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Jared Veldheer: From Hillsdale College to the NFL
00:49:10
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- [00:00]
A
Hello, welcome to the Larry Arn Show. That is my name, and I am the president of Hillsdale College. And today we have a treat. We've been playing football here for 125 years or so, and the best player I ever saw on our team is going to be with me today. He's a man of incredible range, astonishing range, and you're going to enjoy getting to know him. If you come to Hillsdale College, doesn't matter if you play football. You got to be smart. And this guy's smart. And he was a bio major. He was a very successful student, and he was an NFL player. And there's tons more. Join me with Jared Felt here.
- [00:41]
B
Hi there. It's Bill Gray from Hillsdale College. Before you skip ahead, can I ask you a question or two? If you could teach 50 million Americans one thing, what would it be? Would you teach our great American story that this nation is unique, founded on self government and individual liberty? Maybe you would teach the truth about free enterprise, how hard work and opportunity allow anyone to rise? Or would you teach the gospel and the Christian faith that helps us live good and meaningful lives? At Hillsdale College, we're doing exactly that. Teaching the best that's been thought and said. Through our free online courses, K12 programs, information in primus, podcasts, and more, we reach and teach millions every year with the principles of liberty that make America free. And with your help, we can reach even more. Your tax deductible gift today will help us teach millions more people to pursue truth and defend liberty. Just text the word give to 7 1844. You'll get a secure link to make your donation in seconds. That's give to to 718 44. Thank you for standing with us. Now back to the show.
- [01:55]
C
Classical music is one of the greatest.
- [01:57]
A
Achievements of Western civilization.
- [02:00]
C
It took 2,000 years and the work.
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B
Of the greatest philosophical, scientific, political and.
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C
Religious minds to properly tune the piano.
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B
And make great music possible.
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A
But classical music can be intimidating. In Hillsdale College's new free online course.
- [02:19]
C
The History of Classical Music, Chopin through Gershwin, you'll learn how to appreciate humanity's greatest musical accomplishments.
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A
In the history of classical music. Concert pianist and Hillsdale College distinguished fellow.
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C
Hyperion Knight explains how music has developed.
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And what distinguishes the greatest musical achievements of Western civilization. To enroll today and secure your spot.
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C
In this completely free online course, visit hillsdale.edu network. That's hillsdale Edu Network. Thank you for having me, Dr. Arms. Pleasure.
- [03:10]
A
You've slimmed up and looked like you ought to be on the COVID of GQ these days. But you're a mountain of a man. What was your size when you played in the NFL?
- [03:19]
C
I was 6 foot 8, which I still am 6 foot 8 today. Haven't compressed yet, and I weighed about 330 pounds on average.
- [03:28]
A
Amazing left tackle on the blind side. So I'm going to talk about your experience at Hillsdale, your experience in the NFL and these other ventures that have grown out of your nature, which we're going to try to describe toward the end because it's an impressive and interesting thing to me, always has been. You were a hot prospect in college, I think. How did you end up here at this little place?
- [03:51]
C
Yeah, I actually was not as hot of a prospect coming out of high school as you may have thought I was. I had a lot of division one interesting towards the end of my junior year of high school and, you know, went to a lot of those exposure camps, had no idea how to be technically sound in any aspect of offensive line play. We ran a wing T offense in high school and I had no idea how to pass that. And when you go to those little exposure camps in summer, it's like all pass protection because you can't really run block anybody when you're not wearing pads. But you can do pass pro stuff. And everybody wants to see how you can pass protect based off of what you do in those camps. And so you're doing a lot of one on one drills and stuff. And I was terrible at those drills. I had no idea what I was doing. Just trying to pretend I knew how to pass that. And I think that paired with the fact that there was a lot of strange turnover on coaching staffs that were recruiting me. Notre Dame went through a huge staff change. Michigan State went through a huge staff change. And those were two the biggest schools with interest. And it just seemed like after some of those exposure camps, everything just kind of got really quiet. Then it became, you know, more Division 2 focused. And I got to the point where it was my senior season in basketball, so senior season of football was done. You know, still hadn't signed a letter of intent to play anywhere in college. And I remember Coach Otterbein, the coach, you know, legendary coach at Hillsdale College, came and watched one of my basketball games, I think it was in early February, and offered me a scholarship. And I knew by that next morning, well, probably I knew by the time my head hit the pillow that night that I was gonna accept that scholarship and look forward to starting my journey the following fall at Hillsdale College.
- [05:36]
A
What was your experience like here? It's big core curriculum. It's not an easy place. How did all that go?
