It’s great to interview childhood heroes, and Roger Staubach a.k.a “Captain America,” was a big one for a young Alec Baldwin. Stuabach was a Dallas Cowboy quarterback for eleven seasons, 1969 and 1980, and he led the team to the Super Bowl wins in 1972 and 1978. Staubach earned Super Bowl MVP in 1972. Growing up an only child in Cincinnati, Roger Staubach loved sports but didn’t start playing quarterback until high school. He went on to the Naval Academy, where he received the Heisman Trophy. He then served four years in the Navy, including a tour in Vietnam. Roger Staubach was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame in 1985, and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing from my Heart Radio. Professional sports have a way of turning mere mortals into legends. As a football obsessed kid myself in the nineteen seventies, there were a few players more exciting to watch than Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach. He was nimble, strong, and man could he throw a football. Starbuck earned the nickname Captain America in part because of his four years of service in the Navy, including a tour in Vietnam. He won a Heisman Trophy while at the Naval Academy. He was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame in and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in two thousand eighteen. Roger star Back played eleven seasons with the Cowboys, leading them to the Super Bowl four times. They won under Starbuck in seventy two and seventy eight, and Roger was Super Bowl m v P in nineteen seventy two. Starbucks Cowboys had nearly two dozen comeback wins in the fourth quarter, many of them in the final two minutes of a game or in overtime. When he retired in nineteen eighty, Roger Starbuck had one of the highest career passer ratings in NFL history. After he left pro ball, he built the Starbuck Company, one of the most successful corporate real estate companies in the country. Competition comes naturally to Roger Starbuck. Well, you know, the competitive side. Looking back, people have said a lot about you know that that knew me when I was growing up and everything. And I was an only child, lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my parents were great, and they you know, really I kept saying that, you know, I like to have a brother or a sister, because all of our neighbors had, like the Bean family down the street. There was nine Beans and and everybody they were brothers and sisters. So I wanted to be an athlete, and I started playing basketball. I started playing baseball and football. I didn't get started until I was in the seventh grade. And I really wanted to do it to have my parents proud of me, and so it was. Uh so I really was competitive on trying to be the best that I could be at what I was going to do. And you know, there's an old saying there's no traffic jams on the extra mile, And I always feel that I've given that extra in sports. And it started that way, and it started because of my parents and I wanted them to be proud of me. And so I was a pretty decent baseball player and basketball player. And then in the seventh grade I went out and made the football team. I was a running back and then I was a receiver and and then the coach at in our high school switched me to be quarterback and changed my life. I didn't really want to be a quarterback, but my dad told me as a baseball player, one time the catcher got hurt and they were gonna put me then a catcher, and I said, I don't know put that equipment on. It's you know, too hot out here. And he just said, just try to be the best catcher you can be. And so so I caught for about nine years after that. And I had the same thing when when coach McCarthy wanted me to be the quarterback, I said, you know, I'm going to try to be the best quarterback I can be because I and and it really changed my life because I don't think i'd be here on the show, I like if I hadn't started to play quarterback. So I was very competitive, and a lot of that was because I wanted my parents to really be proud of me as far as what I did in sports. And was it also a case because I know that in my childhood I'm the opposite. I got three brothers and we would be There was a nine whole public golf course, very famous, little spot in our in our neighborhood, but there were little seams along the fairway where the lay of the of the whole would leave a little margin of land off to the side, and they had a tree line that would keep the balls from going into people's houses and going through their windows, you know, over the fence and in this spit of land that was our Dallas Stadium. That was our meadow lands. That was where we played football. And my mother would scream at us. She'd scream because if she if she stuck her head out the door of our house, we were right across the streets. She yelled for us to come home because we would play football till it was dark. But it was me and my brothers, and like the beans. We had other