This language of speaking about athletes as a brand also muzzles them. Your advisors, agents, or managers will whisper in your ear, “Don’t say that! It’s going to hurt your brand!” That “brand” of being an athlete means “staying in your lane” and smiling for the camera. It means never being allowed to pursue alternative ideas about who you really are because you have been kept in an athletic vacuum. You have been told that success doesn’t come from education or study or the discovery of a new path, but from rejecting these things for a hyperfocus on football. A lot of people stay in this vacuum, and there’s no growth. I’ve seen it. Players in the locker room, saying, “Why do I need to grow? People tell me how to eat, what to wear, and how to think, and my bank account is flush. I’m good!” But there is spiritual death at the end of that journey. It’s why athletes have a hard time dealing with themselves after retirement—because they don’t know who the fuck they are. They don’t know what food they like. They don’t know what their hobbies are. They don’t even know what color they like. They’ve played for a team that wears blue and green, and guess what? Their favorite colors are blue and green. Too many of us are like child actors who only grow up when we retire. Then we’re just a bunch of full-grown Gary Colemans (may he rest in peace). We have a brand that’s been created by Twitter, a management team, or the media. There is never that point of reflection, to ask, “Hey, what do I believe in? What gives me joy?”
They don’t think about developing their minds and obsess over their bodies, but it’s hard to put the blame on athletes because that’s our obsession as a society. We praise the running, the jumping, and the showcase muscles, but we respond harshly when they think outside the box or articulate controversial ideas. We don’t like them to focus on hobbies, because once an athlete starts exploring quirky, fun interests outside of football, the questions start: “Why isn’t he focusing on his sport? Why is Martellus Bennett writing children’s books and developing an entire animated series? He dropped three passes last year. Can he focus on catching those three passes? Why is Michael Bennett in Africa, taking a STEM program to Senegal? When is he going to have time to do Pilates?”
If you’re not doing what people think you should be doing, which is focusing on football and selling products, you are seen as a misfit. You are seen as different. You are seen as unconventional because you are using what you see as your platform in a way that isn’t just about getting everyone paid.
I mentioned the Muhammad Ali quote that speaks to this earlier, to describe Russell Wilson. Ali was asked why he had to speak out on racism and war, and he said, “I don’t have to be who you want me to be.” Everybody wants you to be who they want you to be, but then you’re not you anymore. I try to offer a counterexample to being that person who wears the mask and just says, “Well, we play one game at a time, good lord willing.” If a game was shitty, I’ll say, “The game was shitty.” After we lost to the Falcons in the 2016 playoffs, I said to a reporter, “Get out of my face now. Don’t tell me I didn’t do my job. I just put my heart on the fucking field. Don’t fucking play with me.” I regretted losing my temper, but I didn’t regret not wearing the mask. That’s just me. I apologized to the reporter later because that’s me, too.
In the same way, if I don’t like something that’s going on in society, I’ll let you know or I’ll try to do something about it. That’s not just how you find your voice. It’s how you keep from losing your mind. It’s easy to commit suicide, quickly or in slow motion, if you look in the mirror every single day and don’t know who the hell you are.
Martellus once said to me that getting out of Texas was the best thing that ever happened to him, because in Texas people would only let him be a football player. He was a star in high school and college and then ended up on the Cowboys. People think that must’ve been a dream come true, but the truth is that being in Dallas kept him in a box. The Dallas Cowboys got mad at him because he was investing time in his creative pursuits. Rob Gronkowski can go out act like an asshole and be on Wrestlemania, and that’s okay because it’s “on brand,” but if you try to create they’ll say you’re not focused.
But Martellus is exceptional on every level. If you’re a more typical player, you don’t know what to say or think unless someone tells you. You know you’re big and strong, but at the end of the day that’s a façade. Inside, you’re just as emotionally distraught as the next person. You can have everything in the world, but if you’re not attached to your emotions, you have no inner being. You’re just a shell. The journey is about going from being a shell to being yourself. That’s the hardest thing to do for an athlete because it comes with a cost. That cost is “If I don’t fall in line the way they want me to, I’m not going to have a Nike commercial. I’m not going to be the face of an airline. I’m not going to be the face of anything.