- [05:42]
C
My experience at Hillsdale was amazing, especially, you know, academically. I can't say it was amazingly easy by any stretch. It was challenging, but it was, you know, that whole creed of, you know, strength rejoices in the challenge that, you know, those are printed on, you know, football T shirts. You'd see that in different places in the college. And it really, like, started to, like, ingrain itself in you. That, okay, it's going to be challenging, but just like, you know, going into the weight room and squatting and benching, like, it's going to build that muscle. It's going to build that foundation of learning that you need. And it wasn't just coming out of a class and understanding more about the subject matter. It was almost the forging that happened to how you learned taking that class. Because there's so many valuable things that I was able to take from my academic career and then apply to my NFL career just from a standpoint of learning playbooks. And not just learning playbooks, X's and O's, because anyone can stare at a playbook and memorize it. The real issue is being able to memorize it and then have it in your mind and process it extremely fast. Under high stress. That's the important thing, because it's always going to be really high stress. And you have to be in those high stress environments and have great recall and be able to perform. And to succeed at Hillsdale academically, you need all of that. You need to be able to not only know the subject matter inside and out, but you need to be able to execute on that subject matter under pressure, because those classes do exactly that. They put a lot of pressure on the student to be accountable for the information and basically not just regurgitate it on a test or exam, but present it throughout the course to earn a good letter grade.
- [07:26]
A
That's good. And we're going to talk about Aristotle, because you always do. Aristotle says that you form your character by your choices and especially the ones made under stress. And so would it be fair to say at Hillsdale you lived a life of stress compounded by the fact that you're playing high class football at the same time?
- [07:46]
C
Absolutely. I think that's an extremely fair statement.
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A
Yeah, you're a bio major. That'll come up again later, too, because of things you've done since then. Bio is not easy. How'd you pick that?
- [07:57]
C
I was always fascinated with science and why the body works like it does, and just biology in general, just how life itself is made up of little cells and they carry out a function that makes the larger group of cells function how it does. And it's just. There's so much exploration in that. Right. We don't have all the answers to every little bit of biology. And so there's almost like that vast ocean or outer space. So to think of it where you can get in there and you feel like you're in a whole new universe, and being able to piece it together, understand it, study it, and then apply it was really stimulating to me. And I liked that. I got hooked on that. It made sense to me, and it made me want more of it.
- [08:43]
A
Do you have a favorite teacher?
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C
Yeah, I think my favorite professor was Dr. Swinehart.
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A
Yeah, he's still here, still rolling.
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C
Yeah, he's got the museum looking good over there.
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A
He does, yeah. We have a natural history museum, and he refurbishes old tractors, and he usually got one in the Fourth of July parade in our metropolis of Hillsdale, Michigan. Yeah, he'll be glad you said that. Everybody here is proud of you. Now, I want to tell a story. I think the best team we've had was a team that you were on in your senior year. And we got to the third round of the playoffs, I think, and I went to a game, we went to play Mankato State, and they had a defensive line that looked like they'd been dug up out of the earth. They looked like mineral deposits, they were so big. And they came out on the field and they were big, stunt heavy, I remember. And I thought, wow, I wonder if we can beat these guys? And we did. And after the game, I ask you, how did you block those guys? And you did what you do. We were in a tent after the game, celebrating the victory, and you started demonstrating how to place your feet and your arms. You were coaching me in offensive line play. It was really great. I played the offensive line badly in high school, so I went, wow, this guy thought this through. It's not just physical talent. It's that. Is that how you approach it?
- [10:16]
C
Yeah. I guess a picture is worth a thousand words, right? It's much easier to demonstrate offensive line play than to explain it. Just because it's such a foreign thing in sports. It's not running and catching a ball or shooting a ball. It's positioning your body in weird ways that apply physics to move massive human beings who are trying to disrupt the play and to be able to articulate that can be difficult. It's almost like, you know, aerospace engineering jargon to a lot of people. So the best way, and even for us linemen, like, a demonstration, is always the best. You know where to put your hands, where to put your feet. Fitting makes all the difference. And you know that that's the way that you can move mineral deposits.
- [11:07]
A
Yeah, those guys were awesome. I remember the quarterback. I saw him the other day, Troy Weatherhead. He fumbled and kicked the fumble and recovered the fumble and made a first down. And I remember when I saw him do that, I thought we'd already established that we could block these guys. And I thought, hey, we're going to win this game. And we did. I'm going to talk about the first YouTube of yours. I've been watching you on YouTube lately, and you've got a website, and we're gonna put a link to it. I mean, and your YouTube channel is awesome. And this morning, I watched a YouTube of you and a former NFL lineman that you played with AQ. What's his last name?
- [11:47]
C
Yeah, AQ Shipley.
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A
Yeah. And you take apart a game of The San Francisco 49ers, who have what you call a Hall of Fame blindside tackle, and you take it apart, you show what they do in the offensive line. And people should go and watch that. It is fascinating. And, you know, if you were an offensive lineman, as I had dinner, by the way, with the quarterback of my high school team the other night, and he came to a college event, and I mentioned in charity and justice that he got a concussion because I couldn't block properly for him back in high school. Anyway, the NFL gives you an IQ test when you go in and the results leak. And one of the things that one reads is that the offensive linemen are the smartest people on the team on average. Is that true, and does that need to be true? Is it complicated to play offensive line?