neighbors who had a lot of kids, and we don't get together and play touch pick up football we were football junkies, you know what I mean. Was it also for you of things where this is where you could hang out with other guys, This is where you could have brothers, This is where you could have the kids in your life more regularly that you didn't have at home. Oh, sure it was. When I went to St. John's grade school, sports were away for us to be together is uh and and even on the playground, you know, we would play tackle the man with the ball, and I was always uh heart. I really was hard to tackle sometimes with the ball. So I went to St. John at Banship, so it was a grade school, was a Catholic grade school, and I had a nun in the third grade. I learned right away, I better get with it. Sister Ala Wishes got me up against the wall and had me hold my hands out and I had to hold something in my hands, and she was tough, but she really made a difference in my life and taught me that I better get with it. I better make sure I do my homework and and so it really helped to have people that made a difference in your life. And she was making sure that I was doing what I was supposed to do, and my mom and dad were both working, and uh I had a really strong influence with the nuns at St. John's Evangelists, especially sister Ella Wishes. I still can see her. I can still see her pushing me against Roger. Roger, you you better, you better do this, or you're gonna stand holding your hands out in this wall all day. And and anyway that that. Those were the good things that helped helped me a whole lot. And it carried over into sports because I was going to try to do the best I could possibly do in sports, and we had our grade school teams. I think we really cared about each other and I learned a lot about teamwork. So it was really kind of growing up and trying to do the best that I could do based on what people were telling me, and and also making my parents proud of me. So I stayed with it. And when I was switched a quarterback in football, my life changed. I um, I did okay at quarterball. Yeah you did okay at quarterball? Just okay, by the way, Yeah, I don't want you to get too big ahead. Well you know we lost a Super Bowl too, Well, we don't we want us to me, We don't remember that I've been very humbled in in my life and sports too. So if you're playing a different position, if you're running back, throwing is such an art. It's such an art. And when my arm wasn't so messed up my old I used to love to throw a football. I used to carry a football in my car in Los Angeles and with my brother Stephen was with me. If we were in a traffic jam on the then tour, if we get out of the car and throw the football in the highway, just out a boardom with it would be like, you know, some pile up somewhere. Throwing a football was something that I was obsessed with most of my youth. So when you were a running back, what was you weren't a picturer in baseball? What was throwing for you? Had you been throwing before the gave you the nod to be a quarterback? You know, we we haven't rehearsed anything before. We're talking here and well, you're Alex, You're you're right on the change in my life when I they switched me to quarterback is because coach McCarthy and coach Cincheck I saw that I was a really good baseball player. I could throw the baseball and and he just said, he said, Roger, sometimes it seems like the players listened to you, but we, uh, we know you've got a good arm, and we want you to play quarterback. And so it was my senior in high school when I when I really first played quarterback. My junior year I played. I was all defense, and but it was because of my arm. He saw it me playing baseball and he's the one that uh talked me into playing quarterback. And he didn't talk me into it. He said, hey, you're you're gonna work at quarterback. For you, I'll never forget. Montana came to the set of a TV show. I was working on thirty Rock with Tina fe for years and Montana came on the show and they brought him to my room to meet me. And I said, to my goh my god, what did you do to train your arm? Was it? Was it waits? What was your thing? And and if I think he was being serious, I don't think he was messing with me. He said he got a length of medical tubing, like some kind of flexible rubbery tubing and had that fastened with a handle with a grip of some kind into a doorway and he would stand in a doorway and just rotate his arm and that throwing motion back and forth to condition me do like a thousand reps of that just to strength and literally the throwing motion. What was back then your physical conditioning? Like during the season, were you weight lifting, were you what was what did you do to strengthen your arm? Well, back in those days, it really wasn't in vogue as far as weightlifting and sports where you just went out and played. We had baseball practice all the time. We had basketball practice, and and of course we had football