Ed Newman: The Warrior Judge

00:00:00 Speaker 1: You're now diving. 00:00:08 Speaker 2: Been who then down with Seth O Jay Well, and this is strictly true number one of. 00:00:21 Speaker 1: Course, y'all, this ain't the order nevers boys talk. 00:00:23 Speaker 3: That Welcome back to the fish tank right here on the Miami Dolphins podcast network. Seth Levitt and the only podcaster to bowl a perfect game. 00:00:33 Speaker 4: And lead the NFL and reception that guy O J. McDuffie, You know that guy. 00:00:37 Speaker 1: I kind of know that guy most of the time. I know that guy. Is that accurate. 00:00:40 Speaker 3: It's accurate until someone proves it wrong. So as long as I keep saying it, it's accurate. Yeah, absolutely, it is. Speaking of accuracy and introductions, and this is kind of our first time to do this, but we have to introduce our guests. But I think before we do, should we do kind of a all rise for the honorable at Newman. Tell you you don't have to please be seeing right, so Judge Ed Newman, all Pro football player and author now Ed Newman, Welcome to the fish Tank. 00:01:10 Speaker 1: Thank you. It's a great pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. 00:01:12 Speaker 2: Yeah, big Steff, So I see Judge all the time. Man, I can't I can't do it because he's Judge Ed Newman, right, Yeah, so he's always involved. 00:01:21 Speaker 1: Man, everything we do is an alumni. Of course, what he's done on the football field is legendary for this team. Man. 00:01:26 Speaker 2: But it's an honor to have your honors. 00:01:30 Speaker 3: Like what you did. 00:01:30 Speaker 2: Sure for sure, thank you, Yeah, you know, first and foremost, this congratulates on your new book. 00:01:36 Speaker 1: Oh yes, Warrior Judge a project five years in the making. Originally my grandsons were going to be the audience, but it developed into a pretty good story. I think the fans will love it absolutely. 00:01:48 Speaker 3: Man. 00:01:48 Speaker 2: You know, it's, like you said, Warrior Judge, one man's journey from gridiron to gabvel. The more people learn about the story, the less surprised they should be that you've written a book. But what you finally made You decided to make this into your memoir. Talk about what went into decide to make your memoir. 00:02:04 Speaker 1: About six years ago, I had the duty to read a eulogy from my father. It was pretty tough. One of the things I said to the audience, including my daughter Holly, who's a co author, was but I had no regrets. My relationship with my father never had any bad blood or any problem at all. He was always good for me and I was always good for him, and you'll just be dreadfully missed. After the funeral was over, my Holly came to me, Holly Greenberg, Holly Newman Greenberg. She said, I feel the same way about you. I don't want to have any regrets. We need to memorialize your story. It's an important story. And we decided to get doing that. And that was five six years ago. Wow. At launch at the courthouse, we'd break the jurors or whatever, and I helped my Holly. We'd get together and I dictate a story. We left ten times as many stories on the on the on the table. Then it actually got into the book. But together we were able to say, this has some serious themes. We can develop an architecture, this has this has some bones, This story has some good adventures. It's a love fest. I get to talk about my teammates, my coaches, the people that influenced me, the adversity I went I had to overcome. Not not I'm not alone, but it's it's a taste. You had your moments of adversity. Everybody does, and it's about overcoming them and being really, really good as far as Holly is concerned, she was like my therapist. You know. I had a lot of unresolved conflicts from from from football and coaches, and I got all that worked out. That was a good part of it. My relationship with Holly became richer and much more Subsidan and I have another daughter, Stephanie, and I love her to bits and I don't want to think she's the old she's the firstborn. So that was also a very good thing to be so close with my daughter Holly. And then the LoveFest continues. There are key figures in this story like Coachula, like Monte Clark, John Sandusky, Marry Little and Bob Coochen, Dwight Stevenson, great great people, kim Bo camp or Dan Marino. We really relate with these people in a locker room. There's adventures, there's the inside stuff, the real competition. How do you prepare for a game? And then what is it all about? It's all about maybe having a stepping stone into the next career. That's what I thought about the plan B and that's really a main part of it is there's oil and there's water, and you can compare football to oil and walk to water. They don't mix very well. I found a solution, as I talked about in the book about stirring it. They kind of emulsify a little bit and you can you can see that you have a hybrid situation. The book is about compartmentalizing your assignments. We all know about that. Athletes know about that. So when when you're out of football, you can, you know, jerk around a little bit, or you can go to law school if you like. And that's what I did. 00:05:25 Speaker 4: Is there anything between right, There's got to be something in it was. 00:05:29 Speaker 1: It was good use of my It was a miraculous year. I got up at six in the morning and my wife is in the audience here she I want to talk to you about the bills, or you have to take care of that, that that shrubbery, or I don't have time for that, but there are more important things. Off to the library. It used to be at Biscame College St. Thomas Villanova. They opened the library. I would open the doors. I would close the doors at University of Miami night and open the doors. That season nineteen last guy out. That's how it worked. Anything went wrong, there would have been an impossible dream. But nothing went wrong. I was able to stay as in the first team All Pro right guard nineteen eighty four. There's a there's an interesting story. I think you might even ask about it. I came into the locker room. I had been accepted in University of Miami Law and I needed to speak to coach Shuler. I said, Coach, he's worried some bad's going to happen. 