He Wrote the All American Pitch Between NFL Practices | Spencer Paysinger

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Hello, everyone.
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Welcome to Sparkle On.
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I'm Davey Jags, and Sparkle is your happiness, passion, and self-worth.
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Today, we are sitting down with Spencer Pasinger, retired NFL player.
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He was part of the Super Bowl 46 winning team with the New York Giants.
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And now he is a Hollywood filmmaker most widely known for the CW's show All-American, where he co-produced this show.
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And it's loosely based on his life.
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If you know Spencer, and one of the things that I would love for listeners to take away is his unwavering commitment to telling stories around his community.
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So we're definitely going to be diving into that today on the episode.
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So welcome, Spencer.
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Thanks for joining us.
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Thank you for having me.
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Yeah, so I wanted to start in early part of your career, 2011, when you were originally not selected in the NFL draft.
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Can you share what this experience was like and how you overcame that to actually get signed on to the Giants?
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Yeah, that was such an interesting time.
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So you got to go back even before that.
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So I don't get drafted.
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It was, I think, March or April of 2011.
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Literally four months before that, or three months before that, I'm playing in a national championship.
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Oregon's playing against Auburn, and we lose on the last second field goal.
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And if you're a national championship participating team, you think you're gonna have some people going in the draft, more than just one.
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Right.
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Unfortunately, we only have one person from our team drafted that year, which is like kind of mind boggling.
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So we knew the NFL lockout was happening like as the as the NFL draft was going on.
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And but during the draft that kind of like opens the floodgates for just that those two to three days.
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So I'm getting calls from teams.
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I got called from maybe three or four teams.
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I'm like, hey, like you're on our board.
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We might take you, no guarantees, but obviously like none of that happened.
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Now what usually happens is after the NFL draft, like the last pick goes in,
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scouts from all teams are calling you to sign you to a rookie contract for you to come and just try out for the team.
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That just didn't happen during that time.
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So it went from talking to these various teams through the two to three days of the draft to like radio silence for four months.
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Now, you know, I'm back in Los Angeles.
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I'm living at my grandparents' house on like a twin bed, training people, like high school athletes, just to make money, just to like...
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you know, be an adult in this world, not knowing if I was going to make it to the league or did I play my last on a football?
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So during that time, it was a lot of some bouts of depression, some bouts of just like, like what's going on.
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I had foregoed a job opportunity up in the Pacific Northwest to get into a management company, a company's management program to be fast tracked into a management position.
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And,
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And I was like, I told them, no, it would have been, I think, 80K a year coming out of college in 2010, 2011, which was like pretty good.
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I told them, no, I want to come back from my senior year.
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I want to, you know, play this last year with my guys.
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Fast forward a year.
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I'm just like sleeping on a twin bed in my grandparents' house like, oh, man, you know, what's going on?
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And it was interesting during that time.
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I ended up researching like all 32 teams of kind of like what they needed from a linebacker, what they needed on defense, what were their strengths and weaknesses.
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And I actually found there was about four or five teams that could use a linebacker of my expertise.
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So a little bit taller, X receiver.
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can guard tight ends and running backs out of the backfield and whatnot.
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And it came down to like two or I think three to five teams that if they called, I was like, oh, this is a good position for me to go to, a good place to go to.
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Fortunately for me, the Giants called.
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And the Giants were like one of the top two teams on my list that I thought, oh, this could work for me.
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And during that time, it was weird because you just didn't really know what your future was.
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You didn't really know.
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You come from such a structured environment where I went to the University of Oregon.
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You're on clock from 6.30 in the morning to like 7.30 at night every single day, it feels like.
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Meeting, school, practice, back to meetings, X, Y, Z.
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going from that to just being in the wind in Los Angeles, like having to make your schedule and having to like do your own workout plans and all that type of stuff.
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Like,
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it really threw me for a loop because I had grown up and grown into an adult always being around, you know, at minimum 60 guys in a weight room, in a locker room, on the field.
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And now I'm just a single entity out in the world.
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So it was definitely like a rocky time.
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But I just lean on to my friends from Los Angeles.
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Like a lot of my high school friends, we connected.
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You know, my wife who I went to high school with, that was the time when I started like courting her.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, her and some of my other best friends, like, really got me through that, like, four-month period.
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And it kind of goes back to, you know, again, that community.
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And so when you were going through this transition, you know, life is uncertain.