practices. So it was really at the practices and in the What what I had was was I did have a baseball arm, and I kind of when I threw, I had a little, you know, a motion whereas a quarterback you want to get rid of the ball, you get keep it up by the ear. And I didn't really achieve that as as well as I should. But I had a good throwing motion, uh, And I had I had a good velocity on the ball. That made up for maybe that little hitch I had thrown the ball. But I uh, you know, learned to throw on a bit on my own and uh and coaches did work with me on trying to keep the ball up a little bit, you know, instead dropping it. But that was from baseball. But it still comes down to whatever you do and how you throw. You've got to believe in yourself. And uh and there's some you know, quarterbacks that are great passers that don't actually you know, throw the way they're supposed to. And I was in kind of in the middle of not exactly throwing the way I should as a quarterback. I threw more as a baseball player. But it worked, and I, uh, I really started to to really fall in love with being a quarterback. I all of a sudden, I really liked being a quarterback. Now, when you were people I've spoken to uh in in the modern era, they would say that throwing a ball was as much engaging their core and exercising their strengthening their core and their legs. They strengthened their legs that well, I'll never forget one guy said that my favorite line. He said, you can't shoot a cannon out of a canoe and you got a strengthen your leg get your your legs all nice and strong, and get a good base below you and a good foundation below you in your core. And he goes, and you and you just launched that thing, he says. He said, I'll never forget this guy said to me. He goes, I closed my eyes, and you stand twenty yards away from me, and I'll throw the ball to you. I'll throw a few to get the whole timing, and I'll sense where you are, because then I'll close my eyes and I'll be able to tell you whether the past was good or not by the way it felt coming out of my hand, he said. I can tell I could feel the way my body torud and way my arm would come, the way I could throw, you know, to say all that, Alec, the thing that I did, I worked out all the time, and I was careful on throwing. You didn't want to over overdo it. And you know, I warmed up and I tried to, you know, make sure my arm was ready. I worked out. I was crazy about working out, and I used to go out if there was just one other receiver, I would still act like I was taking a snap and dropping back. I just didn't just didn't stand there to row the ball. I really, uh, no, matter what you what, you have to do in life. You gotta work hard to get there. Yeah. Now, everybody who's an NFL fan its every detail of your story. And when it came time for you to go into the Naval Academy, you must have known, of course that you owe them the service at the end. Correct, you knew that was coming. Yes, So when you go to the Naval Academy and you win the title, and you the Big Game and you get the Heisman Trophy and the NFL comes calling, was that all a big surprise to you? Well, going to the Naval Academy, I wasn't sure what, you know. I did have some scholarship offers after high school, but I really played that just that one year. It was my first year at quarterback, and we didn't throw a whole lot. We I actually ran more um and so I wanted to get more experience. And I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I liked the Naval Cademy. I visited there and then they told me they said, hey, Roger, you know, we would like for you to go to junior college one year. And when the best things I ever did, I went to Roswald in Mexico and I went to New Mexico Military Institute. I shot a film It to Me, which is a really fine school, and it's it's a military It gave me the at least the warning about the things I had to do in the military when I became a plea at the Naval Academy. But it also I played another year at quarterback and we really had a good football team. We were a junior college team. We had a coach named Robert Shaw, who was a former NFL player and he and he really helped me a lot at my quarterback position, and and I got better Instead of level and offer or something, I got better there and I had a real good, uh junior college period, and I decided I definitely wanted to go to the Naval Academy. And I wasn't looking at someday I was going to play pro football. I was I wanted to get an education and also be able to play sports. And I figured that someone better better stay on me to make sure I got the education. And I was fortunate to be able to get a chance to go there and play football, and I actually played baseball there. For all four years at Navy, I played baseball and football, and obviously I got a great education, and I got to learn a lot about the military, and I spent four years in the military before I joined the Dallas Cowboys. Now, what year do you enter Annapolis? You