00:06:32 Speaker 4: That conversation, bad's. 00:06:35 Speaker 1: Going to happen. So I said, no, no, no, there's nothing bad. It's something good. But I don't want you to think I'm deceiving you. I'm going to be on board and straight with you what I says. I applied to law school. I got in and I'm starting, and I'm going to start classes in September. At night, I looked at the time, there's no there's no conflict in any of the times. And if there is a conflict, of course, I'll stay with the football. I know where my bread is buying, right, he says to me, And there was a pack that we go together. To his credit, what a great man he was. He said, anybody who wants to advance themselves in their lives, I'm not going to stand in your way. I praise you. I think it's great, but I have a first responsibility to this team, your teammates, my coaches, my owner, the owner, Robbie. At the time, you need to be top shelf. You're an all pro. The team depends on union, and we're going to ask you to step down at a law school if you are letting us, are disappointing us. Everybody in the in the meeting room, there's you know, Roy Foster, you're sleeping on the table and Dwight Stephens shut up, shut and I'm moving on that. And that's that's what happened Sandusky. But watch me, and I said, coach, you're giving me a hard time now and eight of the linemen are sleeping right now as we're speaking. Yeah, that's how it was. 00:07:52 Speaker 3: Do you think that if you had that conversation year two or three, as opposed to at that stage of your career where you're now all you're you're at a pro bowl level, you've proven yourself. 00:08:03 Speaker 1: I couldn't have done it. 00:08:04 Speaker 3: Yeah, I surely wouldn't have done that, right, Yeah, I mean you had built up equal you knew he could handle all that, right, Yeah, he knew who had this guy, I can count as guy no matter. 00:08:12 Speaker 1: What you know. At the time, Trula actually had a daughter of graduated law school, so he knew about well, he knew what was what the Burtons were. Yeah, that's what I un up. He was concerned that, sure, you can do that. 00:08:26 Speaker 4: That's a legitimate concern. 00:08:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it is well, and it unlike like today's game when you were playing, and a lot of guys at that time, they were all required to do something else other than football, correct, So you had to prepare for a job outside of football, right. 00:08:41 Speaker 1: Yes, it's it's a modified. It's hard to have a full time job when you only have six months to give, so a lot of guys had part time jobs. Yes, you need to have that to make ends meet. It was also in the sixties. In my rookie contract nineteen seventy three was eighteen thousand and six round six round draft. 00:08:59 Speaker 4: Like my internship my first year here, I think I made about the same amount, right, Right, it was hard. 00:09:05 Speaker 1: It was hard to make a living, So you're right, But in the sixties and the fifties you couldn't make a living in the NFL. You had to have a job, right, elsewhere. Zanka was the first kicking war field with the new league that opened up world football. I think it was right, and Bennett hired them for the Northmen. He to took the league. The league was terrible with contract there was no free agency, nothing close to it was very active with our players association. That's one of the reasons I went into law. 00:09:36 Speaker 3: Your story is so I mean, even just like our intro here, it's so rich and there's so many different things and I can't wait to get my hands on this book. But I was like, Okay, where do we start on the podcast, Like where do we go? And I think we kind of have to start here. So I'm going to go all the way back to you as a Jewish kid in Brooklyn growing up in the fifties, and at some point you learn about the story of Samson, and Samson is kind of the original warrior Judge's in a lot of ways, and and I'm glad you picked up on that. Oh man, I read, I was like, oh this is this kind of became the roadmap for your life. 00:10:10 Speaker 1: Right. 00:10:10 Speaker 3: He had this god given super strength, but he you know, he was he was a warrior. He was a judge literally but you know the word judge is utilized in the Bible with him, how did that set the tone? 00:10:23 Speaker 4: Like did you read that and make the connection? 00:10:25 Speaker 3: And how did you say okay, because obviously you're not going to live that life, but how how did you say, I'm going to apply that and that's going to become the roadmap for me as I move forward. 00:10:35 Speaker 1: The way it happened is there's somewhat of a cultural idea about who can be an athlete and who can't be an athlete, right, that's all nonsense. I went to work for my dad. He had a factory in in Brooklyn, and he said I wanted to know on the way on the ride home, I want to talk to you about it, about this the Powable of Samson. I like that guy. I was already an athlete, and this kind of dashes some of the Jewish stereotypes that they're not strong and they're not able to So I liked it and it was an acceptable pathway. So mine was the Path of Samson. That was an alternate title for the book, Yes, that was It was called the Path of Samson. 00:11:23 Speaker 4: That would have been an easier connection for you. That's very cool. 00:11:26 Speaker 1: Interestingly. So my parents strongly emphasized education. And when I brought home a sea, I was told, you have to quit wrestling right now. And this is covered in the book. The wrestling coach said, you're a starting wrestler. And not only that, most of the grades that you're talking about that happened during the football season. Let me loop in the football coach. My football coach, John Miller Bostria was the wrestling coach. Football coach has my parents sit down. They're looking at the film and he's saying, just look at the general ability of the kids on the field. Your son is doing remarkable things. I don't have to be detailed here, but it was much faster, much more aggressive, much much more effective. He says, he's going to get a scholarship. If you make him quit football, you'll be making a mistake. So my father's eyes opened. My brother and sisters, they were very happy that they could go to college now. Yeah, so that worked out. But there was another pack that happened is the coaches said, they said, we're going to make sure that you start getting some a's, start a's and b's. That's a priority for you. My parents insisted on it and that's what happened. 