This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. And if you love

what you're listening to, if you're a fan of the show, we're a non-profit. Any and all support is

appreciated. Go to our American Stories.com. Every little bit helps. Up next, a story from former

NFL linebacker for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Tom McManus. Tom's journey to getting into the NFL was far from linear.

Tom walks us through his football career failures and how his dad's time fighting for our country

impacted that and every aspect of his life.

We grew up about 30 miles northwest suburbs of Chicago.

Typical Irish Catholic American family, I guess.

You know, a lot of love, a lot of action.

A lot of tough love.

And to me, that was a very good thing.

But my parents were older, my dad, and let's see, he was 49, almost 50 when I was born. I'm the youngest six with his children and four with my mother. She says that she wanted more, and he begged her, please. No more. Six is enough. But I was a kid, you know, like of shit, like I said, youngest, I was a tough kid.

You know, my brothers beat the crap out of me. They're friends. They loved, you know, knocking the

crap out of the big young kid that always tried to hang. It was funny enough, there was one friend

of mine, Brennan Kelly, who's still my really good friend. It would be him and I, basically,

my other friends couldn't take the pounding.

They said, my brother's friends would just love to light us up on football or basketball or

basketball or whatever we were playing.

And you had to be tough.

You really, really had to be a tough kid to keep going.

...