go to the Naval Academy? What year? I went in sixty one? So when I graduated high school in sixty I went from high school to the New Mexico Military and Student and I went to the Naval Academy and in nineteen sixty one. So when you're there in sixty one, the Vietnam War is not what it was about to become. When you go into the Naval Academy, you go in one end and you come out that tunnel on the other end in Vietnam becomes a very very real thing. And so when you go in, I guess it's sixty five, I'm assuming you start your service. But when you come out of the Naval Academy and you're a star collegiate a fleet, will you sit there kind of going oh God? You know, like I got to go to Vietnam? Now for four years? Was it? We were you less than smiling about that? You know? I went to Vietnam just for one year. Where'd you go after that? I went to the Penncacal Naval Air Station. I was a logistics officer, a supply officer. I was partially color blind, and that limited me. I was not able to go Navy line or be a be a pilot. But I was very fortunate I became a Navy logistics officer and when I went to Vietnam, I wasn't out there getting shot at. I was in the Dunang and Chula and we we at that time the Marines occupied the I Corps area South Vietnam, and those early years there, we supported the Marines and took care of the Marines. And in fact I lived at Camp Tinshaw and I had a couple of my teammates. They were Navy seals. The seals are pretty new at that time. We were living together in Camp Tinshaw, right and near to Dunang, and so I asked him they were coming back one day and I said, where have you guys been? What are you doing? Said, hey, listen, stop back. You are our quarterback, and we listened to you. You were our leader. But we cannot tell you where we've been, but we know we're doing a hell of a lot more than you're doing right now, And so I said, well, yeah, thanks, guys, I said, I'm quite a bit, but I I admit I wasn't out there right smack in the middle of everything. But I wanted to serve that year in Vietnam because we were at war there and you know, the troops that were there, and being able to serve them and being with them meant a lot to me in the four years I had in the service. Now you go to Dunangu there for a year, you come back to Pensacola, you said, correct, Pensacola in Pensacola, and then your military service is over. Your four years out of your term in the academy. So I'm guessing you're twenty six years old. How old were you at that point? I was twenty six and when I joined the Cowboys. Yeah, right, So in the seam in between, you finish your military service and you're gonna go join the Cowboys. Who tells you that the NFL wants you to come back and start again. After my junior at Navy, I was drafted, uh, which was a kind of a surprise by Dallas in Kansas City that the league hadn't merged yet, and you know, I was drafted late. You know, they were just betting on the fact that that I might try to play again or something. But they both drafted me. And then when I graduated, my wife and I we got we get married then, and I was stationed at the Naval Academy for a few months, and I got a call from Lamar Hunt who said, Roger, I would like to come up and talk to you. And I said yes, Mr Hunting. He said yeah. I said, if you, if you ever decide you want to play football someday, we want you to play for the Kansas City Chiefs. And and because I was drafted by Dallas, I guess there was you know, there was that that that issue. And so he came and what a nice person he was. You know, at the time, I was getting like four d and twenty dollars a month as an encon and and uh he offered me a five hundred a month, ten thousand dollar check, hundred thousand dollar bonus if I left after my four years and played for Kansas City. So he was looking to the future. And so I told Navy a captain who was a legal officer, Navy Captain Paul Borden, and I said, Captain Born, can I do this? And I you know if I signed this, and he said, let me look into it. He came back. He said, Roger, you have to give your four years and you can do whatever you want after those four years. And nothing wrong with you know, taking the money now if they want to give it to you, you don't have to You don't have to leave the service. And he said, but did you have you talked to Dallas and he and I said no, and he said, well, let me call him. So he called gil Brandt or he got ahold of guil It was Gil brand He talked to who was guilbrand for as soon as they don't know. Lamar Hunt was the owner of the Chiefs who wanted the Cowboys then Clint Murkison, and Gil Brandt was his right hand. Gil's was really uh Mr Football that and he was in charge of all the drafting and everything. And so he said, yeah, we we loved we we'd like to talk to you. So Captain Borden went and met with the Cowboys and they offered to say they said they do the same thing. So I agreed. Then if I ever played again, I'd play for Dallas. And then I called Mr Hunt back and you