00:12:40 Speaker 4: It became in everybody's best Yeah, for. 00:12:42 Speaker 1: Sure, I learned. This is what I learned. You know, as an athlete, every one of us knows that it's really hard, but after you've done it, you know you can do it. Well, that's what happened in high school. I had that in football, but I had it in academics as well. I hated it. I didn't want to study. I wanted to play with the I wanted a party, but they buckled me down and it wasn't able to get into enable me to get into Duke University and then University of Miami Law, and I learned this lesson. It's just like strength. You can work that muscle, you can work your brain muscle and get yourself where you're knowledgeable and able to be a professional. Yeah. 00:13:21 Speaker 2: I mean you talk about that, you like like any warrior you know with super strengths. It's like you found a home on the football field. You found a home on the wrestling that you know, and that takes us, like you talked about, from Brooklyn to Duke University. So your grades couldn't have been as bad as we were talking about. If you got into duke, you know what I mean? Or where you become a two time heavyweight champion, wrestler and All Conference performer on both sides of football, and seventy one I think it was on offense. Seventy two I think it might have been on defense. But then you're still a college athletic career comes to an end and you're drafted by the Dolphins. You talk about sixth round. And while this is probably pretty cool, you were a rookie walking to a team that just came off a perfect season. 00:14:00 Speaker 1: That they used to call us, damn not just rookies, we were dumb rookies, or lots of other things. Or you must be twins because no one person could be that bad, all kinds of stuff. How intimidating was that on that crew? I remember the Dolphins invited about one hundred and thirty players in before the veterans, and we're all trying to, you know, learn the place so we don't hurt ourselves or the veterans. And I was in the locker Jim Mandage Caman, and you had the f out of my locker. What you know? It was like that these guys were pretty tough crowd intimidating. They I'm sure you you experienced it. The veterans don't talk to the to the rookies, you you are. You have to prove yourself till you prove you love. You have to show that you're you're something that can add to the team. No. 00:14:57 Speaker 2: Granted I didn't join a perfect season team. I've joined the team that just lost anty championship game. So you you really joined. 00:15:04 Speaker 1: Uh. They wouldn't give me any any They wouldn't give me two sentences. And it was so lonely, so hard in those days that were really was not for the meek and Sula Shula is two a day PRAC, three a day, four day practices and his twelve minute run and is uh you know I had to keep wait. Our largest man was Larry Little two sixty five. The Redskins taught us a lesson or two. Yeah, them Hogs, the Hogs showed us the way. Yeah. 00:15:35 Speaker 4: So you mentioned Coach Shula. 00:15:37 Speaker 3: Talk about that a little bit more because I mean, we've had so many people come on here and talk about what it was like to try and live up to the expectations that Coach Schula set and his style of coaching was you know it was not for the meek, right, and so what what was that like for you? I don't know what your coaches were like in other than being interested in you getting your grades and working with your parents. I don't know what your high school coaches were like. I don't know what they were like a duke, but I just have a feeling that Don. 00:16:01 Speaker 4: Shula was just a different situation. 00:16:04 Speaker 1: He had me hooked in the first awards banquet when he came as a rookie. If they were giving MVP awards to He's talking about winning another Super Bowl and yep, we're going to do it. Yep. I was already convinced. I didn't even know what he looked like. I love that he was great and he was extremely demanding and he always wanted you to give your best all the time, always be aware and in tune with the plan. He was tough, he was very demanding. He was difficult to please, but he was a genuine man. He was religious. He was a devout Catholic. I think he went to his church every morning before practices. I tried to get there before him. With the law school a lot and do weights and all that, you couldn't do that and do it. He couldn't. He frequently called you into his office if he had something bone to pick with you. I don't think I ever got any praise from the guy, right, So that's what I page it for. 00:17:02 Speaker 4: Sound familiar. 00:17:03 Speaker 1: That's what he used to say. 00:17:06 Speaker 4: What do you think you got like Gendler? 00:17:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, my cover in the nineties was probably at a little easier than he was. He wouldn't take anything. He was. He ran a military type of program, not like I don't want to say anybody currently, but Schula was was. He had his generals, you know, he was. He was the president and the coaches and players except for the captains. Very little confrontation that went with those guys. But fast forward fifty years, I'm watching Schula and it is one of his last public events. I visited him for a roasting a birthday party, and I told one of the stories from the book, what a genuine and wonderful man he was. Let me, I'll give you the story. 00:17:55 Speaker 4: I'll tell it to you. What we're here for, all right. 00:17:58 Speaker 1: Uh. We had a reporter named that plasted from the sunset, soun Tatler, and he roasted the Dolphins in a game and we were going to be the Thanksgiving turkey. 00:18:10 Speaker 4: This is the seventy seven game. 00:18:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So we're all terribly upset about it. And I'm in in the pregame breakfast and Kuchenberg and Langer are talking some stuff. You know, this placed it. They're going to We're gonna get him. We're real upset. He's hometown paper. And we get into the game and he triggered our momentum and we crushed him. It was a fifty six pointer. I think they ended up with a few touchdowns. Towards the last part of the game. One of our ballplayers got injured. Might have been burned down herder yep and and Bob Matheson said, what happened. It was Conrad Dobler. For those that don't know, in those days the Cardinals, Dold was known as a bad boy. He was a goon. He would hurt people because he could, and he came into the game like that. Any event, Uh, after those words were and the injury and the words happened, both of the sidelines emptied and came to the center. Boy, it would have been disgraceful not to be in that center. 00:19:18 Speaker 3: That center, So give me a two time wrestlings off the field. 00:19:25 Speaker 1: Don't you go on the field. So he's doing all that. We come back and we're happy, but Shule is pretty uptight and we're a little concerned about it. We're happy, little concern. We come back for our Tuesday meeting and he talks about the game and it praises it and everything, and he says, I got a letter from Commissioner Roselle. You have to be fined because of you know, on the field. You're out on the field. This is and he is so stern and he is glaring at us, and you, sons of bitches, you ruin the integrity at the doing all that stuff. Because now I want to list the fines Larry Little five five thousand dollars, by Greasy one thousand dollars. It goes down the list at Newman one thousand dollars. So I just want you to know I don't want to ever see this type of stuff again. 