SpiraledKabeer Gbaja-Biamila creates a scene at the traditional Christmas program at his children’s school. Two of Kabeer’s followers are arrested and the news spreads through Green Bay and further afield. It all seems so strange. Kalyn looks into why religion and the NFL are undeniably linked. Plus, when Kalyn receives a strange text, her investigation takes another turn.
Hey, this is Round twenty nine. Is the address of your emergency, Ladys, Ron Young. I've head master at Providence Academy, pauled earlier about our Christmas program.
Okay, It's December twenty nineteen and Providence Academy, a small private Christian school in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is preparing for its annual Christmas program at the Assembly of God Church. Headmaster Ron Young is in a church sanctuary surrounded by little kids dressed in choir robes swirling with excitement, but Ron is concerned there are two strangers in the audience, men that he's never seen before.
Okay, and what.
Are they doing that you want them to leave? They're not parents, they're not anything. I know it's a public event, but we had some concerns of a video that Your Pleasure Media has posted, and we're worried that they're going to do something.
This is the school that can beer Baja Biamila and his ex wife Eileen's children attend. Before he found Straightway, Kabir had been really involved in the close knit school, a nerdy dad who'd even been a school board member, but by the time of the twenty nineteen Christmas show, the couple has divorced. Kabir has limited contact with his kids, and he's continued in his commitment to Straightway. The day of the big performance, he posted a video to YouTube directly addressing the school's headmaster.
I'm telling you right now, Ron, I forbid my sons and my daughter to participate in any extra crickular activity that goes against my belief.
Straightway believes Christmas is a pagan holiday, so for Kabir, his kids celebrating the main event on the Christian calendar was a big no no. He'd been trying to keep them out of the show.
I'm the priest of my home and you are fringe, and you are trespassing on my property.
Eileen was still a practicing Christian and now the kids primary caretaker, so she got everyone to the venue on time for their performances. This was something they'd done every year at Christmas. She says it was a highlight of the school year. But now the night of the show, there are these two guys in the audience, and Headmaster Ron is pretty sure Kabeer sent them.
I guess what do you think that they're going to do?
Well?
I have no idea why they're here. I have no reason to be here other than two. You know.
Ron called nine one one earlier that day to alert the police about this exact situation. Kabir had called Ron to demand once again that his kids be pulled from the program, and they had a volatile conversation. Kabir told Ron that he should be careful and one more thing. He said, quote unquote, you don't need to worry about me. Black people don't shoot up schools. White people do. It sounded like a threat and now Ron doesn't know if it means anything, but the two guys in the audience are white. Good evening, thanks for joining us.
Former packer Kabir Baja Biamilla explaining what led to the arrest of his friends on Tuesday.
Night, Find Desmuth and Jordan saw Me were arrested at a children's Christmas play, a pageant.
That is being put on by the private school attended by Baja Biamilla's children.
Police did respond to Ron's nine one one call and arrested the two men, Ryan D. Smith and Jordan saw Me. They were both part of Straightway. Both had a loaded semi automatic pistol tucked into their waistband. One of them had an extra magazine of ammunition and a nine inch knife, and neither of them had a permit to carry a gun. And Ron was right. They were there because of Kabir.
KGB says he sent his friends to the program to take videos of his sons, who he forbide from participating in the program because he holds vastly different religious views than the school.
After the police arrived, Kabir showed up. He started arguing with the cops about arresting his two friends, who he calls his quote unquote brothers. The police threatened to arrest Kabir too. Ultimately they didn't, but there was no way Kabir was going to let this go.
No one got hurt, Not one single human being, not even a fly, got hurt that day.
The only people that got hurt are my two brothers.
He live streamed on YouTube two days after everything went down. In the video, he's sitting at his desk dressed in a black T shirt that reads commandments over traditions.
They got their liberty taking from them.
They were they were literally kidnapped, put into captivity.