know, told him, and he said, well, Roger, we were just beginning. I wanted to talk to you more. And I said, well, I think he was kidding when he said that. He just said because it wasn't he big. It really wasn't that big of a deal I had four years ago. I wasn't sure I was going to ever play again. When I got back and I was stationed at Pensacola, I took leave and want to Dallas training camp the year before I was able to if I was going to leave the service of it been my fourth year. I was with the rookies and people there for two weeks. I really did fine, and Coach Landry gave me a playbook, which was amazing. So that's when I realized I was going to play again. And and then I told the Navy that after my four years, I was going to go play with the Dallas Cowboys. I went back to Pensacola for a year and I studied my playbook on when I could, and I joined the Cowboys in n Did you contemplate staying in the Service, Oh, I did. I enjoyed the service, and I felt a little guilty of but but I I served the time I was responsible for my four years. I felt I was a lucky person to get to get that, and at seven I was still was able to play eleven years in the NFL. NFL Hall of Famer Roger Starbuck. If you're fascinated by what it takes to be a world we now an athlete, check out my conversation with tennis legend John McEnroe. It turned out that I wanted it lot more than I realized, or I was able to do more than I thought I was capable of in terms of digging deeper and emotionally sort of accepting the challenges step by step. It took me a long time, you know. Part of the reason I acted the way I did. Let's be honest, it's like that fear of failure. Guys don't cry type of thing, and if you show that, that's a sign of weakness. So it was sort of to protect myself so they'd be like, what is this guy's crazy? Here More of my conversation with John McEnroe at Here's the Thing dot Org. More with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach. After this, I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to. Here's the thing. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach retired in the NFL and its players have changed a lot since then, but Roger Starbucks says if he were starting now, he'd still have it. Oh no, no, no, I definitely feel I could play today. I mean if I was, if you're starting, yeah, yeah, I would really enjoy the NFL. They really have gone to trying to make sure that there's more passing. Back in our era, the blitzes and the things that they did, we ran the ball more, we didn't. We didn't throw it, and you could hit receivers. The ball wasn't in the air. You could hit them, you know, knock them around. And so they made the rules change that did improve the passing game. The players are bigger than faster, but the position like quarterback. I mean in my year, I could us throwing the ball as hard as these guys are today. And I was a runner to you know, I didn't have crazy speed or anything, but but I knew how to run in So I I think I could have fit in fine with today's rules. But I but I guess in some sense that never goes away, does it? Like someone said to me, I mean, and I was not a great football player. You mean like I was a wide receiver. I was a skinny kid. And as the guys that I played high school football with, and they were the stars of my football team. They were the gods of my high school. Steve Forenza, who was the quarterback of our football team, who won two championships in a row. He beat our cross town rival, which was I'm from Massapequa, Long Island, and they had two high schools. My father taught at one and was a football coach of the freshman football program. My dad played football at s U. He was like a third string fullback at SU. He played a boys high in Brooklyn. He was a running back. And my dad was a big football person. And my point is is that I go to dinner with these guys and they said to me, you know, you didn't have a chance when you stepped on the field to play football as a freshman in ninth grade. We'd all already played a hundred games of peewee football. We'd already played a hundred games before you put the pads on to play your first game. And I went out there and I played football and these guys hit each other like they were grown And the brutality and the and the and I don't want to say viciousness, but the but the the commitment. These guys would go flying through the air and stick their forehead and the other guys stern him and knock him on the ground. The tackling and the hitting. Forget about the running and the grace and the athleticism and the throwing and catching and stuff within the timing, the toughness, the physical toughness of this guy, these guys was just absolutely mesmerizing to me. However, I don't start. I don't play high school football. Well, I'm I'm not good enough to play to start with these guys. But my point is I still can't watch an NFL game where my legs starts to twitch and my toe starts to tap. And I turned to some let's go