- [12:43]
C
Yeah, I think that the way. I think the. And this goes across all of football, especially on offense, not as much on defense. Defense is a little more primal, a little less thought, little more just reaction. But you have to have really good processing speed. I've seen a lot of really smart guys struggle on the offensive line, and I've seen some really dumb guys play really well. The number one thing about guys playing really well is how fast they can process everything in front of them and make a decision. That's the number one thing. I think that as a whole, linemen are probably a little bit smarter, positionally, than a lot of other Positions on the field. That being said, I think every offensive position, you know, you get in the NFL, you go around the, you know, rooms, and I think that all the offensive positions are going to have, you know, pretty. Pretty high intelligence, especially to be able to play at that level and to be able to comprehend the playbook and then go out and execute it and perform it. And if they don't, they're probably going to get cut. It'd be interesting to see those test results taken for players who are in years four, five, six, who have established themselves or taking it to, you know, a team like the Seahawks or the Patriots, you know, teams that are having really good seasons and see, you know, how well those tests are performed amongst all the starters there. Right. Not just kids coming out of college looking to play in the NFL. That would be really interesting to me.
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A
The coaches. You two have a lot to say about Shanahan, the coach of the 49ers, and the fact that he's a very creative man. But that means that extends to the line play, too. The guys who get there, like, you know, I learned in high school, if you're an offensive lineman and you get your name in the paper, that's never a good thing. They don't. It's only your mistakes that get noticed.
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C
Exactly.
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A
It's a cross one has to bear, but everything is coordinated. Right. There's. You talk about. You and Shipley. Talk about eye candy. He's got lots of motion and he's distracting the defense. But then the linemen are both adjusting to what the defense does and to what the call is, what the quarterback and the backs are trying to do, and that shifts as the play goes on and that. And so why is Trent Williams of the 49er, who's still playing, why is he great? What is it about him?
- [15:19]
C
Trent is. He's so athletic. And not only is he really athletic, but he just. He plays with that classic O line, nasty demeanor to where you're just going out there and being a bully. And there's so much going on at the line that sometimes it's hard to keep that bully mentality when you're trying to stay locked into, you know, the tactical side of everything happening. He just does such a good job naturally at getting out into space, sticking blocks, putting guys on the ground. And a lot of times a play isn't going to shake out exactly like you want it to. From a technical standpoint, there's improvisation that happens. You need to be able to recover. You need. You're getting stuck in all these, you know, different positions that you can't necessarily train for because, you know each rep's going to be different. It's like a unique fingerprint. You could probably never replicate those exact same movements ever again, just given the certain play. And so you get stuck in all these kind of weird situations. And Trent is really, really good at winning in all those situations. I think a lot of that comes down to him being really athletic for his size. But there's a lot of guys in the NFL who are really athletic for their size. So, you know, if you take it down and peel it back another layer, I think it goes into his mindset. Playing nasty, playing like a bully on the line, but then understanding what his abilities are and being able to use all of them in a split second when they're needed. That's. That's what gives him such an elite ability on the field.
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A
What were your gifts?
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C
Yeah, what were my gifts? I was very big. I would rarely see anybody at least taller than I was on the field. There'd be a few times a year where maybe there'd be a D lineman heavier than I was. But I always had great size. I was always big, and I could move well for being a big guy. So I always had that in my favor. I always knew the playbook very well. I could tell you what every position on the offensive line was doing on every play. I could probably run back the tape like a center would, making calls and going from it that way, just because when I was a rookie, Al Davis actually wanted to make me center, which was kind of a failed experiment. Thank goodness I got to go back to tackle. But there was a good stretch during the end of training camp at the beginning of my rookie season where I was the center for the Raiders and had to make all the mic points and get everybody organized and see the safety shell and rotation and understand what the defense was doing conceptually and get everybody on the same page. And so I think that was kind of a blessing in disguise, because throughout my career then I could always kind of reference those early mental reps that I had to use at center at my position of left tackle. But it was helpful because when you understand what everyone's doing around you, it solidifies what you're doing as your little part. You know, 10x right? Because you know exactly what everyone else is doing. You know where you need to be. It gives you a little bit of freedom to get there because you know, you know what you can and can't do. And so that helps. Just you know, overall awareness of what was going on on the field was always, you know, a pretty good strong suit. And then one thing that I really enjoyed, that I think helped me was just appreciating the journey of the season. I really liked going to the facility early and going through my routine of taking care of my body, making sure I was getting good lifts in eating right. Just all those little things, all those little modifiable factors that plug back into the fascination with biology and trying to better myself in all those little ways that I know that other guys across from me certainly weren't trying to do, but then pairing it with a strong work ethic of, you know, just taking care of all those little things that require zero talent and being like the best person in my position, room or group or whatever you want to say, you know, be the best at doing all the little things that don't require any talent. And I think that always helped me out, especially as a young player.
- [19:36]
A
So that's transferable. That's Aristotle's description of living well, try to do everything right. Was there a culture shock moving from Hillsdale College to the NFL? How do they differ?