00:20:18 Speaker 4: He gave thumbs up. 00:20:19 Speaker 1: Thumbs that's the name of the chapter, two thumbs up, with a big smile. I couldn't be proud of prouder of you. That was just a wonderful, wonderful man. This is a good guy. That's all. A good guy. I love it. 00:20:31 Speaker 2: Man. Speaking of the coach, I mean everybody. Everybody knows who's played for no matter what it was. In the seventies, eighties, and nineties, like myself, we all had the face of toldment one. 00:20:43 Speaker 1: Yeah. And for me, you talk to that, you talk to that more. 00:20:48 Speaker 4: I know. 00:20:50 Speaker 1: For me, For me, I could run all day. 00:20:52 Speaker 2: But and I have to tell you Kim Bokamper he meant was on this show and he told us one of the all time greatest stories of her. 00:21:00 Speaker 1: You know that here in the tank. 00:21:03 Speaker 2: It was about you and your epic battle with the twelve minute run every year, the twelve minute run, bro. I have to give you some history. 00:21:12 Speaker 1: I grew up in a small town on the southern shore, south shore of Long Island, north Belmore, and uh we moved over to tsaiasid High School on the north shore, and things got lost along the way, like you have to register for football and as a seventh grader, so there was no football for me as a seventh grader? What am I going to do in the fall. The athletic director said, why don't you go out across country? There's no there's no limit. The reason they had that is they were afraid of players getting raided. Sure, you have to you have to register, you have to come from the school district. So I was moving from another school school district. It looked bad. They said, absolutely, you can't do it. So I went out for cross country. Yeah, and my competitiveness got the better of me. Are we're going to run for an hour in twenty minutes. I sprinted for the first three minutes and came in about two hours after everybody else. I didn't know how to run, and it never was a long distance runner body. I'm a power guy. I'm a wrestler, carrying too much weight for for that kind of stuff. I didn't want to quit the team, but I was going to hurt my psyche if I kept on coming in last. So I quit. But it scarred me for the rest of my life. I resisted distance running. And that's what happened in camp I. Oh, goshus. I used to get these timers and. 00:22:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, but every time every time I crossed the finish line, you had to complete five laps, which is one point three to three. 00:22:53 Speaker 1: I had the number of steps measured, and I don't know how I didn't faint and I was in the heat. I don't know if the cameras been listening over it. Both said he had the harm everything. It was true. It's true. I had a real, real hard time, a lot of a lot of it. Though. This is part of where I was. I'm bracketed by Greasy and Marino So and all the players that so I was a veteran, I was an all pro veteran. They're watching and they'd love to pick on me. I bet really where they had to find they found the chink in my armor? Right? And that I said, you. 00:23:34 Speaker 4: Were just killing it in the weight room. You wait, like it was nothing. You had all those records, you'd start all that. So, yeah, they know they're going to find that. 00:23:42 Speaker 1: Sandusky, the offensive line coach said, coach, you think Nahanna can do twelve minute run? I think he'd be up and I don't think so he said, well, can we do something about that? Just can't work with Shula, can't can't get around that. I could talk to him, but it would just you slap me down. It's so good. 00:23:59 Speaker 4: Bow tells that story and he gets going. God, it's one of the Yeah, one of the al timers. 00:24:03 Speaker 1: I used to tell Kimber on the on the Trap Place thirty seven bad or something like that. I don't want to hurt anybody. The films didn't have a soundtrack. Do they have him today in the in the practice. I don't think so. I think it's all still Yeah, Kimber, Kimber, he always knew it was coming. He was coming into it. Brother. Yeah, and we were partners. We had a business together, kidding Yeah, on the Naughty Dolphin. It was kim and A. J. Dewey and and and Bob Bombhouer, the four of us and and a fifth investor for two years at a floating gym called the Naughty Dolphin at right across from the airport and the waterways over by eighty four State. 00:24:44 Speaker 4: I didn't know a million different things. I didn't know that that. 00:24:48 Speaker 1: Was before his interstate battery. 00:24:50 Speaker 4: Yeah right, he told the story of the battery deal. That's a great got. He's got a lot of good stories, yeah, a lot. He needs to write a book as well. He does. He can come back, he can come back. 00:24:59 Speaker 1: So you see him. I have a book for him. I want to give him. 00:25:03 Speaker 3: Well, see absolutely absolutely. It's tough to shift from that story to this one. But so your second or third year, at some point, your grandmother notices a mass on your neck, right, and you go to the team physician. Team physician kind of poopoos it, doesn't you know, like dismisses it. Come to find out. 00:25:24 Speaker 4: You've got thyroid cancer. Here you are at the top of right now. 00:25:29 Speaker 3: You didn't know you're going to play twelve years in the NFL, but you've you've reached the pinnacle. You're in the NFL, you're playing for one of the premier franchises in the league, and three years in you're now in a fight for your life with thyroid cancer. 00:25:43 Speaker 1: It seemed like a bad rap. How can your luck be worse? Grandma said you better take care of this, and I was trying to fight the reality of it. It was a game of chicken for me. But eventually we were got into camp. I spoke to him, our Herbert Vergil, and you're right. He poot pooted it and said, well take care of it. Later I started playing pretty good ball. But when we played the Jets, my grandma had an appointment before me with one of the head neck surgeons in the Mount sign A Hospital. They did the exams and they said you have malignancy and that's got to come out. And then I'm the thinking, how am I going to it's it's it's like the third week in October. I said, how am I going to talk to Shula? How am I going to talk to the players? I said, is this a fast growing thing? No, says, you've had it for at this at this size for a long time. I don't think it's a fast growing thing. Can we manage to wait until January? Can we go to January? He says, there's very very little risk, but no longer. So the season ended. Kathy and I'm my wife. Kathy and I were up and I was having my thyroid operation. The key part of that and where this story is leading is I'm real concerned about playing pro foot ball? He said, this Is this going to affect my career? He said, no, you'll be able to be fully functional in the NFL if you make it with the Dolphins or don't make it, it's because of you. So that's all I need to hear. And again the formula, it's an obstacle you can overcome. You can overcome this, and I took it as an opportunity to be better than ever life. Oh god, I could die. Well, I better do something before then. And that's what happened. That was a transformation. I really went into the land of pain in the weight room and all that stuff. 