Kabir wasn't the only one who was upset. Providence Academy let out for Christmas vacation two days early. Because parents were so spooked, some even took their kids out of the school altogether. This version of Kabir, the one that sent men with guns to his kid's Christmas pageant, it was so different from the Kabir who had been on the school board. And it was a total about face from the Kabir who had converted to Christianity and been a fervent believer. This is the moment that Kabir's newfound faith burst into public view. After a successful career as a popular player, now he was on the news for all the wrong reasons. It wasn't about his tackles and sacks or his local service projects. It was about straightway and his connection to the people who lead it. The community was baffled, and so was I. What had happened that had set him down this path? And as I got deeper into my reporting, I also had to ask why were other former NFL players following Kabir's lead. Welcome to Spirald, episode five, Packer to Pariah. I'm Kaylen Kaylor. The incident at the Christmas pageant is when I first started following this story. It was a strange situation on its face, the police getting called on a former NFL player's friends armed at his kids' school, But as someone who's reported a long time on the NFL, I was also intrigued by the role of faith, something that's kind of inescapable in the world of football.
I mean, I always ask God to leave me in the right direction.
It's common to see players neil and prayer before a game, or point up to the heavens after a big play.
God first. You know, we wouldn't be here without him.
I think there is a really strong Christian subculture in the NFL.
This is Paul Putts. He's the assistant director of the Faith and Sports Institute at Baylor University.
I don't think that Christianity in the NFL are intertwined in sort of ways that NFL league officials have intentionally sought to cultivate. But I do think that Christian organizations and groups and leaders, Christian players, Christian coaches have created a very strong subculture in the NFL that is probably stronger than any other major sports league.
Paul is an evangelical and he's also an athlete himself. He played basketball at a small Christian school in Nebraska. Now he's writing a book about the history of sports and Christianity in the US.
I can see the ways and particular things in sports that cause us to feel something like transcendence. Sport is for something greater. It means that it's not just a diversion that you just escape from real life from but it's also not this thing that you can only engage in from a critical perspective. The fact that sport is this full bodied experience that we participate in. We use all of our bodies when we play. You're sort of expected to devote the entirety of yourself in that game to this one thing. I think when you give all of yourself to something, it feels religious.
Though the league has tried to limit evangelizing by players and staff, it hasn't made much of a difference. Nearly every team has a chaplain, and plenty of Christian coaches and players feel comfortable talking publicly about their beliefs.
You want people to see sport as a way to, in the case of Christian athletes, grow in faith in a particular version of the Christian faith.
There is no official religion in the NFL, but if there was, it would likely be a form of evangelical Christianity. That's the culture you're most often hearing reflected when players thank God or Jesus for their wins. Some players who have felt drawn to other belief systems and been equally vocal about it have not felt as supported.
I cannot realization that, you know what, if I'm go find God, I better go find it for myself.
This is Reggie White, you know, the Reggie White, the six foot five, three hundred pounds defensive end, the former Philadelphia Eagle and Green Bay Packer Pro Football Hall of Famer. There's even a street named after him in Green Bay. Reggie defined an era of hard hitting football. In his debut season, he was the NFL's defensive Rookie of the Year. To this day, he's considered one of the all time greats. Remember back in episode one, Kabir was chasing after Reggie from the start of his career in two thousand, even before he'd played his first NFL game.
Kabir ba Ja bia Milla says he watched to break Reggie White all time record for sex.
And there was another way in which Kabier looked up to Reggie. He was a very devoted Christian when he was just seventeen. Reggie became a Baptist minister and then he became known as ad Minister of Defense.
Was Reggie White was the Minister of Defense? He was nickname is the Minister of Defense.
I didn't call it Minister of Defense, but nothing I've seen signatures of his before. We're friends of mine say, I found this piece of mabilia of I sketch dad signature on it, and I don't want to run there ideal of what it is because I.
Was like, that's not sick.
It was like one there's no scripture attached to it.
Reggie White passed away in two thousand and four, just four years after he retired. We talked to his son, Jeremy White. He told us his dad always paired his autograph with a Bible verse.
I believe early in his career it was First John four to eight, and then it was for the majority of his career it was First Corimpians thirteen. He had an eagle that was on his desk for twenty five years. That eagle was always there when he was studying and getting deeper in the torre.
After his football career, Reggie dove deeper into his faith, and he got curious about the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.