outside the street and go throw the football like you makes you you never lose the desire to play, am I right? Yeah, that's correct? And I still, uh, my right arm is still in pretty decent shapes. I can't throw the ball as cars I used to, but I can still throw decently. Some people are you know when you're seventy nine years old. I still throw with our our kids and grandkids. Now you play in the NFL, and obviously everything is in the records. You win two Super Bowls. And my friends who have won Oscars, the first thing they say when they go home and they process the euphoria of winning an Academy award, this pinnacle in your career. Supposedly they lay their head down on the pillow and the and the thing that they're thinking is they're going to sleep that night. Is I gotta get my hands on a second Oscar because a lot of people have an Oscar, but not many people have two Oscars. I want to be in the the two Oscar club, the double club. Now the same is true for you when you won the Super Bowl? Was it sweeter for you and more gratifying when you won the second time? Well that I think the first time was it was you know, Coach Landry was when I was stilling in the service, when they were you know, they lost those tough ones to Green Bay and Don Meredith was really a fine quarterback and uh, in fact, he retired when when I joined the Cowboys, or else I wouldn't have I don't know what it would have happened if if Don Mereth would have stayed there with the Cowboys, because I played behind Craig Morton and for for a while, you know, looking back on there were some really tough losses that that the Cowboys had, and so I think the first Super Bowl win because we were you know, coach Landry was criticized he couldn't win the big game and the Cowboys couldn't win the Big game. Winn't winning that game. It really made a difference in in Cowboy history more than the second time we won the Super Bowl. That that that was great. That too, We almost had a different team than too. We had some just great players that won the first one, and we uh, we've we added some a lot of guys retired and we added some other players when we won the second one against Denver, and we had in between we had the Steelers twice. Steelers were really good in the seventies and we lost twenty one to seventeen and thirty five to thirty one, and uh, those were almost as bad as losing the Army Navy game. Steve Kirk. Yeah, so we we were a winning team the whole eleven years. We we were in the playoffs every year but one. And uh so we were in five Super Bowls, and the first one I was on the bench, but you know we were in. I did play during the season at times, but the other two that we won were big deals. I mean, coach Landry's greatness really showed and how he built a team from scratch to to winning a couple of Super Bowls. So it would have been nice when we want a few more. But you know, winning too wasn't all that bad. Roger the Dodgers Starbuck. If you're enjoying this conversation, be sure to follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio apps, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts when we come back. Rogers Starbuck was about life after the NFL. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. In seventy one, the Dallas Cowboys had a quarterback controversy with its two starters, Craig Morton and Roger Staubach. Long time Cowboys coach Tom Landry went so far as to have Morton and Starbuck alternate plays. I asked Starbuck if this was common back then, No, it wasn't, and I you know, quarterbacks have a responsibility of not only physically about throwing and all what they have to do, but their leaders. And uh so our team was a bit divided. You know. Craig was a real fine quarterback and very tall courter. H We actually played each other in college, and so he was on the Cowboys for four years and when Don Meredith retired, Craig took over. And so really it it just came down to making a decision that you know, the quarterback is not just going in and out throwing the football, and their leaders and so the team was a bit divided. We had really a good team, that's seventy one team. If he would have said, okay, Craig is going to be the starting quarterback, we still would have been successful. It's just that one thing. I love coach Landry, So that was a bit confusing, uh to Craig and I when he made that decision to we actually alternated plays. It wasn't just the game itself, and that was not a I don't think that was a great decision, but coach Landry. But in the in the television program Football Life, the One about You, Landry asked Morton to come to his house and then in a pretty clipped way to a pretty kind of direct and cut to the chase way, says, we're going with Roger. Thank you drive. He wants to say to a man to man, face to face. I mean, was Morton just do you think he was just stupefied? What do you think he knew it was coming? Well, first of all, Craig Morton is a classy guy. He I'm sure it hurt him. He did not. He