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What were you telling yourself when it was crystal clear that things were uncertain?
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Just that, for me, it was...
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You know who you are.
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You know what you can provide to a team.
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Right.
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You know that you had this great college career.
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You were on a national championship participating team.
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And it's always weird saying national championship participating team.
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But like you're not somebody that is just allowing life to happen to you.
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You know, there's been a lot of different pivots in my life that I've had to sort of
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take care of, had to handle, had to address full on.
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And it all came from the mindset of I can go this way or I can go that way.
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And I think up to that point, the life choices that I made had me on the right path.
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So it was just telling myself at that time, like, hey, this is one of those moments for you that you want to look back on in five, 10, 15 years and go, this is another pivotal moment in your life.
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Which way are you going to take?
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Are you going to like,
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you know, go to the club every night and drink and smoke and do all that stuff and party and act like you're like invincible?
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Or are you going to like find some balance in yourself of knowing if you do get a call from a team, you will be ready to then go and compete for a job.
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And, you know, you've talked about you're always an artist, which a lot of times in athlete culture, um,
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harnessing that craft and that creative process is really difficult to do.
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Did you pursue your passion for writing and filmmaking while you were a professional athlete?
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Well, actually, I found it while I was a professional athlete.
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That was something.
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So writing, writing in general, the process of writing, the process of
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opening up final draft, looking at that blank page, having a story in your head, and just putting it down, that all came about when I was in the NFL.
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Now, growing up, again, I was an artist growing up.
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I would draw and paint, and I was the kid that would print out Dragon Ball Z pictures, put them in my backpack, and trade them cards with my friends, and then...
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Me and my friends in sixth, seventh, eighth grade, we're trading pictures with each other because we all said, let's get our work done fast so then we can start drawing these pictures in class.
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I was always that person that was touching the canvas, grabbing the pencils, grabbing the charcoal, making something out of nothing.
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And movies and even TV shows were something that...
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I just did.
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Like, as a kid, you just watch.
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You know, I remember watching, like, the most random movies growing up.
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Like, I could recite every word to Grease.
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Like, why is a black kid from South Central?
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Like, Rocky Horror Picture Show or, like, First Wives Club or, like... And it was because my... You know, it was something really cool in my family occurred that...
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Only a few years ago, I really understood this, but my dad and his two, his three, two of his three brothers were football coaches in general, sports, basketball, baseball, football.
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Like they pretty much coached me from pretty much birth through high school.
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The one...
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My one uncle that didn't necessarily identify as a football coach or the sports guy, he enjoyed movies.
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So he's the guy that would take me to the movies every single weekend.
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That weird, awkward age where you're kind of too young to run the streets with your friends, but you feel like you're too old to be at the house with your parents on the weekend.
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My uncle was like, yo, let's go to the movies.
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So we were seeing stuff that I probably shouldn't have seen at 11, 12, 13 years old.
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But I think early on, if you had to whittle down where this sort of,
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you know, idea that I could become a writer or I could become a producer, it starts with him because he had me in the movies.
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He had me like dissecting stories at a young age or would call me up and say, hey, I just watched this movie.
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Go see it and let's talk about it.
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So when I got to the NFL, that actually became a therapy of mine.
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It was something that during those first couple years, the first couple weeks actually in fall camp,
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My mind was just beat to shit.
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Sorry, I don't know if I can curse you.
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Yeah, of course.
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But, you know, you're learning.
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I'm on the East Coast.
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I don't know anybody on the East Coast.
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I've never been to New York before.
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I'm there battling for a position against other players that came from schools that all these coaches understand and came from themselves.
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And I'm just kind of outlier.
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from Oregon.
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And I just went to the movies.
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Like those first couple off days, I was like, I don't want to see nobody.
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I don't want to hear nothing about no football.
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I want to go sit in a dark theater with my popcorn, with my water and just like get lost, you know?
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Yeah.
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And I kept that up for seven years, every Tuesday, every NFL off day, I would see a new movie.
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Didn't matter.
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Runtime title, like everything.
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genre, anything.
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I just, I had to go sit in a movie theater.
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About two or three, two or three years into it, I was just like, oh, I think I might be able to like write some of the stuff I'm seeing because I found that I was breaking sort of story structure down in my head before I knew what it really was.
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Right.
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So, oh, this is the end of act one.
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Oh, now he's in this new world.
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Oh, now she's at in the pits.
