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00:00The big game, New Orleans, right here on Media Row. It's the Sports Grid Network. It's 90 right
00:04side. I've got a special guest today. It's Bernie Kosar. Legend Bernie Kosar. How about that?
00:08All right. Thank you so much. Slowing my cranium with this beautiful entrance here. Thank you.
00:14Love it. Cleveland Browns, Miami Hurricanes. We're going to go through it all, but I always
00:18like to start with the background with you, Bernie, because I'm enthralled by how you went
00:21to Ohio and how you got sold on the University of Miami and how you ended up there.
00:26Well, I have my You Matter shirt on, but it's not just for the University of Miami. I'd talk
00:31about big self-confidence and self-awareness. And as a little boy growing up in Youngstown,
00:36Ohio in the late 70s, early 80s, and running a 5'5", 40, and always being tall, slow, and skinny,
00:44the Midwest wasn't recruiting me. And being a mommy's boy, that was a little disappointing.
00:49So really, the only schools that would recruit me back then was the Florida schools. So Coach
00:54Snellenberger with the Pro Style Offense came to Northeast Ohio and said that he thought I could be
01:01a quarterback. And I was impressed. Impressed enough with Coach Snellenberger and his pipe
01:07from the old days showing my age. We've seen, obviously, the U30 for 30s. You're in all of
01:12those. But this is one of the interesting things where a legendary program, and I felt like you
01:17were on the foundation floor of building that. A lot of young kids growing up, hey, Miami was
01:22fantastic in the 80s and 90s. Iconic program. But it had to start somewhere. How were you sold
01:27on going to Miami and the belief that Snellenberger told you, you're going to win a national championship,
01:32and you did? Yeah, thank you. To bring that up and to focus on that. And one of my core beliefs,
01:37the life lessons that you learn in football at the University of Miami is really on the football
01:42field, carried forward into my life lessons now. And Coach Snellenberger has such an unwavering
01:49belief in himself and the system. He says, to believe is to be strong. And he believed
01:55so much in himself, in the program, and he got you to believe in yourself. And that belief
02:02in yourself and his vision of wanting to win a national championship in five years and being
02:09able to play the best guys. And I actually was a little intimidated by that. Wasn't sure
02:14about coming from Youngstown down to Miami after the Mario boatlift and some of the things that
02:20were going on, the riots in Miami. Miami back then wasn't the Miami that we see today. But he
02:27had said to me, he goes, you know, everything in life that's great, everybody wants. And he goes,
02:32if you don't take this challenge, we play everybody tough. He goes, you know, the big 10 schools
02:36didn't want you. Notre Dame didn't want you. I play all them. He goes, if you want to be the best
02:42and be a national championship, don't run from a challenge. And he goes, everyone who runs from
02:49a challenge at 18 years old will run their whole life. So to stand up for it now, and that's just
02:54core confidence and homily that he went on with that belief in himself was so contagious that
03:01made me want to go. And now as I get into the heck, the late third quarter, early fourth quarter of my
03:06life, and some of the diagnoses I've been getting, it may be fourth quarter to overtime,
03:12but I almost feel a responsibility to kind of pass down, pass it forward, some of those beliefs
03:19and some of those characteristics that Coach Snowenberg and Coach Johnson implemented on me.
03:24Absolutely. Because when you were there, and I specifically remember, again, I was just a young
03:28toddler, but just learning about the years in the 87, 89, the multiple national champions. But I
03:32always remember you bringing up saying like, oh my goodness, like the public's like Nebraska's
03:36coming to the Orange Bowl, the unbeatable Tom Osborne's coming to town. And I remember you
03:40saying specifically, they're going to have a tough time defending us because we have a pro-style
03:44passing game, something they've never seen before. Talk about your confidence heading into the Orange
03:48Bowl that night. Yeah. So like it's well documented, maybe a little dated today, but talking
03:54about the bravado, the confidence of the Canes of the mid 80s, the late 80s and stuff. But bluntly,
04:00we hadn't established ourselves in 1983. And we were massively the underdog to even debated if we
04:08were worthy to be considered a national championship team. So to be playing kind of the team that was
04:13documented as the best, the best team ever. And maybe it's because you didn't have cell phones
04:20and technology and social media and all that. And maybe we're just young and dumb, but we a hundred
04:25percent just solely believed that we were the better team and they were coming to our house.