- [19:50]
C
Yeah, going from Hillsdale College to the NFL was a dramatic change in culture. There was never a moment where I could really, like, sit back and just take stock and reflect on that huge change. Right. It was just, you know, getting thrown into the ocean and you had to swim and you were just kind of looking at those around you while you were doing it. And you're like, this is different. This is a little different. You know, there was now grown men with families who I was playing football with. Some guys were 15 years older than I was. Guys came from every different type of background. There was, you know, there's a lot of characters as far as just, you know, very colorful guys bringing a lot of livelihood into the locker room. That, that was. That was fun. And then kind of coupling that with being part of the Raiders and Al Davis's Raiders, you know, he was. He was kind of notorious for, you know, going after guys who were athletic freaks and he would take risks and gambles on guys. And so I think that culture too, you know, was just a little bit livelier. You know, I wish it would have resulted in more winning, but it was certainly a change. And then just going from Hillsdale, Michigan to the Bay Area, that was a big change. But honestly, I don't ever recall just having any moment where I was sitting there wide eyed, being like, what's going on? Like, it just felt like this is where I was. This was the path I'm on. These are the people around me. This is where I am geographically. These are the goals in front of me. Here's how I'm going to reach them.
- [21:28]
A
I remember an article, I followed your career in detail because I came to admire you when you were a student. And I remember an article, the first article I read about you as a Raider. It was before the first opening game of your rookie season. And they talked about how promising you were, how big you were, skilled you were. And then they talked about how polite and intelligent you were. And I thought, lord, my boys moved up there with all those pirates and they see what he is. Was that their reaction to you?
- [22:03]
C
Yeah, you know, I tried to, you know, do everything I could kind of the right way and just not overstep my bounds. As a rookie. You have to know your place. You know, you speak with your actions and, you know, that's something that I went out there and did. And you know that that wins you the respect of those older guys in the locker room.
- [22:33]
A
We're going to leave football for a little bit. I want to talk about Derma Love.
- [22:38]
B
Hi there, it's Bill Gray from Hillsdale College. Before you skip ahead, can I ask you a question or two? If you could teach 50 million Americans one thing, what would it be? Would you teach our great American story that this nation is unique, founded on self government and individual liberty? Maybe you would teach the truth about free enterprise, how hard work and opportunity allow anyone to rise? Or would you teach the gospel and the Christian faith that helps us live good and meaningful lives? At Hillsdale College, we're doing exactly that. Teaching the best that's been thought and said. Through our free online courses, K12 programs, Imprimis, podcasts and more, we reach and teach millions every year with the principles of liberty that make America free. And with your help, we can reach even more. Your tax deductible gift today will help us teach millions more people to pursue truth and defend liberty. Just text the word give to 718 44. You'll get a secure link to make your donation in seconds. That's give to 718 44. Thank you for standing with us. Now back to the show.
- [23:51]
C
Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. What's happening this week? Well, we've got Dr. Alan Gelzo with us, one of our favorite guests talking about the unique character of Western civilization because he's co authored a massive two part book series, the Golden A History of the Western tradition in depth this week with Alan Gelzo. And a little fun with Michael P. Foley, a mixologist and professor in the Great Text program at Baylor. He'll talk about his collection of alcohol free and low alcohol cocktails based on the lives of cat Catholic saints. His book Abstaining with the no and low alcohol beverages for sober souls. All that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio.
- [24:51]
A
You told me that you're not running that business actively right now, but you have invented a skincare product and one can find on YouTube and on the Internet, you advertising the product. How'd you get interested in that and what's that about?
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C
Yeah, so I was watching Shark Tank and there was a tattoo balm that was on there. And it was interesting, the guys talking about it, going about their pitch, and it just got me thinking, like, it just started stirring the entrepreneurial, you know, juices. And I was thinking, well, what if, like, someone. I was like, well, what's really in the skincare bomb, you know, that's making it so great for tattoos? And so I check it out and I was like, okay. It's just like they have really good marketing and they have a really good community and they're growing their product that way. And that's how a lot of, like, cosmetic products are sold anyway, right? It's all about, you know, selling the idea of what it's doing. So I was like, you know what? Like, I think it would be awesome to do, like, create a product that actually, like, punches hard with what it does instead of just, you know, get sold because it's part of a group. And I have been pretty not obsessed, but very interested in mitochondrial health and performance. This kind of goes back to my NFL career, especially the kind of the later half of it just trying to again, find little percentages to play better. And there's so much, not just athletically that go in or there's so much athletic performance that is based on your mitochondrial health. Obviously, the healthier the mitochondria, the more efficient you are with energy production and you're going to play better on the field.
- [26:38]
A
What is that?