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Oh, she's about to learn something new and she's going to have the big battle at the end.
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So it just started with me like reading books on story structure, downloading Final Draft because I think Final Draft on my iPad was like $8, but Final Draft on my computer was like $180.
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Yep.
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I'm in the NFL, but I'm like, I'm going to take the $8 option.
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So the first like, I think the first couple ideas I wrote was just me just tinkering on my iPad, but it quickly became a hobby that just consumed.
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Like if I wasn't on the field, if I wasn't at the facility, I was just at home just trying to figure out like.
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What's the best way to convey an emotion or a thought, an idea through just the art of screenwriting, the structure of screenwriting?
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And it's so interesting and why I really latch on to your career story is because, you know, when I was an athlete, by the way, never near the level that you were at.
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So let's just make that very clear.
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Don't sell yourself short.
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It's okay.
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We can.
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But I had a really dark struggle with my entire identity was my sport.
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And Sparkle was actually born out of kind of realizing that I
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I couldn't have only one identity.
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And so Sparkle is all about embracing your various identities.
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But I was born out of a really dark, dark period.
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And Friday Night Lights is actually the movie that, like, kind of woke me up.
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It was like, oh, shit, this ends.
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And it's like, yes, we all know it ends.
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But what does it look like when it ends?
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It looks like that movie.
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Yeah.
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heartbreak.
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But you never really subscribed to that kind of culture where football was everything.
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And you even said that you wanted to be out by 30.
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So do you think movies was kind of the way that led you to that next chapter?
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Or was it a combination of things?
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I think movies and even the idea of a show like All-American in its infancy, it made it tangible.
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I had this really lofty goal coming into the NFL at 21, 22 years old that I'm undrafted.
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I'm mainly a core four special teams guy.
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I make the team and I tell myself, if I can play until I'm 30, I want to walk away.
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It doesn't matter if I'm top of the league in my position, bottom of the barrel, or just kind of scraping to get by.
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I'm going to walk away from this game at 30 because...
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it kind of started with even my parents.
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We were the sports family.
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I was at my local park, Van Ness Park, from 8 a.m., 7 a.m. to like 5 p.m. because my mom ran the concession stand, my dad coached three teams there, and me and my two brothers were there for my little brother's game at 7 a.m., were there for my game at 1 p.m., were there for my brother's game at 3 p.m.
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So we just grew up in that.
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But one thing I'd always credit my parents with, and even my family in general was like,
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We were never the family that was like, you have to do this one thing.
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I was like, I was part of the math club.
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I was part of the science club.
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I've been, I've done all those things, even like I said, with art.
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So anytime I had interest in something, my parents were like, okay, go explore.
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It was never, you can't do this because you're the athlete.
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Right.
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So I was fortunate enough to be in a family, again, full of football coaches, of baseball coaches.
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My dad coached at the collegiate level.
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And my uncles, they're responsible for getting, I mean, hundreds of kids into college just by how they were able to guide them through high school.
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Right.
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And-
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That all being said, they just never allowed me to just go, I'm just an athlete.
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It was, what else do you want to do?
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And I give credit to the first mentor that I had outside of my family, James Harris, was he was an nutritionist at the University of Oregon.
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And he saw something in me.
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He was just like, hey, I see you're like looking at things differently.
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You're an econ major.
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You carry yourself well.
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Like, I'm going to plug you into the community of Eugene, Oregon.
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And you're going to meet businessmen, businessmen and women.
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You're going to grab coffees.
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You're going to grab lunches.
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You're doing all that.
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And it really struck up this just really cool like mentee mentor relationship to where he just taught me how to see the world and how...
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Me being an athlete for the University of Oregon has a certain power to it that I can get into rooms that other people couldn't.
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So he taught me how to code email people.
211
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He taught me how to code call people.
212
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He taught me how to request to grab that lunch or that coffee with that business person that's probably too busy to do it.
213
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And I just carried that in through the NFL.
214
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For me, I was an econ major.
215
00:14:58.670 --> 00:15:01.812
So I thought, I legit thought I was going to have the power tie.
216
00:15:01.832 --> 00:15:03.132
I was going to be on Wall Street.
217
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I was like going to broker the deals and all that.
218
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And even those first couple of years with the Giants, I was doing those things.
219
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I was doing the internships and the job shadowing experiences in that world.
220
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Screenwriting was something that,
221
00:15:16.390 --> 00:15:18.532
really just kind of took over on its own.