00:27:39 Speaker 3: Well that's the thing though, when the doctor says you have cancer and it's October and you say, can it wait till January? I mean, this is real and I love there's I mean, gosh, we love this game. It's why we're all here. But like a priorities conversation, at some point, do you take a step back or does ed Newman now look at that guy making that decision and say, maybe he should have not waited until and it worked out. 00:28:01 Speaker 4: But it did work out. 00:28:02 Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's advisable. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I have a similar story and it's just a craziness that happens in this in this game. It's a love. It's a love. We had a game and I busted my left knee. It happened on maybe the ninth play before the end of the game. The eighth player before the end of the game, Larry Little was in the game at right guard. Kuchenberg was at left tackle because of Wayne Moore was was hurt. So Larry happened to have an ankle twist. So he runs off the field with an ankle twist and have a broken knee. Media collateral was totally torn. We're behind, so we're just passing the ball. And I was able to manage upper body strength just stable. I couldn't pull or I couldn't you know, sweep or any of that. Trap. No, none of that. I would have taken a knee if that had happened. Come out after the game, doctor does the you know, the squeezes and the push. Is I got a torn media collateral. It has to be co operated on. About three months later, San Dusty is doing the film breakdown on all injuries and he's saying, where is the injury? He didn't see the injury. I told you, I played the game out and we went through it. I was in the weight room, of course, and he found me in the way room bringing the film, and I watched the film and I said, this is where it happened. What happened is for those that don't know, you can have three downlinemen. They happened to be on the center with Langer and Kuchenberg, but THEA was the guy that caused the action. So PATHA takes the shot in inside Kuchenberg and I give him a shot right in the jaw and he bounces out you wide, and I turned over to Curly Cope and I'm helping with I think it was the Langer. And what's happening is the THEA sees what's happening and he very quickly comes back inside in the vacuum that I just left. Chach was surprised and he kind of collapsed onto my foot and his butt went right into the side of my bang just went right down. Sand Dusky says, you knew that was bad. That's what happened. It all happened right at that place. Yes, that's right, he said, why didn't you come out? Little was hurt. I had no guard at the time, and I was all for the team. I was one hundred percent for the team. You say that you never can do that again. You might have shredded your knee at that time. The same type of question, would Ed Newman do that or any real person do that again? You're not a normal person. When you're on the football field. You don't feel any pain, and all you all you feel is I love this team. I want to win. I will not do anything to stop this team from winning. I will only help this team win. 00:30:50 Speaker 4: It's a very unique mindset. 00:30:51 Speaker 3: So I will also talk about you talked about earlier the cultural some of the cultural differences that you were exposed to. 00:30:59 Speaker 4: What was it like being a Jewish football player. 00:31:02 Speaker 3: In the nineteen seventies in the National Football League, Because so I started in ninety six here with the team, and I just remember the first game that I ever worked and being in the locker room and the end of the game, when loser draw, everyone takes a knee, everyone holds hand and they say the Lord's Prayer, and that was like, I'd never seen anything like that based on the way I grew up. That was nineteen ninety six, That wasn't in the seventies. I just wonder what that experience was like, because there couldn't have been a lot of folks that grew up in a similar household as yours. 00:31:34 Speaker 4: There still aren't to this day. 00:31:36 Speaker 3: Was that difficult to to present challenges or was it just one more thing. 00:31:40 Speaker 4: That you dealt with? 00:31:41 Speaker 1: In one was their anti semitism might be a question. I didn't let it get to me. I didn't let it affect me. I was able to fight. I was able to defend myself. I was able to stand up to people. After for a couple of confrontations, it stopped. I was known as a good guy. I was always honest. I was as generous as I could be with people, and I was contributing to the team. I didn't cause fights. It didn't cause any problems at that. Was there like a virulent anti semitism in the locker room? No, no, there was not. Very rarely were the big comments. There were occasionally, but they were addressed and redressed pretty quickly. Did it have an effect, you know, as far as acceptance or maybe stature or that kind of thing. Who can say as far as my attitudes, But you were talking about it. I was very happy that Father Walker walked in and said, let's say the Lord's prayer. It helped my teammates win, and it helped me focus. In those moments I thought about my guardian angel. It was my grandma passed away some decade earlier. That kind of thing, whatever brings you strength, spiritual strength, This was a good vehicle. I wasn't offended or or put on the spot. There were fundamental believers that maybe cried for my soul. You know, that was somewhat disturbing. I defended myself. It's a debate that's been around for millennia. I believe in God. I think it's the same God of Muslims and Christians as the Jews, and the standards of good living of righteous living are identical. There's differences in the details. My interpretation is, I think it's a grand experiment that's going on right now. God is finding his way. That's my personal belief on it. I couldn't agree more. 00:33:48 Speaker 2: Man, that's good stuff, except and I know there's a lot going on, especially nowadays with everybody and what they're going through. 