If I'm go find God, I better go find it for myself. I got to go back and research the scripture in his original language to see what it said.
This is from an interview with NFL Network that Reggie gave around this time. He wanted to read the Old Testament in Hebrew to understand it more fully, but in doing so, he says he felt rejected by the people with whom he once shared a faith.
I'm considered a heretic amongst them. I've been accused of becoming a Jew and converting to Judaism. I've been accused of so many things because I have decided to study the Hebrew text.
Reggie became disturbed when he noticed how small differences in the scripture's translation could change the meaning of a passage. In the years after his retirement and before his death, he stopped preaching and stopped going to church.
He did love to learn about this. I would be remiss if I didn't say that part of it was because of the free time that freed up off football.
He became very lonely due to this process.
He stopped calling himself a Christian, opting for the term believer. He also came to see Christmas as a pagan holiday. Jeremy remembers that friends of the family pretty much ostracized his dad as his beliefs changed.
Friends of ours who still live in Green Bay, they said, you know, Susi, as I said, reggis a cult.
There are a lot of differences between Reggie White and Kabir. Even though some of their beliefs overlapped, they weren't exactly the same. Reggie never identified as being Hebrew Israelite, even if he seems to have been inspired by some of the same ideas. And he was never part of Straightway or the Overcomer or any established group. And Secondly, though Reggie would happily talk about religion if someone brought it up, he wasn't as aggressive and talking about and promoting his beliefs as Kabir was.
H everybody, but that was the type of guy Kabir was.
Remember, Kabir was evangelizing in the locker room and talking about his faith and interviews in ways that made people really uncomfortable.
He wanted to hand me religious pamphlets, or he wanted to talk to me, Bob, Bob, and he wanted to talk to me about his faith or religion.
Or my faith.
But still Kabir could relate to Reggie's journey. Kabir had also been a devoted Christian before finding Straightway. Like Reggie, Kabir's religious beliefs had changed after he left the NFL and had more time to devote to his faith, and like Reggie, he felt shunned when those beliefs changed. That religious fervor that's undeniably a part of the NFL can be a unifying force, but for players like Kabir, joining Straightway and leaving mainstream Christianity made him an outlier.
All Right, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, citizens of YouTube. This is Pastor Dow.
But Dowell welcomed him with open arms.
For years years, I actually have been praying that some way, somehow, that the Most High would allow me to be able to kind of get a breakthrough to talk to a lot of brothers as well as sisters or whoever is involved in the NFL, because I realized that these people are lost and they need help.
Twenty eighteen, less than a year after his baptism, and three days after Cabir announced his divorce, Pastor Dowell posted a video NFL Brothers are Waking Up as a part of Straightway. Kabir has brought valuable attention to the group, and he seems to have led several former players to Dowell.
Well, these men are getting stronger and stronger in that word.
As a matter of fact, these were because they're so useless teaking out on the circus and stuff. They will be good nationals, folkspeople to get people to the truth.
There are now four former NFL players in Straightway, including Robert Mathis and Daniel Muir, whose Indiana community we tried to visit. Kabir and Daniel Muir were teammates and they both played in Green Bay. Kabir sent Muir a Pastor Dowell video, but as it happened, this wasn't the first time Muir had heard of Straightway or Dowell. About a year before, he'd come across a video and then Mira shared Straightway with his former teammate Robert Mathis. Mathis had been questioning his faith and told me in an interview from my original story that something about Christianity never sat right with him something was tugging at me. It just doesn't line up, is how he put it. Then, So, as of twenty twenty, from what I knew, the NFL contingent in Straightway was Kabir, Robert and Daniel, but I had a hunch more players could be involved. In that YouTube video, Dowell name checks a couple more former players, and when I combed Dowell's YouTube comments, there were familiar NFL names, but nothing we could confirm. And then in January twenty twenty one, I got a text.
Hey, Caitlin, this is Christiana, the wife whose husband unfortunately has joined Kabir's cult.
That's coming up after the break. After that incident at the Christmas Show, after I'd reported on Straightway and Kabir's involvement in the group and a series of articles for Sports Illustrated, I got a lot of messages from other people who'd had a brush with Straightway or knew someone who had My inbox blew up. Some of the senders were anonymous, Some stopped responding to my emails, so we had other people read their messages.