222
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Like, again, it was the hobby that kept getting louder and louder, but I attribute that to, to me going, I'm interested in something.
223
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Right.
224
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Let me explore it.
225
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I don't have to be interested in something in spite of me being an athlete or a pro player.
226
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It's just kind of all goes in the same pot for me.
227
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Like,
228
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When I walk away from the facility, I'm just a regular person in the world.
229
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I'm not Spencer Pasinger linebacker for the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins.
230
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I'm just Spencer Pasinger.
231
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So it's going and seeing moonlight and coming back to the locker room and telling the guys, like, yo, I got to go see it.
232
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You're not going to like a couple scenes, but you got to go see it because of this and this and that.
233
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Or, you know, being on Wall Street and bringing that knowledge back to the locker room.
234
00:15:56.475 --> 00:16:01.818
So, yeah, I just never subscribed to the idea that if I'm an athlete, I cannot be anything else.
235
00:16:02.639 --> 00:16:02.839
Yeah.
236
00:16:03.419 --> 00:16:05.280
Moonlight is a fabulous film.
237
00:16:05.300 --> 00:16:06.201
It's a fabulous film.
238
00:16:06.321 --> 00:16:06.721
Amazing.
239
00:16:08.722 --> 00:16:24.130
Well, you know what's also interesting is even when you were talking about this mentor relationship that you had in college and even when you were pitching teams of how you could contribute on special teams, it's like that's Hollywood on the business side of it.
240
00:16:24.703 --> 00:16:25.424
Oh, 100%.
241
00:16:25.604 --> 00:16:27.025
Yeah.
242
00:16:27.305 --> 00:16:34.091
I mean, the reason why I made the Giants roster is because I pitched myself in such a way.
243
00:16:34.231 --> 00:16:36.273
You know, we're two weeks into fall camp.
244
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Again, I'm this lowly rookie that is from 3,000 miles away.
245
00:16:41.017 --> 00:16:41.157
And...
246
00:16:42.402 --> 00:16:52.026
If you're one of those undrafted guys, those teams really only pick the majority of those rookies to come in from the local area, schools.
247
00:16:52.526 --> 00:16:56.227
So the Giants had a large influence on like Boston College.
248
00:16:58.528 --> 00:17:00.189
Pitt, University of Pittsburgh.
249
00:17:00.309 --> 00:17:04.992
And, you know, those type of schools around there, they're not really looking at University of Oregon.
250
00:17:05.092 --> 00:17:05.292
Right.
251
00:17:05.572 --> 00:17:07.533
So we're two weeks into fall camp.
252
00:17:08.113 --> 00:17:16.978
And again, under Chip Kelly at University of Oregon, if you were a starter on offensive defense, you had to start two special teams.
253
00:17:17.398 --> 00:17:18.919
He was just creating well-rounded players.
254
00:17:19.659 --> 00:17:23.021
So we're two weeks into fall camp, and I see our special teams coach
255
00:17:23.661 --> 00:17:26.503
just yelling at the veterans to like do these drills right.
256
00:17:26.643 --> 00:17:29.424
And I'm looking, I'm holding bags and stuff, kind of being the dummy of it all.
257
00:17:30.045 --> 00:17:32.026
And I'm like, oh, I can do these drills in my sleep.
258
00:17:32.446 --> 00:17:36.709
Like I was a three year starter at Oregon in these same drills.
259
00:17:36.889 --> 00:17:37.870
I mean, in these same positions.
260
00:17:38.550 --> 00:17:45.234
So one day after camp broke, I walked over to the special teams coach office and I was like, hey coach, like,
261
00:17:46.399 --> 00:17:51.101
I don't know what I do with this information, what you want, but like I was a three-year starter at Oregon for special teams.
262
00:17:51.121 --> 00:17:56.624
Like I can do all these things that you're like killing these guys to just do right or take half seriously.
263
00:17:57.244 --> 00:17:58.725
So he saw, he was like, okay, I'll give you a shot.
264
00:17:59.085 --> 00:18:04.107
And that next practice, I was running with the ones on special teams on all the core four and never looked back.
265
00:18:04.687 --> 00:18:06.168
And he even said it.
266
00:18:06.188 --> 00:18:10.090
He was like, yo, you probably, if you didn't come talk to me and like, tell me like who you were and like what you could do.
267
00:18:10.150 --> 00:18:12.891
I went back, he went back and watched film with me as, as a special teamer.