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C
Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Think that's what you're learning in grade school biology when you do your little chapter on the animal cells. And so mitochondria, powerhouse of the cell, it is responsible for creating ATP, which is the cellular currency, so to speak, and it provides that ATP to all the other organ systems in your body. Those organ systems use that ATP to carry out all their functions, right? So if the organ system is not. If it is not cranking out optimized mitochondria, or if the mitochondria in that organ system are not doing well, that organ system is not going to get the energy it needs. It's not going to be able to repair as fast, it's going to age faster. There's just a whole slew of consequences. And so there's actually the whole longevity space online kind of focuses on mitochondrial health as well. They're doing it from a standpoint of healthy aging. I was always looking at mitochondrial health from a standpoint of physical performance. And. And so I knew that, hey, if I could make a skincare balm that went after the mitochondria of the skin, because there's plenty of mitochondria in the skin, the skin could then provide more cellular currency, ATP for repair for anything from wound healing to skin rejuvenation, getting rid of wrinkles, that kind of stuff. And it was just a way to have a Swiss army knife approach at skincare that was backed by science. And honestly, it's been great for anything from severe burns. I've had some crazy steam burns on my hands, and it's amazing just treating it immediately with Dermalov for putting it inside a bandage, wrapping it and doing that for a week. The difference visually from the skin discoloration and scarring is significant. And, you know, it works great with our children's rashes that pop up or skin irritation. If I was, you know, if I was a little more vain, I'd probably use it all over my face. But, you know, I just, I just, I'm not a huge. I'm not a huge skincare routine guy on my face probably should be starting to get some forehead wrinkles now. But it's formulated to do everything that your skin needs to heal itself and to function efficiently and optimally. And so there's not really anything it can't do when it's on the skin. And then some of the other ingredients in there are naturally antimicrobial antifungal. So you don't have to worry about infection if you are putting it on skin that's damaged or lacerated, which is nice because it helps big time with wound healing. And it was really fun. It's a great product. I hope it can get revived. If anybody's listening to this and it wants to talk more about it, I'd be happy to talk to them about it. But I'm still making it in small batches for the family. And if anybody out there would like to request some, just holler at me and I'll set you up with some dermalove.
- [29:52]
A
So I will testify I use it, and I gave some to all my kids and my wife, and we all use it still. I bought a whole ton of it. And we haven't run out yet, but when we do, I'll write to you. Those of you who heard what he just said, you should know that because we're going to go on about this. Jared is an entrepreneurial kind of guy, and he brings what he brought to his career at Hillsdale College and the NFL. His watchword is optimization. And what that basically means is do everything well, try to do it a little better all the time, step by step. And that too is Aristotle's ethics summarized. So if you think you might want to make a famous product, he's invented one. And if he helped you, he would optimize. I hope somebody does that. I might do it. You never know. So, gardening and brewing. Do you brew beer?
- [30:52]
C
I do brew beer. Not quite as much as I used to back when I was playing football. It's a lot easier to stay down at a better weight when you're not putting back the. Especially the kind of beers that I like are IPAs. I'm a hop guy and so I love brewing hoppy beers. And, you know, unfortunately, you can't really have a super low calorie hoppy beer. That's all right. That just means, you know, you just got to put a little more work in the weight room or take an extra walk. But for the most part, I try to, you know, go about it from, you know, again, that health perspective. And, you know, how can, how can that fit in my life now? And I still do it from now on. That or, you know, I still, I still brew every now and then because I can make a really good beer. I've won some competitions for my hoppy beers. And again, that buzzword optimization creeps in. And I got an enzyme that I can add in to reduce the gluten content within the beer without having to use gluten free grains. I actually sent a sample of my beer in with that I had used that gluten reduction enzyme in, and it was under the threshold for being considered gluten free. It was under like 10 parts per billion gluten, which was what you would need to pass for gluten free. But you could never technically say it's gluten free because it was brewed with gluten containing grains. So sometimes beer will say brewed to reduce gluten because they still used barley and wheat and then use that enzyme afterward to reduce it. They can't legally say it's gluten free, even though technically meets the same standard. But anyway, that's the kind of stuff that I was doing with my beer. And then when you're home brewing, you can, you can really have fun with the dry hop editions and just get these extremely aromatic, just amazingly delicious, hoppy beers that are sometimes hard to find on the store shelves.
- [32:49]
A
So you're teaching kids how to be offensive linemen, is that. That's a business now, right?
- [32:54]
C
Yeah.
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A
Tell us about that. How does that work?
- [32:58]
C
Yeah, so I have tried to kind of distill everything that helped me during my NFL career and bring it to other linemen, high schoolers, college guys, even some middle schoolers, and help them with an online platform where they can do daily workouts, go through mobility protocols, be able to watch some film, have me look at their past, set some of their stance work, some fundamentals and progress as an alignment. Really, anybody who's serious about becoming a better lineman. I try to create the best program I could to help them, you know, reach whatever potential that they're. They're searching for or striving to. To hit. And it's not just from a workout perspective. Right. Because there's so much more that goes into it. And I try to help these guys out with nutrition as much as possible. Actually created them their own nutrition web app that's pretty awesome for young athletes especially. They can go in, they can take a picture of their fridge or pantry, it'll take stock of all their ingredients, and then they can, you know, just a couple other inputs. How much time do you have? What's your level of experience, you know, cooking. Is this going to be toaster, blender, whatever. And then it'll basically pull from your pictures and create whatever dish that you have, put it within the constraints. Could be a smoothie, it could be, you know, sandwich and a vegetable, whatever it is. But it'll help meet their macro goals. It'll make sure it has the, you know, correct amount of protein, carbohydrate, all that stuff, and really kind of take the friction out of young athletes making their own food.