00:33:55 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right now with the Israel and everything us, and it's a lot going on. Yeah, that that I hadn't thought about that in that in the context, the emotions are very elevated right in. 00:34:08 Speaker 2: Height straight you know what's you know, as important as that is, I think, well, we'll talk a little bit more about some some football. That's that's super important stuff that we could honestly do a whole podcast on, I'm sure, But a little more football. I mean, you played twelve season. 00:34:25 Speaker 1: Injured on that thirty Yeah, that goes next year. 00:34:31 Speaker 2: You know, that's remarkable obviously twelve seasons plus you know what part of that getting into that thirteen. But you know, one of the things that really stands out to us players as you know, uh that enjoy that type of longevity is that you've run across a whole bunch of different players to those different eras. 00:34:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you think about it. 00:34:48 Speaker 2: I mean when you got there and in the seventies is more of a ground and pound style, you know, with Zaka and merk and kick, and then you know in that fierce line we talked about. And then in nineteen eighty three you start you get this kid named Marino that comes around. 00:35:02 Speaker 1: I was under throwing the ball. Yeah, you start throwing the ball all over the yard, and that's that sounds different. Man. 00:35:09 Speaker 2: Meanwhile, you age like fine white, ed, I mean you how did you become a perennial pro bowler player. 00:35:14 Speaker 1: You know in your nine season? 00:35:16 Speaker 2: In your nine season, I think it was right, big seth is it is that when it was and every year from that point on and until you're twelve, I mean you go in from a ground and pound type of guy, and you got to be in probably pass pro moar than you probably liked it as alignment. 00:35:30 Speaker 1: Every year from nineteen seventy three when I was drafted, I'd go into Shules's office and say, I'm playing like a like a like a starter, but I can't get contract, I can't get traction. Don't worry, be patient. I had two unbelievable powers in Larry Little and Bob kuchen. 00:35:47 Speaker 4: Thinking about it right, trying to crack that line right. 00:35:50 Speaker 1: I thought I was playing at all pro levels way earlier, certainly at starting levels, and I said, I'm losing an opportunities coach. We got to do something, and he would let me a sub in quite a bit, and he knew he had inexpensive insurance policy in case somebody went down. But the answer is I was in the shadow of Kuchenberg and Little. I was playing you play at all pro level, man. I thought I was playing at all thinks you were you were. He proved that it was all pro level. I was playing at year six, seven and eight as well. At those levels, they thought my name was Kuchenberg, you know, And that's a that's a hell of a compliment. Yes, absolutely, yes, no disrespect to Kuchenberg because he was great and is always going to be remembered that way. Same thing with Larry Little, who, by the way, also has a book coming out. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, ticking as a book coming out. Yes he does, because it's. 00:36:44 Speaker 4: A good excuse to get him to sit right in that seat. 00:36:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it. 00:36:49 Speaker 2: Well, a little bit more about him, we'll research it. 00:36:53 Speaker 1: Was trying to be a buddy with with with Larry Little, and uh, his first words would be, damn, rookie, you're not going to be taking trying to make the club right now. That's all I'm trying to do right now. That would be the best team that I can be. 00:37:10 Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. 00:37:11 Speaker 3: So well, let's fast forward to that year twelve. It's your first team All Pro. At the end of that year, it's Dan Marino's that that's the year that Dan because I think this miraculous year probably became a Hall of Famer in his second season, right when he did things that just nobody had ever seen and the entire offense did. There was a number one offense in the league by a mile of forty eight touchdowns, five thousand and eighty four yards, the whole thing. But not only are you playing at an elite level in every game, guys go through the playoffs. As you said earlier, you're now going to law school at night, and you can't let anything slip because you promised Don Schuler that it wouldn't. 00:37:50 Speaker 4: How in the world does that happen? Like, how are you able to do all of that stuff, to do it at a high level? 00:37:56 Speaker 3: And then is it true that you guys dismantled Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship And the next day you take a final exam for your first year of law school, Like, it's not a real thing. 00:38:04 Speaker 1: That stuff happened. That stuff happened. 00:38:08 Speaker 4: Yes, how did you manage all that? 00:38:10 Speaker 3: And then if you could, I guess you put in that kind of time and effort you get hurt the next year. Talk about also how it led to the transition of your second life in a lot of ways. You know, you find this world in the legal system that goes from attorney to judge. 00:38:27 Speaker 1: You have to be very dedicated, and you have to schedule everything, and you don't have the luxury of downtime. So in the morning, I don't know. If I mentioned it already, I would go to the library and open up the BISCAG library. Yeah, there's a lunch period. It's supposed to be relaxed. Ten minutes for lunch. I was five minutes for lunch and fifty minutes in the weight room because I didn't have the afternoon. Right after the practice is over, the guys are saying, let's have a beer, let's go, let's just fool around a little bit. I'm worried about traffic hour hour. I got a six thirty first class and I'm supposed to meet with my wife and two small children at a restaurant right right across the street from the university. And it was it was a very very tight schedule. If I had an ankle twist or any kind of health injury, there could have been a major disruption in my everything else. 00:39:28 Speaker 4: Like, how did that? You're twelve years. 00:39:31 Speaker 3: He would admit it though, said if he did, I had to have an ankle twist. 00:39:37 Speaker 1: No, I didn't. I didn't. It was I was very lucky. This is what I'm knocking on it. And I was in the best shape in my life at the time. Again from adversity I wanted to be. I was disappointed when when that happened. I wanted to play another couple of years. I wanted to graduate law school as a as a as a professional that would have been ball player. 00:40:01 Speaker 4: So it does happen, and so it's now all law school and you passed the bar, you open up your own practice. 