268
00:18:12.911 --> 00:18:14.172
He was like, I'm like,
269
00:18:14.853 --> 00:18:15.634
yeah, this makes sense.
270
00:18:15.674 --> 00:18:19.258
Like you should be up here with us running with the ones because you know how to do this stuff.
271
00:18:19.278 --> 00:18:28.490
So if I didn't have that intuition to go and talk to him and say, hey, I can do all the things that you're looking for, I probably would have a different history at this point.
272
00:18:29.228 --> 00:18:45.186
I want to go into this a little bit more because I think, you know, it's easy for people who don't know you or just in general, right, to look at someone who's, oh, in the NFL, they got everything they wanted because they were in the NFL or, oh, they went to this school, they got everything.
273
00:18:45.226 --> 00:18:46.968
But there's a type of spark.
274
00:18:47.588 --> 00:18:52.935
in certain people that talking really does open the doors that you want to open.
275
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And I think especially now with young kids, whether they're young athletes or young students,
276
00:19:00.973 --> 00:19:06.055
they're not always taught what it means to just ask or pitch themselves.
277
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And I'm lucky enough where I am that type of person.
278
00:19:09.116 --> 00:19:12.678
I mean, how I got myself, I had not the greatest grades.
279
00:19:12.838 --> 00:19:18.941
I was a solid runner that could get to D1, but like I wasn't, you know, I didn't have people coming to my house.
280
00:19:18.961 --> 00:19:19.261
Mm-hmm.
281
00:19:19.781 --> 00:19:25.828
But I would sit in my guidance counselor's office and just start writing pitch letters.
282
00:19:26.469 --> 00:19:32.776
And then that was the same concept I took to when I was pitching articles for magazines and so on and so forth.
283
00:19:33.437 --> 00:19:37.021
And pitching in a way is still a learned skill.
284
00:19:37.041 --> 00:19:37.141
Yeah.
285
00:19:37.222 --> 00:19:37.402
Yeah.
286
00:19:37.963 --> 00:19:42.529
Um, but with someone who has a shyness, right.
287
00:19:42.549 --> 00:19:45.173
It doesn't mean they don't have this spark and this ambition.
288
00:19:46.194 --> 00:19:51.181
How would you suggest that they like exercise that muscle?
289
00:19:51.402 --> 00:19:51.602
Yeah.
290
00:19:52.745 --> 00:19:57.186
I think it starts with you have to have a bit of self-awareness.
291
00:19:57.927 --> 00:20:12.671
I think for me, the things that I've been able to do and the paths I've been able to take, it all started with kind of seeing a play to be made and understanding if I am or am not the person to make set play.
292
00:20:13.432 --> 00:20:19.614
So for me, at a very young age, I always felt like my superpower was the ability to have self-awareness.
293
00:20:20.314 --> 00:20:20.834
Like you said, like,
294
00:20:22.188 --> 00:20:32.856
I was not the biggest, the fastest, the strongest, the smartest player, but I knew that if you give me the playbook, you teach me the playbook, you put me on the field and learn the playbook.
295
00:20:33.416 --> 00:20:36.878
When you put me on the field for the game, you will not have to worry about me.
296
00:20:37.419 --> 00:20:41.301
You can worry about the other X amount of players on the team, on the field, whatnot.
297
00:20:41.542 --> 00:20:41.682
Yeah.
298
00:20:43.636 --> 00:20:48.760
I always saw myself as somebody that the coaches never had to worry about.
299
00:20:48.780 --> 00:20:51.482
And when I'm pitching myself, I'm pitching just that.
300
00:20:51.502 --> 00:20:56.385
You know, the fact that I've been able to land at, I landed at two different destinations through free agency.
301
00:20:56.986 --> 00:20:59.688
It was pitching them myself and having my, my,
302
00:21:00.288 --> 00:21:04.491
my agents at the time pitched them as like, this is a guy you will not have to worry about.
303
00:21:04.511 --> 00:21:05.792
He will not be an issue in the locker room.
304
00:21:05.832 --> 00:21:07.313
He will not be an issue in your city.
305
00:21:07.673 --> 00:21:08.453
He will come to work.
306
00:21:08.473 --> 00:21:09.534
He will never miss a meeting.
307
00:21:09.854 --> 00:21:10.895
He'll be part of the team.
308
00:21:11.175 --> 00:21:11.975
He'll make tackles.