- [34:38]
A
That's an app available now?
- [34:39]
C
No, that's just for my guys.
- [34:42]
A
I see.
- [34:42]
C
That is a just. It's a coded web app, so it's not an iOS or Android app, but I'm working on our platform, my Veldeer Lineman Vault platform as a standalone app. Right now it's hosted on Mighty Networks, which is like a community based service for platforms like the Valdeer Lineman Vault that go in and you know, you can put workouts and courses and events and it's just kind of like a community hub. But I'm pretty excited about the app that I've been developing for my guys because again, sounds great. Now I can put the nutrition piece right in it and have a scheduling feature that ties in their workouts to their nutrition schedules. It all they can put in how many workouts a day they have, their class schedule, time they wake up, what time they go to bed. And this will give an outline for when you need to eat, how much you need to eat. Again, you can throw pictures of your pantry refrigerator. It'll tell you what you can use to create the meals, log your macros, save favorites, create shopping lists. There's a lot of cool stuff it can do. And that's just the nutrition side. The recovery side is awesome. For the mobility work and soft tissue work that you can do, you basically tell it, hey, I got a foam roller or I have some strength bands, so lacrosse ball, whatever you have. And then click on a body schematic map of here's the area that's tight. It'll generate protocol and go through that, loosen up the tissue and again that'll be factored into the daily schedule. And then I got a bunch of workouts in there and you can join the, you know, the, the workout, the strength blocks that I've customized for for these linemen. You know, it's stuff that I used during my career and you know, go back to the last time I played coming out of retirement for the Colts. A lot of that stuff was me at home doing this to prepare myself to, to be on the field. And so it's, it's, it's a lot of, it's, you know, very legit and battle tested and I'm proud of that. And on top of that, there's some daily workout stuff that guys can do on top of any program that they're already a part of because a lot of these high school and college guys have mandatory lifting programs that they're in already. The problem is you can't have them do another lifting program on top of that. That's just central nervous system overload. So you try to account for that central nervous system load, put in some, you know, less demanding exercises that really translate to positional efficiency of the offensive lineman. Right. Getting in those positions that you use on the field, working to strengthen those positions, those movements, so you're not just going in and doing a generic program.
- [37:18]
A
So this would be good for two kinds. I can think of. One is high school coaching. Even college coaching is not always all that expert. And, and any kid like you who wants to find advantage at the margins and optimize. So you're trying to serve those kids, aren't you?
- [37:36]
C
Exactly. Like, hey, you know, I could have benefited from this program being in high school, being in a wing T system, having no idea how to pass that. It would have been a great place to start for sure.
- [37:47]
A
Yeah. Amazing. Okay, that sounds like a business. I think you may end up with a conglomerate. Cause you're still a young man. You've got a lot of business ideas. I want to talk about cooking. I remember a few years ago, somebody put on my desk an article from a Grand Rapids newspaper about you being the chef at your kids school. Tell us about your wife and kids, if you don't mind. And tell us about how you came to be doing that.
- [38:14]
C
Yeah. So I am fortunate to be married to a beautiful woman who I met Ed Hillsdale. She's a volleyball player there. Morgan. She's an amazing wife, an amazing mother to our three kids. Our 10 year old Eva, 8 year old Edwin, and 2 year old Eden. So we have a lively household. They're a whole lot of fun. And I actually got a chance to be the lunch lady for Eva and Edwin for a few years after I retired from my football career.
- [38:44]
A
Is there something going on with Fox Network about cooking?
- [38:47]
C
Actually, by the time this podcast airs, it'll be rolling already. But I, I will be one of the participants on Gordon Ramsay's Next Level Chef, which is a Show on Fox. First episode airs January 29th. And that was a whole lot of fun. Just the opportunity to go and compete again was amazing. I didn't know how good that would feel. To have high pressure stakes and a competitive environment and then come out and not have your body feel like crap the next day after doing it. That was the best part. I was like, this is amazing. It was a whole ton of fun. I learned so much. I learned a ton. Made a lot of great friends. The cast was truly tremendous. We all got along extremely well. And did you bully them? Did I bully them? No. I probably should, probably should have bullied him a little bit more. Like I just. At my core, I'm. At my core I'm too nice. But that's okay. It's like I don't need to in my head for me to do well. I don't need to, I don't need to be a bully. Right. I can, I'm more of the, you know, lift everybody up. I want your best. So there's no excuses when I win.
- [40:06]
A
Yeah, that's great. That's great. And it's nutrition based elite cooking you're pursuing, is that right? Even in that school?