supported me the whole time. And the next year I got hurt, I separated my shoulder, and he took over and we really had a good year. We went to playoffs. So Craig was, I think we had a mutual respect for each other. He sure, he sure supported me when coach Landry made that that tough decision that allowed me to play the starting quarterback. So, you know, Craig was. I can't say enough nice things about Craig. Well, I'm assuming though, that you you educate me about this that that you come in and it's kind of the advent of the more mobile quarterback. You were more mobile than Morton? Correct, Yeah, I would say, yeah, I was. You know, I mean I ran a lot so a lot. Craig was not no runner. Yeah, and I you know that that probably helped, but uh, it still was a passing game. And I think coach just said we can't have two quarterbacks. That that that this dividing the team. I I think half the team was behind me and probably half the team was behind Craig. And you want the whole team behind somebody, one leader, one leader. Now, what do you think it was that made Landry a great coach? Give me a couple of things about him. His qualities had made him so great? Well, the coach was really creative. And he when he was with the Giants as a player, and he I think he was a defensive coach there back then that you had the great teams like the Green Bay Packers and others, they they would have a three man backfield. Maybe one person would would line up on in a tight situation, but most of it was three people backfield. And when he took over for the Cowboys, he really was creative. And what he said, I need to put together an offense that really messes up the defense. And that's when we put in the slot formations and and the people in motion in the five. We put in the shotgun formation that we used on third down and down by the goal line. Everybody thought we were crazy, and I love that shotgun and I but it helped me because if I did run, I could at least see, you know, instead of dropping back, and if I had the ball, I could so So Coach Landry was really creative as far as what he did, and he still was in charge of the offense and the defense, and I think his creativity was unsurpassed in the NFL. I think a lot of teams end up copying some of the things that the coach Landry initiated. He was a very very smart, great coach, and he was also really a fine human being. You know some sometimes uh He and I had a few disagreements now and then, but he always wanted what's funny is I mean, I would imagine some of your success is due to a good coach, Like if a guy comes up, it's a combination of your physical gifts, it's a combination of your ethic, it's a combination of your teammates. But then on top of that, there's a there's another layer, which is coaching. If it really helps, it's hard to go all the way it's hard to win the big game. It's hard to have a great season if you don't have a good coach. Is that true? That's correct. Yeah. And just like my senior in high school, coach changed my life when he when he put me in a quarterback, and uh, we were a winning team and uh can's you know, our coaches had had a lot to do with it, and uh and we had some great players that both on offense and the defense. It was it was. The seventies were good time for the Cowboys, except when we were playing the Steelers. I grew up where it was like the game was coaching. Like you'd see Stram on the side and you go, God, I love this guy. The kind of anomaly like Tarkington, who was a little guy running around. You ran around, and you ran effectively. I mean, being a football junkie, I'm always playing these games. Starbuck versus Tarkington two great scramblers. Now if Starbuck runs effectively and Tarkington ran out of desperate ation. He was desperate not to get smashed because he was so small, you know. But any player, you know, the Dolphins and and Marino who never got a ring, and I worshiped him and kicking Zonka. These teams of guys and Mercury Morris, I mean, teams that just get the wind under their wings. They just take off and have a great season, you know what I mean. But what I want to ask you is, who's a quarterback among many? I'm sure, but dude, who's a quarterback that you always admired their throwing motion? Who somebody you thought, God, look at that guy throw that ball. Well, I don't have anyone on like throwing motion. But in today's quarterback world, we can we cannot deny what Tom Brady has been doing. I mean, uh, not only was successful with Patriots, but in one year he goes to Tampa Bay and takes him to the super Bowl and wins the Super Bowl. So I can't argue with anybody that says Brady inconceivable. Actually what he's done for week quarterbacks? Uh, he he's something special. Well for for us who are New York fans, who always have even if it's a kind of a measured and more subtle, uh you know, feeling towards Boston and toward New England. I've always been kind of ridding my teeth about the Patriots and when he was there. For