I need someone to please help me.
My ex husband is taking my kids to Straightway and I'm scared for my kids' safety. Hello, I have a grandson who started following the YouTube videos of Pastor Dowell. Fast forward today, he's disappeared.
Straightway is very strategic when it comes to their cult.
Charles Dowell said publicly that I and my pastor, who was trying to help me escape my husband, should be killed.
I went into hiding for a month.
He was so into Pastor Dowell that he would go wherever you would be preaching.
I want to see this group crumble. At the end of January twenty twenty one, I was hold up in my studio apartment, gearing up for the last weekend of NFL playoff action, when I got a text from an NFL agent. Normally we talk about the latest news around the league and jokingly critique poor coaching jobs, but this text had a much more serious tone. I got a call today from a former client's wife. She said her husband is living in KGB's compound after joining the cult. Most my numbing call I can remember getting As an agent. An NFL agent's job is to manage their clients on field football careers, but their work often extends into helping with the transition to life after football. A transition that can be really difficult for many players, but this was such a strange scenario that this agent was at a total loss. He connected me to his ex client's wife, and she texted right.
Away, Hey, Calein, this is Christiana, the wife whose husband, unfortunately has joined Kabir's cult. I would love support the other women and you could offer and also just have an understanding what are the next steps this group is going to do to him to suck him farther into this. Thank you as well for being willing to help.
When I got that first text, I had no idea who Christiana was. I had heard of her husband, but didn't know much about him. It took a minute to get on the phone with Christiana. We had to schedule around several calls she had lined up to help her get a restraining order against her now ex. When we did finally talk, she was warm and bubbly and open. But if you listen closely, she pulls no punches.
I won't join the cult, and therefore I'm a Josebel. Seemingly, according to.
Them, Christiana had attended a private Christian college just outside of Minneapolis. Faith has always been important to her.
I'd say, like to who I am as a person, there's three core things that I can recognize and like. My first one I would say is like my desire to know the Lord and be close to him and know his word. The second one I'd say is like I have a strong sense of like integrity injustice. The last thing I would say it probably I always wanted to be a mom and a wife that always since I was young, Like that was a huge desire of mine.
And Christianna felt like she was on the right path getting everything she prayed for when she met the man who would become her husband, TJ Clemings. TJ was an East Coast guy from te Neck, New Jersey. He played football and basketball. He was goofy. His parents were from Jamaica and his dad is a pastor.
One of the first times I met his parents, they like legitimately did an interview with me. They sat me down and the mom didn't talk the entire time. The dad talked and asked me all sorts of questions like if we got married, mind you, we don't even own each other five weeks when they did this.
TJ played football for the University of Pittsburgh and in twenty fifteen, he was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings, and then one day during his rookie training camp, into his hotel room walks Christianna Cook, a massage therapist who'd been hired to work with some of the players.
So I was actually working on his roommate and he was whining and crying. He's like, TJ, help me. This Eva white lady's trying to kill me because the style of my massage is not pleasant.
At the time, TJ was at the very start of his NFL career.
TJ Clemings was an incredible physical prospect coming out of the draft. He was built in the exact way that football people dream that left tackles are built.
This is Matthew Kller from Purple Insider, a podcast and substack about all things Vikings.
He has incredibly long arms, he has a giant upper body. He's flexible. He can move in ways that normal human beings or even normal NFL players cannot move.
TJ first started playing for the Vikings, he was every bit the rookie.
The feelings changed every game. Some days butterfly, some days, it's nervous in some days.
Here he is in a postgame interview.
It all depends on just how I'm feeling that day. It's a good feeling to have those feelings and no before a game, because it means you care.
He was supposed to be a developmental player. The Vikings saw in him someone that they could take and that they could develop into star because of his physical sealing.
But that's not how it worked out. Injuries to other players along the offensive line forced the Viking's hand and they made TJ a starter before he was ready.
It went exactly how you would expect for a rookie, where he was tentative and he wasn't technically sound enough to take on really good defensive pens in the league.