- [40:17]
C
Yeah. So this, the show itself was all performance, right? It was just all creating elevated dishes off of just high pressure, random ingredients. So the way it's structured is you're in a tower that is three levels and it's three kitchens. So you have a basement level kitchen, a middle level kitchen and a top level kitchen. The basement is all very poor kitchen equipment. It is stuff that's beat up. It looks like it was found in college houses. It is rough. And then you move up to the middle level and it's kind of a standard catering kitchen. A lot like the kitchen I was in when I was the lunch lady at my kids elementary school. And then you get to the top level and that's like a Michelin starred kitchen. All the latest and greatest tech, just beautiful environment. And the way that everything works in the show is there's a platform that drops from the top of the tower and you have 30 seconds to grab ingredients. And it starts in that top level kitchen. Everybody who's in that top level grabs their ingredients. 30 seconds. You know, you're putting it in your apron, trying to grab as much as you can as you conceptualize what you're going to cook. And then the platform descends, drops to the middle level. Middle level contestants grab whatever's on it. And this, they're not reloading the platform. So then the middle level grabs for 30 seconds and now that platform goes down to the basement and whoever's in the basement gets whatever's left on there. And so when you're in the basement, not only do you have the worst equipment, but you also have the worst ingredients. But honestly, if I'm, if I'm totally honest, I think the basement was the most fun cooking on that show because it forced you to be really creative. It took off some of the pressure on what are you going to cook? Because you didn't have as much in front of you. So it made everything a lot more clear. And so having everything be more concise and then being able to just be creative on it was, was a lot of fun. And I cooked in, you know, Each level. And it was a lot of fun. It was. It was great. And obviously there's a competitive aspect of the show to where the lowest performer gets kicked off. I can't tell you how I did. You'll have to tune in and watch. But I can tell you that it was amazing. It was. It was a ton of fun. You know, being able to cook alongside Gordon Ramsay was awesome because he's kind of. He's in the trenches there with you. You know, he's. He's not the Hell's Kitchen Gordon Ramsay yelling at everybody. You know, he's there to. To help and to be a sounding board during the chaos. And he loves it. That was one of the coolest things, was being able to meet and cook with Gordon Ramsay and see firsthand just how much he enjoys doing it. He was having just as much fun as any of us were down there. And it was great. It was a wonderful experience.
- [43:10]
A
Wow, that's good. Where does this cooking come from? Cause you're like, the newspaper article I read said you cooked fancy dishes for those kids in your kids school. Where'd that come from?
- [43:21]
C
They were fancy dishes for kids lunches, but honestly, they weren't too fancy. Just fancy names. But they were tasty and, you know, executable for kids in high numbers. But anyway, I started getting kind of into the nutritional science arena. Like my senior year of high school. I remember for Christmas, my parents gave me a book called Power Eating, and I was hooked on it again, going back into that biology and what happens when you put certain stuff into your body, in the output of what those things do. So I started to learn how to fuel properly. And that kind of coincided with cooking more because now I could figure out what to prepare and eat and make it taste good, optimize it for my health and performance, and so just kept cooking more and more throughout my high school and college years. More like snacks and stuff. My mom always cooked us dinner in high school and then college around a meal plan. But I was not adverse to whipping up the fanciest microwavable burrito in Simpson over at Hillsdale. Some fancy extras on it. And then when I got into the NFL, started cooking more and more, especially when we had our first daughter, Eva. It was my fifth year in the NFL when Morgan was pregnant with Eva, and we started cooking more. We had bought a house in Arizona, nice kitchen. And that was kind of a hobby that we shared together. When I got home from the facility in the afternoon, we would cook dinner together, sit down and eat and we started cooking more and more, going to farmers markets, kind of expanding what we would cook and eat. Especially after living in the Bay Area, there's a lot of different cuisine than living in the American Southwest. A lot of different cuisine. And you still had that California influence that kind of trickled over and a lot of Midwesterners actually kind of influencing the food scene there in Arizona. But it was a great place to get good, fresh ingredients. And we just started cooking a lot and just rep after rep, you build up good recipes. You. You learn from your failures. Anyone who says they can't cook, they just didn't fail enough in the kitchen and they lost persistence. That's the only thing that happened because if you do it enough, you figure it out. And I really like food, and so I was highly incentivized to figure it out. And that's something I still like to do now. And it's still always kind of performance health based. In the back of my mind, I'm not a nut by any means. Like, I like to eat good tasting stuff and, you know, I try to, you know, source as, you know, good of ingredients as possible. But I understand that, you know, life isn't counting your macros. It's, you know, it's enjoying the story of the meal surrounded by, you know, your friends and family. And that's the fun part for me. And, you know, I want to respect that process by putting good food at the center of it. And so I really enjoy cooking and something that I am still quite active with.
- [46:27]
A
Amazing. You still lift weights. I've watched a YouTube with your rogue fitness equipment, of which I have some. I'm an old man now, and my lower back is breaking down, and I've learned about squats, and I'm weak as a kitten, but I'm a much stronger kitten than I used to be. How does a person stay fit through life? You might answer that for us.