New Yorkers, we always say to ourselves that Brady went into the devil in the men's room at an airport somewhere, and some transaction was made in that men's room. I don't I agree with you. And I'm a fan of Bill Belichick's and his his dad coached at Navy. And I remember Bill when he was he was just a kid. I was used to be out there throwing the football sometimes. I think he was at practice after school. And and so I, uh of course followed him and followed Brady through. Uh I'm you know, I'm the Cowboys are my my favorite team. I just want to throw that in there. But but but I've I've I was. I've been a fan of Bill Belichick's also, and and so I don't know what happened there. Some deal was made with the devil. Gotta be Now, let me ask you this, married to the same woman for fifty years, five kids, super Bowl champion, Heisman Trophy winner. I mean, you are probably one of the two or three most heroic sized football players, if not athletes, in history. And here you are this amazing person who I'm told you went into the real estate business, initially because you wanted to make some money. You weren't getting paid all that much money in the football game. And is that correct. You started in real estate as a side job. Well, I I did, yes, but I it wasn't just strictly in the off season. And that's how I got started. And then I when I retired, I started my own company. And yeah, I got involved with real estate. And part of it was the fact is that we had three children born in the Navy, and we added two more on Texas soil, so we had a family of five. And my first year's salary with the Cowboys was twenty five dollars, which back then it was it was okay. But I I did work in the off season for h for the Henry Miller company. You're right and that, but I understand that since then the real estate game has gone quite well for you. Correct, Yes, it uh yeah, but it was it was over, you know, thirty forty years we we sold our company to the Starbuck Company, was sold to Jones Lying Less Hole, which is j l L. But you build a good company, we did, yeah, and and and the Starbuck people that are they're working at JLL have done great there and it's uh so, I spent ten years with when we sold the company, and uh so, I've been involved real estate a long long time, and but it's you know, it's part of my life and making sure I could My wife and I we we've been married, actually fifty six years. She she's gonna say, hey, Alex and fifty six I apologize. Tell your wife, I apologize for Let me just say this, which is that with your legendary image, Captain America, all this stuff with your legendary image is a sports figure and just a style with citizen everybody. Just I'm sure it was I saw this on the show. They were all hectoring you about going into politics and running for office, and you said that that didn't interest interest you. Were you ever tempted? Now? I mean, you know, I really when I started working in the off season, I was committed to work in the real estate. And then I started my own company, and and uh I said, well, you know, what can I run for politics? What am I gonna do walk away from my company? And uh so I had a game plan that was outside of politics, and that was to participate in the business world. Well, listen, I want to say to you, And I really mean this. I mean sports occupy a place in people's lives which enters their lives in a very unique way. As you know. I mean, even though movies became very important to me and loving movies, but before that, you asked somebody, I didn't want to be Humphrey Bogart. I didn't want to be Carry Grant. I wanted to be Nameth. I wanted to be uh, Jimmy Brown. I wanted to be uh, you know, United, And I wanted to be you. And you know that the way that sports get into your blood and get into your in terms of the excitement watching a great NFL game, even with a team that's not a great team. You know, any given Sunday, you know they can rise up and they can beat that other guy. All these NFL teams there's some parody there, some have the upper hand. And watching you over these years and watching your career from when I was very young, you really are one of your You're probably one of the three or four greatest sports figures in history. I mean, you really are such an inspiration to people. How you lived your life. You know, the Catholic boy from Cincinnati who goes on to marry. We're married to the same woman, five kids, Naval Academy, Heisman, two Super Bowls, the whole, the company, the whole shebang. You've had such a great, great life. I hope you're as content as people imagine you would be with what you've done with your life. Well, I thank you, Alec. It's I've been fortunate with the people in my life, and UH still feel that way. I got lot of a lot of great friends, and you're sure appreciative of just being around. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie donohue, and Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is brought to you by my Heart Radio.