Jamaal Charles on the Andy Reid system, his Special Olympics journey, and how therapy saved him from dark days after football
NFL: Move the Sticks with Daniel Jeremiah & Bucky Brooks
NFL
4.7 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2024
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
On the latest NFL Players: Second Acts podcast, All-Pro running back Jamaal Charles joins hosts Charles “Peanut” Tillman and Roman Harper. Jamaal sits down to share his improbably journey from Texas high school phenom, to the NFL, to how he’s found direction in his post-football life. Jamaal also shares his devotion to the Special Olympics, and his journey from finding his confidence as a youth competitor to now being a global ambassador for the organization.
Jamaal is a newly inducted member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, and he shares with the guys his emotions of being recognized as one of the greatest athletes in the state’s history. In the NFL, Jamaal bloomed into one of the most electrifying runners in the league. He credits his success to head coach Andy Reid, and details how Reid maximized his talents in the Chiefs offense. Roman can also attest to Jamaal’s speed, as he shares the story of seeing Jamaal blow by him on the longest run of Jamaal’s NFL career.
The aftermath of the NFL has been a winding road for Jamaal. He gets candid with Peanut and Roman about events that led to loneliness and suicidal thoughts. Jamaal opens up about how therapy helped pull out of his darkest days, and how he’s still on a journey to finding complete inner peace. And he gives a message to other former players, and everyone, who finds themselves in a similar position: lean on their support system. It’s a conversation you don’t want to miss.
The NFL Players: Second Acts podcast is a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeart Radio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:11.0 | Thank you all for tuning in to the NFL player's second act podcast. |
| 0:15.5 | I'm Peanut Tillman. |
| 0:16.7 | This is my guy, Roman Harper. |
| 0:18.1 | We got a good one for y'all today. |
| 0:19.2 | I'm excited about our next guest. |
| 0:20.8 | I mean, we should be excited. |
| 0:21.9 | I mean, he's one of the fastest, most electrifying people to ever play in the NFL. And I'm looking like it does, man. I mean, you can't buy it. And you just got to be blessed with it. Yes. And when you play against people like this, my coach would always say, fast guys like to do one thing, and that's run fast. |
| 0:38.8 | And so with that being said, he's a wise guy. my coach would always say fast guys like to do one thing |
| 0:37.6 | and that's run fast. And so with that being said, he's a wise guy. He's super wise, wise beyond all ideas. Here we go. But first and foremost, I want to thank all of our listeners and your viewers, wherever you will always tune in, give us that five-star rating, give us a review, leave a couple comments, make sure you get that follow or subscribe button, wherever you pick up your podcast with this, Apple Podcasts, IHeart |
| 0:58.1 | Radio app. Peanut, introduce this great gentleman right here. This dude was an all-world |
| 1:03.9 | running back at the University of Texas. He's a all-pro running back in the league. 12-year NFL vet. Ladies and gentlemen, |
| 1:14.1 | could y'all please put your hands together from Mr. Jamal, Charles. Welcome to the podcast. |
| 1:18.8 | Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I would also like to say to start out there because I think |
| 1:24.2 | this is a huge honor. He was elected into Texas Sports Hall of Fame. I don't know when that happened. Could you talk about that honor? Just because, I mean, it's Texas. Like, Texas is known as one of the greatest producing athlete. Yeah. One of the biggest, I think that's an amazing honor. Yeah, it was a pretty sweet, man, at that moment, I didn't take it in. in like you know i'm saying at that moment when you |
| 1:44.7 | get hit with a war you just like it's another award yeah and you know i'm saying and you go to the event and you show up with your mom and some of your aeney's uncle that help you get there but it's like dang i'm here i wish i were invited more people right you know what i'm saying like Because this is all to go back. |
| 2:01.6 | I mean, when I'm talking about Texas Sports saying? Like, this is all to go back. |
| 2:01.6 | I mean, when I'm talking about Texas sports Hall of Fame, I'm going all the way back |
| 2:05.1 | to when I was like, your little kid, uncles, like, peers that took care of me in middle |
| 2:12.1 | school all the way to middle school, all the way to high schools, like my high school coach, |
| 2:15.6 | like my track coach is like, |
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