Not a good debut, and the hits kept coming on and off the field. The Vikings head coach at the time was Mike Zimmer. Zimmer is well respected for his football acumen, but he was also really hard on his players. Another player who played on the Vikings with TJ remembers that coach Zimmer played a compilation of highlights and low lights every Monday at the team meeting. Players who didn't defend the quarterback and gave up sacks featured prominently in these video sessions, and TJ was a regular in those reels, so he became one of coach Zimmer's favorite players to pick on.
Mike Zimmer would do something to the effect of worst play of the week, and the worst play of the week was always TJ Clemings.
Week after week, TJ sat with his teammates while his coach shined a spotlight on his errors. Everyone was critiquing TJ, his coach, and especially the fans, because his mistakes played out on national television Top one.
Number sixty eight offense fifteen years tidy.
Watch them all plumbies.
And when TJ came home battered body and bruised ego, Christiana was there.
I was always praying for Lord home, get out of his head, help him to just brush it off and to do better and to you know it. It's I don't know, it's such a hard thing because it's not like a normal job, or if you make a mistake, you're gonna get fired and cut and then now all of a sudden, your life is uprooted. Sundays we're not relaxing.
The couple got married after knowing each other for just over a year, and then after three disappointing seasons, the Vikings cut TJ. He bounced around the league, played for a handful of other teams, but things didn't get much better. He hadn't become the player that coaches and scouts thought he could be, and he was plagued with injuries. He'd had at least one serious concussion during his time on the field.
You guys are wondering why I'm walking so silow.
This is TJ talking on a vlog that he and Christiana had back in twenty eighteen.
I got her yesterday in a game on field goal turned my MCL and my ACO. So my season's over. But it's all right. It happens.
He looks right into the camera, raises his eyebrows and frowns slightly.
Every time you step on the football, Phil, there's one hundred percent chance that you can get hurt.
TJ's much hyped career as a pro football player slipped away faster than he ran the forty yard dash of the combine. At the age of just twenty eight, TJ left the NFL for good, and with his time on the field behind him, TJ started focusing on other things.
It's a really nice day here on the farm. Yeah, I live on the farm.
He and Christiana had a small twenty five acre hobby farm where they lived with their two kids. He wanted a homestead.
This is all very new to us. Never had chicken before.
They raised chickens and planted a vegetable garden. They bought Scottish Highland cows.
We have three cows coming today.
It's Nova, that's Nikki right next to her, and that is Loa.
After the crushing blows of the NFL, they were seeking a quiet, idyllic family life in Minnesota.
So he was never like a particularly emotional guy, but.
And Christiana started noticing some changes in TJ.
And after his concussion. Like we could be sitting there watching the WWE and like I'm feeding Tray and Trace sit in his little high chair. He'll just start crying watching his son eat food, and I'm like, well, what's wrong. He's like, I don't know. Something about Trey eating food is just and he just be crying about it.
Christiana knew that some of these changes were likely the result of the head injury that TJ got while playing. He was anxious and depressed. He had trouble focusing given all of this. They thought it would be difficult for him to hold a regular job, but they already had two kids and a set of triplets on the way. TJ had had an average NFL career, meaning he didn't make millions like Kabir did. The Clemmings needed financial support, and it turns out there is a way for former players to apply for full disability payments through the NFL's disability plan, but it's not easy. The player's benefit plan is jointly managed by the league and the player's union. A twenty twenty three Washington Post investigation found that they work aggressively to deny claims and repeatedly shirk legal obligations to fairly review cases. So Christiana and TJ wondered was it even worse? Starting the lengthy process, They got in touch with the lawyer who detailed the steps and he had a recommendation.
I remember he called and he was like, hey, TJ. You know, I think for us to have a better chance of you winning total in permanent disability, you're going to need to go to an impatient treatment facility. I know this really great place in Colorado.
The lawyer suggested a swinky rehab facility, up in the Rocky Mountains with a program specifically for athletes. It's the kind of place that shows happy people lounging with cups of coffee on the website. The lawyer thought participating in the rehab program would bolster their claim, but TJ would have to go away for a few weeks to do it, and it was expensive.