309
00:21:11.995 --> 00:21:13.176
He'll do the things you want him to do.
310
00:21:13.637 --> 00:21:17.039
But it came from just knowing who I was, knowing what I can offer.
311
00:21:17.079 --> 00:21:22.482
And if you're the shy person, lean into your perspective of being a shy person.
312
00:21:22.742 --> 00:21:23.543
If you're timid, if you're...
313
00:21:25.584 --> 00:21:28.646
sometimes overpowering, like you can turn all those things to strengths.
314
00:21:28.666 --> 00:21:30.307
And that, I mean, that's what pitching is.
315
00:21:30.347 --> 00:21:31.447
You're literally just pitching.
316
00:21:32.268 --> 00:21:40.312
You're, you're, you're turning the best and worst of you into a version that a company or a production company or whatever, an entity needs.
317
00:21:40.613 --> 00:21:47.757
So it's really just comes back to like, if you don't know who you are, like, how can you pitch yourself to somebody or to, or to something?
318
00:21:48.747 --> 00:21:57.293
And it's also just about embracing who you are in the sense that like I always say like my biggest strength is my passion.
319
00:21:57.493 --> 00:22:03.698
But it's also my biggest weakness because I can form such a tunnel vision that I don't see the world around me.
320
00:22:04.078 --> 00:22:11.263
And it's like, well, how can you have something come to fruition if you don't use what's around you, the people around you, listening to stories around you?
321
00:22:11.924 --> 00:22:15.426
Doesn't mean passion is not good, but it can be lethal too.
322
00:22:16.507 --> 00:22:17.948
Yeah, I mean, because like you want to do everything.
323
00:22:18.148 --> 00:22:18.728
Yeah.
324
00:22:18.768 --> 00:22:25.732
I think, and that's why we've had our friendship of like, I see somebody in you like, you're somebody that thinks you can do everything.
325
00:22:25.972 --> 00:22:26.833
You want to do everything.
326
00:22:26.873 --> 00:22:32.616
And my perspective is, it's not a matter if I think I can or cannot do something.
327
00:22:33.316 --> 00:22:36.478
It's more of a conversation with myself of if I want to do it or not.
328
00:22:37.138 --> 00:22:40.561
So it's like, if I want to go fly a plane, I'll go learn how to fly a plane.
329
00:22:40.641 --> 00:22:41.681
I want to bungee jump.
330
00:22:41.801 --> 00:22:43.142
I will learn how to bungee jump.
331
00:22:43.162 --> 00:22:46.605
So it's like, I don't think anything's ever like too daunting.
332
00:22:46.785 --> 00:22:50.347
It's just a matter of one, do I have the capacity to learn how to do it?
333
00:22:50.787 --> 00:22:53.229
And then two, like, do I actually want to do it or not?
334
00:22:53.269 --> 00:22:56.991
But I don't think there's any, I don't think I put any limits on myself.
335
00:22:57.292 --> 00:23:00.374
Like I also tell myself, like, I'm not in the business of telling myself no.
336
00:23:01.405 --> 00:23:02.486
I'll let the business do that.
337
00:23:02.586 --> 00:23:09.852
If I have a good idea that I think should be a movie or a TV show or not, if I think it's a good idea and I'm getting 200 no's, I'm like, all right, maybe we'll change some things.
338
00:23:10.413 --> 00:23:15.137
But it's not a matter of like they're telling me no, so I'm just not going to do any type of this concept.
339
00:23:15.237 --> 00:23:22.123
It's just a matter of figuring out which way or how I want to construct it to get that yes or to just do it on myself.
340
00:23:22.323 --> 00:23:23.164
I mean, do it by myself.
341
00:23:24.212 --> 00:23:32.345
So speaking of pitching and putting yourself out there, you know, All American has a lot that's based on your real life.
342
00:23:32.966 --> 00:23:33.928
How did you pitch the show?
343
00:23:34.809 --> 00:23:35.250
Oh, man.
344
00:23:36.171 --> 00:23:37.273
It seems so long ago now.
345
00:23:37.293 --> 00:23:38.014
Yeah.
346
00:23:39.383 --> 00:23:44.426
It was this weird experience where I didn't know how important the meetings...
347
00:23:45.587 --> 00:23:50.431
I didn't understand the magnitude of the meetings I was having until maybe years later.
348
00:23:50.451 --> 00:23:51.852
Wow.
