product just kept going in different areas.
Steve Wright
Yeah, we were in Nassau; we were in aircraft carriers. And then, in 96, they landed the 96 Summer Olympics. Cool, it got the contract to cool that off. And that's a whole cool story that can give you a condensed version if you want to hear it. Yeah, please. And a lot of my book is about treating everybody alike and being kind, not trying to get anything out of it, just being cool to be a good person. Suppose you need to be a good person or a jerk. And so this new shoe salesman was in the locker room a few days before a game, trying to sell this new shoe, and I had a Converse contract. And there was Adidas and Puma and everything else. And this guy was trying to schlep this new shoe, and he wasn't getting anybody's time of day. So I said, Come here, what do you get there? And look at his shoe; it's the same as a Converse. It was a nice rubber cleat. It was nice, heavy-duty, high-top. And so he got me a pair of 16s. I am warm in the game. He was a hero in his new startup company shoe and got his football shoe from a Raider in an NFL game. And that was it. And this didn't ever talk about it again. I never saw the guy again. In three more years, I will retire and get this missing company going. My partner and I fly to Atlanta to do a little sales pitch. We're up against Raytheon, GE, and other big air conditioning companies. And we kind of just laughed, but we were proud that we released it and gave it a shot at home. Two weeks later, I got a call from the head guy of all of the field action for the Olympics, named Mike Ariana. And he said, Hey, you've got the contract to the coolest Olympics. No way. What are you talking to us? You don't remember me, do you? And I said, No, I saw you at the sales pitch. And he goes, I used to be a shoe salesman. And I was in your locker room. And everybody treated me like dirt. No one was pushing me out of the way. You were the only one that was cool to me. And so now it's payback time. I said I want you to just, you know, I believe in you. So kick butt, you know, it was just like, wow. So that is an awesome karma story there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So so much there. And it's, yeah, it gives me goosebumps. Just, you know, telling that story how cool it was. Yeah, it is karma. It's putting the good out there without expecting anything. I didn't try to, you know, I didn't expect anything for it. And all of a sudden, they land the launch for my, you know, business. It was incredible. Yeah.
Darin Hayes
And you have some other ventures going on. It's really interesting, and it just shows your kind spirit. Regarding your program for youngsters worldwide who may be less fortunate than us and want to be in sports, maybe you could tell us a little about that.
Steve Wright
Yeah, it's called global giving. And then the ball is B -A -L -L, like a glowing ball, instead of global, global giving. And it's a little play on words because we collect used sports equipment, every home has got a bat or a pair of shoes or old deflated basketball or something else sitting around jerseys, high schools have the stuff that they maybe want to get rid of and they're bringing in a whole new set of equipment, baseball hats, you know, anything that it was sports, we collected, I don't know, a couple dozen surfboards and got those over to the Philippines to kids at a surf camp. And we serviced, I think, we figured out a million kids we've held, which is awesome. And I think we're in roughly almost 30 countries. Our friend, Mark Rolison, started in Milwaukee, but Globalgiving.org, if you've got sports equipment. If you want to give it away, have them do something substantial with it, or you know, a high school or another group that's got uniforms and shoes and anything else, please reach out to Mark at GlobalGiving.org.
Darin Hayes
All right. Well, yeah, definitely, folks, that's a great thing to do with the equipment that maybe you're not using anymore. Your team's not using it anymore. Let Somebody else enjoy the sports that you enjoyed. So great stuff. Now, before we let you go, we alluded to it. You wetter whistle a little bit. You were in reality TV, and you had the opportunity, and you said you were invited to, to be honest. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that experience, which you can?
Steve Wright
Yeah, it was a rush. I go down maybe once a year to see my old teammate, Howie Long, at the Fox Studio set. Jimmy Johnson, one of the other guys on the set, had been on Survivor. And so, as one of his guests, he had to lead the casting director, whom I met sitting in the green room. And we spent, I don't know, three hours chit-chatting. And they said, why don't you try giving Survivor a try? Well, I've never seen the show before. So just go for it and see if you can, you know, see if it sounds interesting. I said, sure. And I said yes. I get in charge of the door, not knowing what to expect or not having been watching the show. Next thing I know, I land in Nicaragua for 31 rough, miserable days of not eating. It was that show; I can't tell you how real it is. It's, you start. There are some food contests, but those are every third day. I lost 33 pounds in 31 days, just caving in. I got home, and I was gonna go see my parents over in Arizona, and my front tooth was sore. So I went and saw my dentist. He took an X-ray and came back just in shock at how much bacteria was up in my tooth. And he goes, we get on the whole thing right now. This kills people in third-world countries. So I got my front tooth pulled out, thanks to Survivor. She goes, this is your toothbrush. You know, you just, you don't have anything. That's why I say how real it is. It's, you know, I didn't have shoes for a month, and you're sleeping outside, and it's just, you know, in the torrential rain, and it was an awesome experience. I'm so glad I went. They called me a few years later and asked if I wanted to return. And I said, hell no. One down there, it was great. I've got some friendships from there that, you know, you're 24 seven, you're just sitting around making, keeping the fire going and up all night because it's pouring rain, and it was a great experience.
Darin Hayes
I'm sure the mental fortitude is just as much as the physical stress you put on your body because it has to play with your head.
Steve Wright
Right. You're just not eating and say you're depleted, and your mind is going crazy, and you're not sleeping. But I'm so proud that I endured it and made it through. I was the last one of my tribe voted off. It was season 22, Redemption Island. I write a little in a book, too, but I wonder if I cannot talk too much about it.
Darin Hayes
I just thought it was kind of ironic that you described that you were introduced to this CBS network. Should tell a television show in a Fox studio. Yes, it's Very interesting. Well, Steve, We appreciate you coming on here once you tell us once again the title of your book and where folks can get it at
Steve Wright
Yeah, it's aggressively human. Voila. That's it? Aggressively human, you can get it at Amazon. If you go to writeauthor.com, there's a link there to Amazon, but it also has my email it's got me I think it's got my email address, my Facebook, and Instagram. If you DM me, I will personalize a book at a pretty nice discount and mail it to you. So hope to hear from you, buy them that way. I've got a stack of books, hard and soft covers here. The website, write author .com.
Darin Hayes
It's an incredible story, and you're an incredible human being. We appreciate you taking the time to share your football experience, your life experience, and your wisdom with us, making us a lot better and catching a lot more in his book. Folks, I highly recommend it. I got a copy of it, and it is a great read. You'll also find it very interesting for football and the rest of your life. So, Steve, thank you so much for joining us.
Steve Wright
Thank you, Darin. Appreciate it. I enjoyed being on the pigskin. Thank you, Ralph.