00:40:08 Speaker 1: But like another little story there, I come on to the facility and I asked to speak to coach again. And I said, I'm an injury reserve and I don't like getting this money without contributing. Come on, I'm telling you honest, telling you that money, bro. I said, I want to be an assistant coach. Let me work as an assistant coach. He said, no, no, no, you're in law school. You finished law school. Can I go day division? I was going to, you know, accelerate my my graduation date. He said, yes, you can. I had plenty of time during the day during the season, and I didn't want to be in the way of anybody. I came from my locker and I would work out and I would do all that I was starting to by October, I got injured on August. By October, I was spurning. I'm doing my sprint work and I came in into the locker room. Coach, and I want to talk to you for a minute because I'm watching you that the team needs an offensive lineman. We need we need a guard. We want you to come back and play. We're going to take you off injured reserve. And I'm pretty quick with it. Okay, Coach, I'm ready to go. Oh, we better talk to the doctor for he was looking. He was looking at what kind of fire I had in my belly. And I did have the fire in my belly. I did, I was, I was, I was going to go. We're working with a director player personnel at the time was Charlie Uh, Charlie Winner. And I said, look, the way I work out is it's not human, it's I don't want to reach a contract in July. I want to reach a contract in February, in March, and I'm not going to ask for less than you know. I need to have some serious money. His response to me was, well, we don't do that. You will always be one of the family. Oh my god, did he He stabbed me in the heart. Stab me in the heart. Around July twenty seventh, I think I'm not mistaken. I called the newspapers together and announced the retirement. I didn't want to use the word. I hated the word retirement. I said, I want to come in and play ball. I am physically able to do it, but the Dolphins can't bring me unless I have a signed contract. I told Charlie. When this is critical, I'm sorry. I forgot the point. I said, you called me one of the family, but I'm not going to be working out after starting in May. Starting May first, I'm going to be a civilian in the gym. In the gym, not in all pro I'm going to be doing one hundred and fifty pounds, not three hundred and fifty or five hundred and fifty. He said, You'll always be one of the family. So Sula lost Steve Clark, Jeff Tays, and Bob Kuchenberg in pre season, and I'm one week out of saying to that all the media I can play. He called me up, said you win, We're going to give you your contract. You'll get your guarantee, you'll get your contract, you'll get your terms. And again I had to be principled, I said, coach, I told you I wasn't going to be working out. He said, don't worry, I'll let you work out. I'll let you. I'll let you have a three weeks or so to get to get ready. I knew he was lying. He's lying. He's going to get me out there as soon as he can. It wouldn't be fair to the fans, wouldn't be fit to me. I have my faculties. I'm not sure I would have been able to take you to protect myself. I made the right decision at that at that point when he made that offer. But the offer was everything. The idea is when someone said you weren't good enough, that would kill me, that would kill me. I didn't. I never heard that. What I heard was we'd like you to come back, sorry, coach. That was my narrative. I cried, Oh my god, I cried. It was the hardest day of my life. 00:44:00 Speaker 2: I think it's amazing, and I think majority of us at that point, in that point of our career, we cry either in public or most of us in private. 00:44:11 Speaker 5: You know, we definitely shed a tear, but I was talking to the press, so I was balling. Yeah, for sure, I still cry. I cry all the time now, But that's a different story. 00:44:21 Speaker 1: I cried for my bad back, my bad knee, my bad all. 00:44:26 Speaker 3: But you shift gears and you go all in and you build a legal career. 00:44:30 Speaker 4: And it's it's going to seem silly to speed. 00:44:33 Speaker 3: Through a forty something year career in law, but you get your law degree, you're a practicing lawyer, and then you decide to become a judge. 00:44:43 Speaker 4: And was it ninety five? Is that when you ran? And so you're a judge. 00:44:47 Speaker 3: But what's the most fascinating And we've had him on the show, at what point did you decide. 00:44:52 Speaker 4: I need a new bailiff. And I think it's going to be Tony Nathan. 00:44:56 Speaker 1: I didn't know people in the so I got edge selling Thattro. He was of corrections off for sir, I'd like to be a bailoff, okay, And he knew what he was doing and he helped me out a great deal and he got a he got a job at the police department and he moved on. My secretary, Diana, she says, I have a cousin, Mitch Peiz. He became my bailiff and he worked with me for about seven or eight maybe maybe more, and a terrific guy. And he was wonderful, but he had a family and kids, and he said, I need more money. I said, I'm not the one. That's the next thing that's happening is they're about seven That's right. They are about seven or eight police officers, people that are near retirement. They want the job, and I really would like to be with a teammate. I'm thinking who could have And I'm reading in the newspaper that and through the grape vine that that Tony Nathan was having a hard time picking up a coaching position. I gave him a call. I said, Tony, I think this is good for you. I'm not sure that you want to do it, but I think it's worth a try. You know, this is a really really good job. If we don't have a jury trail, then we're just kicking around for a while. He said, I don't know. I don't know anything about being a bay left for the courts. He let it go. He didn't he didn't respond. My wife said I know how to make him, responded his wife. 00:46:21 Speaker 2: Damn, right, right, where do I get a Where do I get a new uniform? 00:46:29 Speaker 1: The bailifts uniform? And that was It was about thirteen years now thirteen years ago we got to be known as the Dolphin Division. He's the sweetest man and very easy to get along with. And we talked a lot about Schula, the players, how the teams were going. We used to a kid with the attorneys about who was playing who, and they Buffalo is going to kick your butts this year. So this was all good stuff. Already had any. 00:46:58 Speaker 2: Fun, like every every teammates really having a teammate. 00:47:02 Speaker 1: Because every guy who sat alignment with a running back, what's better than that? 00:47:07 Speaker 3: And they missed the locker room. They missed the locker room, And here you are. You kind of brought the locker room back in the smallest way that you could. 