Jerry Rice: The Football Guy Before The Football Guy

On today’s Pardon My Take, Jerry Rice joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter to talk about his hall-of-fame career, his ridiculous training habits, and laying out the hypothetical situation if fantasy football was more popular during the time he played.

Every week, we have been highlighting some of the biggest “Football Guys” around the country. Whether it is something outrageous, cool, funny, or crazy, we put the spotlight on players, coaches, and fans, who go out of their way to show their dedication to the sport every week. But after listening to Jerry Rice’s interview, it’s important to knowledge some of the Football Guy actions he took to ensure he would be the GOAT wide receiver. Let’s see what he’s got:

The time Jerry Rice played with a torn ACL

Mr. Cat: 1997. You tear your ACL Week 1. You played Week 16! How?

Jerry Rice: That was stupid.

Mr. Cat: This is before ACL surgeries have become what they are today and guys’ timelines is only 9-12 months. You played in the same season when you tore your ACL. How did you do that?

Jerry Rice: The reason why I played is because they were going to retire Joe Montana’s jersey on that night and I wanted to be a part of that. Out of respect to him. I rehabbed like crazy and everything was working properly, I was being explosive, I could do everything. But when you have an injury like that, the knee doesn’t heal completely. There was no way I should have played in that game, but I played in it and I was right back in surgery the next day, because I cracked my patella.

Alrighty then. This is definitely one way to respect Joe Montana, although I’m sure Mr. Montana would have told Mr. Rice to hold off on this one. Clearly, he didn’t. But respect is respect.

Catching Bricks

Mr. Cat: Everyone knows about the bricks. So, you would catch bricks. Your dad was a bricklayer and throw you bricks when you were a kid. 

Jerry Rice: No, I had a brother that would throw me bricks. I would be up on the scaffold that was about 20 feet in the air. And I would snatch them out of the air. And there’s this myth that me catching bricks helped me catch footballs, but it’s totally different. To catch a football, you got to be able to catch the ball with your hands and you got to be able to give with the ball. With the bricks, if you catch the bricks and you give with the bricks, you're going to come tumbling down. My father taught me about work ethic, you know, loving what you do, and always giving 100 percent. 

I can’t even imagine how much this has to hurt. My god. If you thought catching a football from some of the best quarterbacks ever would leave a mark, sorry, you’ve got nothing on grasping BRICKS with your hands. Sheesh.

Chasing Horses

Mr. Cat: What about chasing Pete the Horse?

Jerry Rice: Pete was my horse. Pete was the fastest horse in the neighborhood, and he had muscles and he was just like, you want some of me? I knew Pete could outrun everybody in the neighborhood and stuff like that. It only took me about two hours to chase Pete down because he was in this big pasture and stuff like that. And he was not the type of horse you could just walk up to and grab. 

Mr. Cat: OK, so this is rural Mississippi, because it’s a very funny saying to be like, Pete was the fastest horse in the neighborhood.

Jerry Rice: It’s like the Kentucky Derby. If Pete was in the Kentucky Derby, he would win.

Mr. Commenter: Did you work your way up to Pete with another horse? 

Jerry Rice: No, no. We had to run the horses down. So that took about 45 minutes to an hour. But the incentive is, if you run a horse down, you get to ride the horse for the rest of the day. But when you release Pete, it’s going to take the same thing the next time you get ready to ride him. That was part of my conditioning.

Mr. Cat: Yeah, right. Training for the NFL by chasing Pete the Horse.

Now, this one is just epic. If Jerry Rice can catch up to a damn HORSE, that probably explains why he can turn on the jets on the 100-yard football field against other humans. A piece of cake, if you ask me.

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