04:31And there's nothing like the old Orange Bowl. And I'm glad you brought that up because I finally
04:37made it to the Orange Bowl in 2001. And I said to myself, as soon as I saw it, I saw so many big
04:42games here, obviously Miami fan or Miami Dolphins fan or Superbowl has played there. What was it
04:47like at the Orange Bowl when that place was rocking on a Saturday night? Okay, nothing is like the
04:52Orange Bowl on a Saturday night for sure. But Coach Schnellenberger back then, we believed in
05:00the heat. So we practiced every day at 12 o'clock. He wanted the games. He wanted the games at 12
05:07o'clock. But when we started really playing good and we started getting kicked up to the national
05:12games. And I know today it's kind of cool to see we're doing an awesome show right now on screen
05:17and stuff. But TV wasn't big back then. So to be kicked up to a primetime game, when that really
05:22happened, that was magical in terms of the electricity. And you still see me getting
05:28elevated as an old man here. But the metal bleachers and the raucousness of it and the banging
05:36and the way it would literally shake. It was massively intimidating and still really
05:42inspiring to think about. I used to get a kick out of it, Bernie, because when I would go to games
05:46there, even into the 2000s, there was no video play board. It was very old school. It was rickety
05:50at that point, but it was your Orange Bowl at that point, which is certainly a big legacy for
05:54University of Miami. Now, you were a national champion. You move on to the NFL, but I do want
05:57to talk about this as well. The way you got to the NFL, a lot different than people used to get to
06:02the NFL. How did you make it to the Cleveland Browns? So if you go back into the late 70s,
06:09I love where I'm from in Northeastern Ohio, but it's almost like today. The manufacturing jobs
06:16of the 1950s and 1960s was spectacular. We've had some really good periods sometimes in the early
06:232000s here, but now manufacturing really dissipated in the early, late 70s there.
06:32So being able to provide for your family, the uncertainty and issues within your house
06:40really resonated as a young kid. So bluntly, I didn't want to leave University of Miami. The
06:47team was loaded, rocking and loaded, and talent was incredible back then. With the guys that,
06:54Michael Irvin and stuff, who I got awesome, got the Super Bowl with in 1993. When we won the
06:59national championship in 1983, he didn't even get on the field. We were that good with Eddie Brown
07:04and stuff like that. So I really wanted to come back there, but now we're three or four years
07:10into the mills being closed. I'd love to sit here today and tell you how intelligent and affluent
07:16and successful me and my family has been through generations, but really we're lower demographic
07:22steelworkers. We're hourly workers. And if the mills are open, we're okay. And if the mills aren't,
07:27we're not okay. So now the mills have been closed for three or four years. School came easy to me.
07:34So I was able to do math, the finance economics major in my head. And I was really trying to get
07:39into my master's, but it was a way to get into the NFL and really come up with an excuse to really
07:46supplement my family. My younger brother and sister needed to go to college, my parents and
07:52the house and that. So it was kind of wanting to go home and kind of have like our dad's safe face.
07:58Absolutely.
07:59Because it's still, your dad's want to take care of you.
08:02Now I could talk to you, Bernie, for an hour, Miami Cleveland legend, but I know you're here
08:06for bigger reasons as well. Tell us a little about what you're doing right now with your life and how
08:09you're going on.
08:10Well, thanks. You know, I really, as a man, you know, 61 years old, you want to sit here and be
08:16cool and talk about how everything's perfect. I have no anxiety. I have no, no issues. I,
08:23the top best point physically, cognitively of my life. That completely would be my Pinocchio nose.
08:31We keep growing even more than possible. So, you know, as a guy who's here, I'm talking about
08:36mental health and mental awareness. You know, I've had 60 surgeries, 80 broken bones, a hundred
08:42concussions, 14 seizures. The last couple of seizures in a coma for 72 and 96 hours. So to
08:49have been retired in 97 and start those surgeries and to really bluntly be medicated on North of
08:5580 to a hundred pills a day and to have had a seizure and to come out of it in 2017 and for
09:02the doctors to say, you're a tough guy. You're doing great. Keep up with your prescriptions and
09:06protocols. I'm like, that's going to kill me. So I haven't done a pill or drank in seven years.
09:11And for a guy that was told seven years ago that you have five years left to cognitive brain
09:16function. I couldn't say cognitive. I couldn't enunciate, articulate, communicate multiple
09:21syllable words. So now it's not sitting here to brag, but so many of my friends now, I love my
09:28number 19. Yeah. Love my number 20 in college, but 19 people a day will commit suicide in the state
09:34of Ohio. We had a bad seven out of 10 pills now are laced with fentanyl in the state of Ohio. We
09:42have epidemic issues with the fentanyl overdose issues. I could have, should have been either one
09:49of those two statistics. I've lost so many of my friends, the great Junior Seau, Dave Durris, and
09:56just this past year, Bob Dahl, one of my old offensive linemen committed suicide. So it's a
10:03taboo subjects. Don't none of us really want to bring that up. Men, we want to suppress a lot of
10:09our feelings. I wrestle. I try to pretend like I'm cool and extroverted. I'm deep down introverted on
10:14the spectrum. So how do you manage anxiety? How do you get out and cope and be in environments
10:20like this? So without having to be medicated, without having and wanting to be doing it. So now
10:27I kind of work with people and try to help them find healthy habits for some of the healthy things
10:33that unhealthy things that could be around us. Well, Bernie, you look great. You've had a great
10:38career. You're doing big things now. I appreciate you stopping by the set. Big game here in New
10:42Orleans, Super Bowl 59. Donnie Wright's out. Bernie Kosar, legend Bernie Kosar. Thanks for joining us.
10:47Thank you. You matter.