I'm like, I look at it, my go, well, if this is something like you feel like we're going to do, I go. I can hold it down for two weeks. I go, And it'd be better just sooner than later, because the more pregnant I get, the less capable I'm going to become. So he literally left I think five days later.
Christiana stayed on the farm in Minnesota. They'd have nightly check in calls and pray together before she went to bed. But without his family to take care of or the farm to tend to, TJ had a lot more spare time than usual, so he did what most of us do. He started scrolling on his phone. He had come across straightway before.
It was from the algorithm. It was just recommended to him. I mean, if you think about what he watched a lot on his thing was a lot of homesteading videos because that's what we're doing. A lot of gun videos because that's what we had a lot of in Sermonts, because that's what we did. So if you mix homesteading with guns and church and then a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked, Huailla, it got Straightway.
But Christiana didn't feel pulled to Straightway the way that TJ did.
He had only shown me one video, so that's how I knew it, knew about it. He showed me a video of Pastor Dowell, and I just remember thinking, my guys seems really combative.
While he was staying in the rehab center, TJ watched more of these Straightway videos, a lot more. He immersed himself in them, and then one evening before their nightly phone call.
I was texting him. I was like, hey, you know, let's pray and he was just like I'm on the phone and I'm like on the phone, I'm like okay, And I was like, who on earth are you talking to? Like what is going on? He's like, Oh, I'm talking to my friend Kabir And I'm like, who's Caber? And he's this guy from that church group I showed you on YouTube. He's like, I've been watching a lot of that in my spare time here, and so he's been like talking to me about the Bible and oh Ona, he knows so much about the scriptures, like just blowing my mind.
Christiana was happy that her husband sounded excited, but she was disappointed and honestly annoyed that he missed a call. Christiana was maintaining the farm and looking after their two kids, all while pratt and then it happened a second time TJ missed a call with his wife to talk to Kabir. Christiana felt like TJ didn't have his priorities straight. They were supposed to be in this together. She wanted him to focus on his family and the Christian faith that they shared. After rehab, TJ came home to Minnesota. The family was excited to have him back, but after just a few days, TJ told Christiana that he wanted to take another solo trip. So TJ leaves his Minnesota farm and drives to Kabir's home in Green Bay, the one known as Praise Land. He wants to meet Kabir in person and see what straightway was really all about it's a short visit, and not long after he gets home, TJ's itching to go again, this time with the whole family.
He wanted me to go with him, and he goes, if you can go, and You're still have the same mindset that it's not right. He goes then to all stop, and I was like, I wasn't going to be fooled.
So Christiana started preparing for the trip.
I had even ordered clothes to wear there because he wanted me to were you know, almost head coverings and crap like up.
She wasn't thrilled about having to wear long dresses and cover up, but she went ahead and bought one.
It was red velvet and it was flora length, because I was like, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna be as sexy as I can be in this clothes, just to stick it to them.
But the dress never actually made it out of the package. Christiana had prayed about the visit and had a prophetic dream that she interpreted as a bad omen, and she talked to a few people she trusted about this trip and they told her they were worried about her safety. They thought she shouldn't go. She decided to stay back, but TJ decided again to go visit Kabir Anyways, leaving her home pregnant with their two small children. When he came back, Christiana says TJ seemed agitated, wanting to implement new rules in the family. After just a few weeks, he wanted to go back to Straightway.
They came in there and he said, I'm leaving tomorrow for an unknown amount of time, for an undisclosed location. I go, Will you be back for the birth? He's like, maybe, just let me know when it is.
The next morning, TJ said goodbye to the kids.
And then he left before their nap, and he was saying goodbye, goodbye to Trey, and I was like, tray J, give your daddy a hug, say goodbye. He's like, why are you acting like he's never going to see me again? I go, because he might not.
TJ made it seem like this was a temporary thing, but to Christiana it was the beginning of the end. She didn't see how they could make their marriage and family work if he was choosing to leave now.
And then I went into the bathroom and he tried to give me a kiss on the forehead and he's not like, I'm leaving forever and I go I don't know that.