349
00:23:51.872 --> 00:23:55.934
And it started with a now good friend of mine, producing partner.
350
00:23:55.994 --> 00:23:56.875
His name is Dane Mork.
351
00:23:56.915 --> 00:23:58.016
He was the first idea that...
352
00:23:58.696 --> 00:24:00.557
that became All-American.
353
00:24:00.577 --> 00:24:03.918
And that just came from bi-week, year six.
354
00:24:04.678 --> 00:24:07.579
I'm at his apartment with our mutual friend on the West Side.
355
00:24:08.339 --> 00:24:11.900
And we're just talking about growing up in Los Angeles, football culture.
356
00:24:11.940 --> 00:24:13.801
You understand names from different high schools.
357
00:24:14.781 --> 00:24:15.821
Doing the different eras.
358
00:24:16.702 --> 00:24:22.483
And it was just weird because we were talking about Los Angeles and we were both speaking to the love we have for Los Angeles.
359
00:24:22.523 --> 00:24:29.024
But when you ask us our specific POV of Los Angeles, I'm a black kid from South Central.
360
00:24:29.124 --> 00:24:30.405
He's a white kid from Palos Verdes.
361
00:24:30.425 --> 00:24:35.146
Those are two completely different like universes that are only separated by like 10 miles, you know?
362
00:24:35.626 --> 00:24:39.887
But when you're in Los Angeles, you just, you rep it to the fullest because you're from Los Angeles.
363
00:24:40.027 --> 00:24:40.147
Right.
364
00:24:40.167 --> 00:24:40.287
Right.
365
00:24:40.787 --> 00:24:42.688
So I went back to playing that year.
366
00:24:43.409 --> 00:24:44.729
He called me a couple of weeks later.
367
00:24:44.789 --> 00:24:49.092
I was like, hey, a concept that I was that I was pitching is dead in the water.
368
00:24:49.132 --> 00:24:54.055
But for some reason, something told me to just pitch them the idea that like, hey, I have this friend.
369
00:24:54.575 --> 00:24:55.315
He's an NFL player.
370
00:24:55.335 --> 00:24:56.176
He's won a Super Bowl.
371
00:24:56.216 --> 00:24:57.377
He's teaching himself how to screenwrite.
372
00:24:57.797 --> 00:25:01.179
And he went from South Central to Beverly Hills every morning to go to school.
373
00:25:02.398 --> 00:25:06.840
That producer who became, he was Greg Berlanti, he was like, hey, there might be something here.
374
00:25:06.860 --> 00:25:08.000
Like, can he write us something?
375
00:25:08.180 --> 00:25:16.104
Just anything to encapsulate what that experience was, being a black kid from South Central, going to a predominantly white school at Bellevue Hills High.
376
00:25:17.024 --> 00:25:18.164
So he called me.
377
00:25:18.405 --> 00:25:21.066
I was studying against the Buccaneers at this point.
378
00:25:22.026 --> 00:25:26.990
I put my playbook aside, took out my computer and like just wrote literally like a two paragraph thing.
379
00:25:27.491 --> 00:25:35.337
But mind you, I'm three year, four years into like learning how to write in story structure and kind of take you on the ebbs and flows.
380
00:25:35.357 --> 00:25:45.905
So within that two paragraphs, I took you to the highs, but I brought you down low and kind of left this lingering idea of you want to see something like this on TV.
381
00:25:45.945 --> 00:25:46.065
Yeah.
382
00:25:46.886 --> 00:25:48.467
That was enough for them to have a meeting with me.
383
00:25:48.487 --> 00:25:54.431
I think it was like the second week of 2017, I want to say, like mid-January.
384
00:25:54.971 --> 00:25:57.433
That one meeting, it was like fireside chat.
385
00:25:57.533 --> 00:26:06.979
I was sitting down with some of the producers and just telling them like, oh, you know, one of my good friends in high school like OD'd on heroin and like went away for six months and came back like nothing happened.
386
00:26:07.840 --> 00:26:15.465
Oh, you know, one of my, you know, one of my cousins like was involved heavily in gang life and I'm just kind of there in the middle, you know?
387
00:26:16.463 --> 00:26:17.244
That was enough for them.
388
00:26:17.304 --> 00:26:21.927
Like two weeks later, they called and reached out to my sports agent because I didn't have an entertainment agent at the time.