00:47:13 Speaker 1: The law and the core system. It helped me a great deal in the transition you mentioned they're alluded to that earlier. Yeah, I was too busy to, you know, to lament about it, but I still cried. I did cry. It was so core to my essence. I was a pro football player, right man. 00:47:31 Speaker 2: And like I tell a lot of people, it's like, you know, we don't start playing football in high school. We start playing football we're like little kids. We're like one of the only professions that you start playing at five or six years old to be a profession. Yeah, I wasn't doing you weren't thinking about being a judgement. I was at five years old, you know. So yeah, when it when it does stop, man, it's a warrior. Just a tough deal for this. 00:47:53 Speaker 1: There's one little section here where I'm having a final game in high school and we won the adition. It was a very important game and we were for our high school and I'm looking around at this and half the room is crying. We won. I was going to duke in the merson on and it was the last time and I realized it for the first time, and I shed it here. 00:48:17 Speaker 3: Did you think about that when you had to say that word retired to those orders? Did you think that, Oh, I get it now what those guys were going through. 00:48:26 Speaker 1: I didn't specifically, Yes, it was that was the feeling. Yes, wow, oh man. Okay. Also, this is this is some heavy stuff. 00:48:37 Speaker 2: We're going to get you out of here now, we're going to but before we let you get out of here, man, we we in every episode of the podcast with the fish Tank two minute drill and uh. 00:48:46 Speaker 1: If you were part of the High Powered eighty four offense. 00:48:48 Speaker 2: I mean, I know that you can definitely navigate a two minute drill like like nobody nobody's business. 00:48:53 Speaker 1: So we did that. 00:48:55 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was pretty good. Ad, it was pretty good at and you're definitely a part of it. And that's, you know, part of that condition. And so our crew here is gonna put two minutes on the clock. Oh no, you're gonna have a time out. 00:49:07 Speaker 1: If you need it. 00:49:07 Speaker 4: If you need if you know you can, you can call the. 00:49:11 Speaker 2: Time and we're gonna we're gonna send you some quick hitting questions and you know, all fun questions. 00:49:16 Speaker 1: It's all fun. Can I call a friends different game? Well, I mean sometime nowadays they got the headset now, but I don't know. Yeah, we don't have that here do they. 00:49:26 Speaker 4: Have They don't have the coach to guard communications system. 00:49:29 Speaker 1: I think it's seconds. 00:49:30 Speaker 4: You got this. 00:49:31 Speaker 1: You'll be all right, you'll be all right, all right? You ready ready? 00:49:34 Speaker 4: Got the clock? 00:49:34 Speaker 1: All right? Because the clock started. That's it's gonna be right here in front. Are you ready? 00:49:38 Speaker 2: Here we go all right, As we discussed, Tony Nathan served as the bailiff in your courtroom for years, which God is thinking about. You know who else could have made a great bailiff if Tony had stepped down or decided not to do it. Who had made the best bailiff? The wife, Stevenson, Larry Little, Jim Langer or Bob Kuchenbergh. Of those four, who would have made the best bayliff coach? 00:50:01 Speaker 1: You bring Langer, Stevenson or Little? Literally ge't your butcher those chairs? 00:50:10 Speaker 4: Stop talking, Larry Little, the bailiff. I love it, I love it all right. 00:50:15 Speaker 3: Okay, you were inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety nine. You're actually one of three Miami Dolphins or former Miami Dolphins who have had that honor bestowed upon them. 00:50:24 Speaker 4: Can you name either of the other two? 00:50:27 Speaker 1: Steve Schultz? 00:50:28 Speaker 4: Uh No, I don't know if Steve's in there. If he is, I missed it. More more recent. 00:50:33 Speaker 1: Guys, did you play with Steve? No? I did not. No. 00:50:38 Speaker 4: Your wife is phone a friend. 00:50:40 Speaker 3: It's the wife and Jay Fiedler, Jay Fiedler, of course, Jay Fiedler. And it's great, say Rosa Felts. Actually, which is you know? Sage's he played? He plays whatever card is going to be? 00:50:52 Speaker 1: He was that interesting? What happens is I've got going on the golf course and I see a number and I'm thinking of a player, right, But Hebert Fieedler was outside of my wheelhouse. You know, Marina was his predecessor. That's right. 00:51:04 Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a little more modio. 00:51:06 Speaker 1: That's why I didn't get that one. 00:51:07 Speaker 4: So no worries. 00:51:09 Speaker 1: Good, all right, Judge, I'm sorry, it's okay. 00:51:13 Speaker 2: I always laughed at movies about professional football because they rarely captured the real story about the whole game. That being said, what is your favorite movie that's centered around a court room? 00:51:27 Speaker 1: Helped me? 00:51:29 Speaker 3: But I like that one. 00:51:35 Speaker 1: I almost wrote I cheated. 00:51:37 Speaker 4: I cheated, that's for sure. 00:51:40 Speaker 1: I love it. 00:51:41 Speaker 4: Oh that's pretty good. Okay. 00:51:42 Speaker 3: Final question, what was more difficult making a tough legal decision or the twelve minute run? 00:51:48 Speaker 1: Twelve minute run? Although probably the opposite is probably more true. The moral decisions are more important than the twelve minutes. 00:51:59 Speaker 4: Those were probably a little bit more important. 00:52:02 Speaker 1: But I had a nightmare sleep the whole off season out of the way. 00:52:08 Speaker 4: Oh it's so good, it's so good, And thank you so much. This was incredible, really. 00:52:12 Speaker 1: Really thanks for diving in, Judge, appreciate it. 00:52:15 Speaker 3: I cannot wait to get to Judge. Yeah, well check it out. We have it in all the outlets, hardcover or softcover. We priced it to move, priced to move. I'm not different audio as well. Judge it. It isn't yet. Okay, it isn't yet. 00:52:32 Speaker 4: It's something you're gonna wait for the audio version, so. 00:52:33 Speaker 1: You know me. I'm I'm a terrible reading that. 00:52:36 Speaker 4: Come on, man, you don't tell me you can't. 00:52:39 Speaker 1: I can't read that. 00:52:40 Speaker 4: That is not it. 00:52:41 Speaker 3: You're now diving just like Jew said, Thanks for diving into the fish Tank presented by iHeartRadio. Be sure to follow us on whatever streaming platform you're using, and don't be afraid to rate the show or leave us a comment. We love your feedback, and remember you can find us as well as drive. I'm with Travis Wingfield and all of our international partners on Miami Dolphins dot com DA been at this time