- [46:51]
C
Yeah, how does a person stay fit through life? Like, that's such a. That's such a great way to look at it too, right? Because, you know, different seasons and stages of life for, you know, present different, you know, problems, so to speak, or not problems, but they just present different issues. And you have to be smart and figure out how to, you know, train around or just, you know, train in general to benefit yourself through those times. For me, lifting and staying physically fit is. Is just investing in your health for the further years. Like, everyone is familiar with financial investing, but I really look at it as physical investing. When I'm getting after it in the weight room. That is what I want to take with me into my later years. So my health span is good. I'm not looking to live till I'm 200 years old, but I would like to be as active as possible till the day I die. That's the goal, to be able to feel good and have a good health span. And so one of the biggest things with that is trying to right now stack as much good, healthy muscle as possible. Because anabolic resistance is something that creeps in with age, and it becomes harder and harder to gain muscle. And muscle is one of the best longevity organs that you can have. And so trying to maintain increased muscle mass is really big. It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. It's really important, and it has really beneficial effects throughout your life. And there's. You're never. You're never too old to start doing it. Just because it becomes harder to build that muscle doesn't mean you're not going to build that muscle. You're going to build the muscle, and it's going to help you. Just starting today is always the best time to start if you haven't done it yet. And then the best way to go about it is finding a program that you can be consistent with and that you enjoy doing. Really having a set program is probably the biggest thing that you can do to benefit yourself. If you just go in and just do a random workout, you know, a few days a week, it's really hard to build muscle mass off of that, and adherence becomes tough after a while. I find a good program written out in front of you is good for accountability and it's good for muscle strength and hypertrophy as well. So having a program and then programming in the things that you like to do and that, you know, feel good for your body. Everyone has those things that they love to do in the weight room, and they have the things that they hate to do. You have to ask yourself, do I hate to do this because it's hard, or do I hate to do this because I feel like garbage after I do it? Meaning it's hard to, you know, put on my socks the next morning. The answer, it's hard to put on my socks after I do it? Maybe you program in less of that or cut that out completely, but make sure you're still programming in the stuff that's just hard to do. And then make sure you program in a lot of the things that you really Enjoy doing. That'll keep you consistent and enjoying the program and not dreading it, because it's one of my favorite parts of the day, is going and working out. It's so great, too, for the mental health benefits, but it's just one of those things that you just. You have to do. You have to start with it. And now it's nice because especially for anyone who's sitting there and they're in their older years and they'd like to start somewhere or figure something out, it's really easy to get that information on how to start and what to do. All you have to do is go online and that information's everywhere. You know, probably start with somebody maybe for those first couple lifts that could point you in the direction of using proper technique, because you don't want to get into workout number four or five and have something tweak or you hurt yourself and then you kind of fall off the program. That's not the goal. The goal is to feel good and to strengthen yourself. And so get a trainer just for a couple workouts, just to show you the ropes and then have them or even yourself using AI Kind of give a background of, you know, any medical history of, you know, injuries, some of the things that you like to do and your goals, and you can get a pretty dang good program to follow in a couple minutes.
- [51:14]
A
That's awesome. I think you should be. I think you are a life coach. You've tried to optimize your life, and that just means optimize yourself on the offensive line in the NFL and as a college student. But optimize everything about it. What you eat, how you spend your time, all that. Proud of you. I want to mention your parents and your brother, whom I know very well. Your brother, I think, is precisely one foot shorter than you and played point guard here and was really excellent. He's a fancy lawyer now. And your dad's in the investment business still, I think, and your mom. And they must be proud of you. And you live near them, right? You live over in Western Michigan.
- [51:59]
C
Yep.
- [52:00]
A
The Val Deer clan is important to Hillsdale College. And I want to make this point. Wanted to do this podcast for this reason. At Hillsdale, there's a lot of stress. To learn great things is difficult, and young people have to develop resilience to get through it. And then if you add playing serious football to that, that's new stress and more stress. And you have come through all that brilliantly, and you've used the skills that brought you through all that in the rest of your life, and you're still doing it. So I just want to say, very proud of you. And I refer people to your website. I think you ought to write, you ought to watch what he does. If you don't like football, watch him talk about the offensive line anyway, because it's a lesson how to figure out any complicated thing. Everything is like that. Everything is just like the way he approached the details of his NFL career. And then let him teach you how to cook. And if you write him a letter, I'll bet you he'll send you something to put on your face, and it'll be good for you. And you might get him to make you a beer. And I expect Jared Valdier, the best Hillsdale college football player I ever saw, to do greater things still before he's done. Thank you for being with me.
- [53:22]
C
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. I'm grateful for everything that Hillsdale has given me, and it's been such a great North Star in my life, and the relationships that I have coming out of Hillsdale and just the path that put me on as a person is something that I will be forever grateful for.
- [53:40]
A
Thank you, Jared. Thank you very much.