Jay Glazer On Raising Kids Who Are Resilient And Emotionally Vulnerable | Clips | Dad Saves America

0:01 - The fundamental concept of this show is that as a dad, as a man, if you're a dad, this is one of those one-to-one relationships or one-to-many if you've got more than one kid, that you're gonna leave a giant ripple effect in what you do. So, how do you think about your role as a dad and that relationship with your kids? - I think it's the most important job I've had and I think, I question myself most about.

0:25 Because there is no guide book about how to be a dad. I mean there's books written on it, but come on, right? - Guys don't read 'em. (laughs) - But you're also, you're your own story. No one else has your story. No one else has your story with your kid. So, you know, I ended up adopting my son. Met him when he was two, the day I broke the story of the end of the NFL lockout.

0:46 And I broke that story at 3:52 in the morning and then had to be at family court at nine, and there's no cell phone service in there. And my phone was, as you can imagine, just going crazy. - Just exploding. - Yeah, just going nuts. I didn't know what I was doing. I lean into people like Howie Long a lot. Like, "Hey, what do I do here? How do I do this?" And here's the one thing I do.

1:04 I tell my kid I love him, constantly. Like, I don't want my kid to ever grow up being like, "Oh, my dad didn't say he loves me." I'm not gonna do that. It goes a long way. So, that's the first thing. That's one thing I can control. I'm gonna show him and tell him I love him. So, that's always been a constant for me, no matter what. - Like a lot of people we talk to, you're a successful guy living a very busy life.

1:24 How do you balance that with having time with your son, how do you- - Well that was, I always had the cell phone and it just became part of life. And it was one time, I was reffing one of his soccer games and I was getting a scoop and he was like, "Come on, Dad." And I'm like. (John laughing) And I tried to explain to him, "Hey man, you want to take these nice trips? Like, Dad gotta do this."

1:44 I hope it showed him work ethic also, but at the same time, if you're in the public eye too, it makes it a lot harder on them. And like I've had people tell me, "Man, we won't go to our kids' games because it's not fair to them." 'Cause our kids also like don't get the chance to just be and be average and struggle and get better. They gotta be great or they suck to everybody else and it's not fair to them and they didn't sign up for it.

2:11 My kid didn't sign up to have Jay Glazer's, you know, notoriety follow him at games. - It's funny you're saying that 'cause just last week, I was interviewing Jake Arrieta, and he lived in Austin and he coaches his kids' baseball team. And I'm like, "Well that must be quite a thing when the other team shows up and Jake Arrieta's coach." (John laughing) - Yeah. But you know what happened when I showed up? I showed up at my kid's first day of football and he was like, "Oh, God. you're embarrassing me."

2:36 I'm like, "How could I be embarrassing you? I'm freaking Jay Glazer. I'm on "Ballers," are you kidding me? (John laughing) And he's like, "Go, go." But what I realized too, it doesn't give him the ability to just be. They all expected him, "Well, since you've been around football your whole life, you must be great, better than everybody." And it's just, you know, you gotta struggle. - It tips the scales in a weird way. - Like I said, Michael Jordan didn't start in high school, right?

2:58 So, like Michael Jordan worked his butt off. Kobe Bryant worked his butt off. All these people worked their butts off to get to where they are. You know, we have something in mixed martial arts called smoker fights, where we bring people in where no one's watching, they're just like in private gyms. And we'll let you fight so you can get your nerves, the same nerves. But like, if you have any sort of fame or anything going in, (blows raspberry) it's tough.

3:18 We do it on purpose so you can get those nerves out. But if you have a kid for somebody who has notoriety, they don't have the ability to have those. It's just, you're in the spotlight and they didn't sign up for it. So, I talked to him about it. Actually, I had a talk with Mike Tomlin about it, how he handles his kids and he said, "Man, I want you to talk to Sammy and you tell him this, this, and this."

3:38 He was like, "They don't have the ability to be average and get great at something." And if you gonna start something new, you're probably gonna be average to start and you gotta work to be great. Maybe you're great to start. But I always like to think, "Man, we just gotta work our butts off." - Do you think that that's one of the things that makes it harder for kids to have that relentlessness, that they are confronted with so much that looks like easy success that they can't deal with, - Well, they see online. - it's hard.