But Christiana was right. TJ never came back to rejoin the family. For a while, he called and facetimed the kids, but eventually even that stopped. He missed the birth of the triplets. He's never even met them.
I think going to the cult brought a lot of security for him, Like he didn't have to worry about the food because they were already growing their own food, they were already butchering their own chickens. They were doing everything we were doing at the farm, but had more people had and also somebody else to be in charge. Like I think having the weight on his shoulders of oh my goodness, I have no job. My wife, who thought we're having one baby is now having three, you know, and the world is ending. And I think that was just a lot on them. And I think he just wanted somewhere where he could feel safe, and unfortunately he didn't give that to the Lord. Instead, he took the hand of Dowel and what Dowell offered him Dowel's protection, Dowell telling him who to be, what he was, how the world ran.
TJ had been seeking something, and he seems to have found it, but it took him someplace his family wasn't willing to follow. And it's hard not to see the parallels with Kabir's story. Both men found straightway after retirement from the NFL. Both had been dedicated Christians married to other dedicated Christians, and both left their families when they had pregnant wives, and like Eileen, Christianna, filed for a divorce. She took back her maiden name and moved in with her parents. Now she's back in school. She dropped out when she got married to TJ, but she's gone back for her bachelor's and she has her sights on law school. She wrote a final paper for her psychology class titled NFL Breaks Men. In it, she details the challenges NFL players have and transitioning out of the league and the impact of the brain disease CTE her concluding sentence, one could say that the NFL ruins the personalities slash identities of most of the men that walk their field.
I have like, for some reason, this image in my mind that one day he'll realize what he did. For some reason is a dramatic I envisioned him standing outside of my new house, which is nice. I'm me married and like that man loves the children and he's just like out there and it's like he's all like, oh, I rude my life. That's what I vision. But do I actually think he'll ever leave the call? I think that's difficult because TJ. He gave up his life for nothing, Like, what did he gain?
Nothing?
So for him, he really has to convince and lie to himself all the more to make it okay to even be inside his own skull. So do I see him ever waking up from this.
On his own?
No?
I think if he were to, would be a miracle of God.
TJ. Kader Robert Daniel. Life after the NFL is tough. Men go from having their days weeks, months, and even years schedule. Stepping away is daunting. These men are unprepared for the crush of normal life. They are not alone, and this is where Dowell thrives. When people feel overwhelmed, Dowell offers them an illusion of simplicity. Sometimes people feel useless, Dowell gives them a purpose. Sometimes people just want it out, and straightway is definitely a way out. That's the thing about charismatic leaders They can be whatever it is you need them to be. They can seem to offer you just whatever escape you need. If you are a strong, accomplished NFL player transitioning into retirement, a single mom, a young dad, there are always going to be a lot of lost souls out there, and Dowell knows how to find them with a lot of help from YouTube. And in his wake, people like Christiana and Eileen wind up trying to make sense of their worlds after they have been completely turned upside down and they're left to deal with the consequences. And more consequences were coming. Remember that Christmas program. There was another twist to this story, one strange enough for Court TV.
Jordan Thomas Sowmi State of Wisconsin versus Jordan Thomas Soumi.
Next time on our final episode of Spirals, I.
Don't understand what you're saying.
Don't speak your language on the speak man and men, Sir, I'm not.
A certain have a seed butt it be known this day see for i'mman, Jordan saw me m in the State of Man.
Now passing forward, I'm asking in word.
We set an extensive list of questions to Kabir, Baja, Bamila and TJ. Clemings to get their responses. We Never heard back.
Spiraled is a production of Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcasts and One on One Studios podcast The show was reported by me Kaylen Kaylor, with additional reporting by senior producer Buffy Gorilla.
Writing service provided by Buffy Gorilla and Jen Kinney, sound design, mixing and mastering by Charlie Kaier. Sarah Sneath is our fact checker. Scott Stone is our executive producer, and Daniel Waxman is Director of Podcast Development and podcast Production Manager at One on One Studios. At iHeart Podcasts, Shawn Tutone is our executive producer. Special thank you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser, and David Hudgin from One on one Studios. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