4:04 And I tell my son this all the time. "If you want to get there, you gotta outwork everybody. Not by a little, but by a lot. It's the hours that you put in when no one's watching is what's gonna make you great." And that's what people are missing these days. And I'll tell you a great story on that. I was with Sean Peyton down in New Orleans. It was 10 o'clock at night on a Thursday. Everybody had been gone outta that facility for five hours.

4:30 And at some point Sean said, "Oh man, I left something in the office. We have to go back." And the office from the Saints facility is like 35 minutes. I'm like, "Dude, you're killing my social life." Like, you know, (John laughing) "I have five cocktails at lunch, you're killing me 'cause we have to go back." We go all the way back to the Saints facility. We got there at about 10:30, 11 o'clock and there's one light on the whole place and it's the tight ends' room.

4:52 But it's Drew Brees and he's sitting there by himself and he's watching film and he's taking notes and I said, "What are you doing dude?" And he goes, "Sometimes trying to be great is lonely." And I said, - Man. - "I am so stealing that from you." (both laughing) But that's the truth of it. And everybody does things now to have a moment on social media and instead of putting in those hours that no one's gonna see, everything's about a moment for everybody to see, and that's not how we become great.

5:19 We become great by putting those hours in when no one's watching. - How do you talk to your son about your challenges with mental health? - I'm so open and he struggled also, and we're open about it. - Are there things you do? Like, I know guys don't like to actually look like this, so I've been told that you wanna talk to a boy, go on a walk. Both be looking in the same direction. - Again, I didn't open up about this till the book, so I didn't really have the words until this.

5:46 And it's one of the things, I've wrote it so I could have the words, so other people can have the words to have start having these conversations. So, I have. And like, so like, my son hits me up recently. School is a struggle for him in the same way that it is for me. He has ADHD and he has processing issues and I, man, I, school is like, man, I was in remedial English for my whole life and now, written two books by the way.

6:09 So, I was looking at- - Making progress. - Yeah, it's more the way you guys teach than I learned. And that's what I told my son too. I said, "Dude, school is harder for people like us." And he said to me, "Man, how am I ever gonna be successful if I can't be good in school?" And I said, "People have different ways of coaching and learning. I obviously had a hard time learning the way I was taught, too.

6:31 But you've heard me coach, right? I could coach, but a lot of those teachers would kind of put me down, probably." And I love teachers, just not the ones who. (laughs) When I first told them I had ADD, - I love teachers in general. - they thought I was making it up. I said to him, you know, "Some of those teachers probably wouldn't learn the way I coach. Probably wouldn't resonate with them how I coach fighters and football players, may not resonate.

6:55 Know it going in that it's harder for us than everybody else and be proud for anything you are. As long as you work your butt off, I don't care what your grades say. I just want you to work your butt off. I want to know that. That's an A plus, plus, plus, plus. And for me to get, I had a 2.3 average and I did work hard for it. It was just hard for me. School was hard for me.

7:16 I couldn't remember anything, I couldn't process- - School's not built for boys, - No, it's- - K through 12 in particular. - It's not, to just sit there and be told things that are boring for, you know, as you get older, they're three-hour periods and just sit there like. (imitates student snoring) Man, it's not conducive. But show me something and I can then turn around and coach it to someone? (snaps fingers) I got a photographic memory.

7:35 I'll pick it up two seconds. Bam. That's the way I know I can learn. So I told him also, "Look, whatever your grades are, they are as long as you're working your butt off. And is there anything else we could do? Do we get more tutors? And is there another way we could learn?" Something along those lines. As long as he puts his all in that, I'm proud of him, I'm happy. I shared with him all my struggles, so he doesn't feel alone with that.

8:00 - What's the biggest thing you've learned from your son? - Forgiveness. Man, I've had some meltdowns and he's just, still loves me, you know? And, yeah. (laughs) It's hard to talk. It's, man. I've had some, you know, again, I've had mental health breakdowns in front of him and he just loves me the same. Pretty cool. - Isn't that the best gift of being a dad? - No doubt. No doubt. And he's been really compassionate toward me when I've opened up about everything and he's told me he's proud of me.

8:37 So that's, (blows raspberry) that's better than any award we can get. - If you enjoyed this clip, we've got more where that came from. Be sure to check out my full conversation with Jay Glazer, and one of the best ways you can help support us is to subscribe to the channel so you won't miss our interviews and short videos as they come out each week. (cheerful music)