389
00:26:22.367 --> 00:26:23.788
They're like, hey, we think this could be a TV show.
390
00:26:23.808 --> 00:26:25.469
Like, can we go into contract negotiations?
391
00:26:25.489 --> 00:26:33.494
So for that last year I was playing, I was developing the series while still being like a active player in the NFL.
392
00:26:34.055 --> 00:26:38.838
And when we pitched the series, I know it's kind of like a roundabout way of getting there, but...
393
00:26:42.070 --> 00:26:49.473
I think the reason why All-American work, especially in its infancy, is we pitch the series through a universal truth of being an outsider.
394
00:26:49.493 --> 00:26:49.973
Right.
395
00:26:50.093 --> 00:27:02.099
You know, the advice that I would give to anybody out there wanting to create a TV series or a movie or whatnot is when you're pitching it, find that universal truth that anybody in the room, no matter race or race.
396
00:27:02.659 --> 00:27:04.260
culture or creed can understand.
397
00:27:04.981 --> 00:27:12.347
And for the majority of the pitches, you know, I'm kind of sad like, cause I'm literally in New York playing for the Jets at the time when we were going through all the pitches.
398
00:27:12.367 --> 00:27:17.211
So I'm like, like through Skype or Zoom or whatever the thing was at that time.
399
00:27:17.952 --> 00:27:22.295
I'm just signing in for the first 10 minutes being like, hey, I'm a real person, bye, I have practice.
400
00:27:23.296 --> 00:27:29.639
But we were pitching the series on the idea of like, it doesn't matter where you're from, how much money you make, like what's your background.
401
00:27:30.279 --> 00:27:33.601
Everybody can understand what it's like being an outsider in a new space.
402
00:27:33.881 --> 00:27:46.727
And I think that's what really, outside like the social issues we were talking about within the show and like a different POV of the Friday Night Lights, 90210, Gossip Girl type structure we were putting it in.
403
00:27:47.468 --> 00:27:50.189
Everybody understood what it meant to be an outsider in a new space.
404
00:27:50.757 --> 00:28:01.444
I mean, that's really good advice because I think part of which makes some of the CW shows so successful is that universal truth, especially with the young teen dramas.
405
00:28:02.044 --> 00:28:07.288
And a lot of teens see themselves in those stories, even if they've never even stepped foot in L.A.
406
00:28:07.790 --> 00:28:07.990
Yeah.
407
00:28:08.370 --> 00:28:08.570
Yeah.
408
00:28:08.830 --> 00:28:17.614
I mean, we were, to be honest too, like when we pitched it, when me and Dane were initially thinking about what this can be, we did not see this as a CW show.
409
00:28:18.014 --> 00:28:24.156
You know, we were like, we're not saying this was like euphoria or something, but I'm 36.
410
00:28:24.376 --> 00:28:35.381
I grew up on Unnecessary Roughness, Any Given Sunday, The Program, like sports, movies, and TV shows that really like playmakers from ESPN back in like, I think 2001, like,
411
00:28:36.561 --> 00:28:42.487
This was a show that, I mean, this was the era of sports TV and film that I grew up in.
412
00:28:42.907 --> 00:28:45.910
It didn't shy away from like a lot of the underbelly that came with the sport.
413
00:28:46.390 --> 00:28:48.512
So that's a version that we really did want to tell.
414
00:28:48.533 --> 00:28:49.013
Right.
415
00:28:49.133 --> 00:28:57.201
But when we started talking through it, especially with, you know, 100% credit to Greg Berlanti and some of the producers that we own on it was, if we did this right...
416
00:28:58.337 --> 00:29:05.960
we could be the next spoke in the will of like generational high school teen dramas that come down the pipeline every seven to 10 years.
417
00:29:06.500 --> 00:29:11.881
You have the gossip girls, the one tree Hills, the 90210s, the Friday night lights at that time.
418
00:29:12.802 --> 00:29:15.483
We didn't really have that show to define that year.
419
00:29:15.503 --> 00:29:21.265
I mean, that era of like 2015, 16 to like 2023, where like high schoolers were like,
420
00:29:23.522 --> 00:29:24.183
They were changing.
421
00:29:24.223 --> 00:29:26.304
Like it was it was George Floyd.
422
00:29:26.364 --> 00:29:27.946
It was it was COVID.
423
00:29:27.986 --> 00:29:29.187
It was all these different things.
424
00:29:29.427 --> 00:29:40.756
And he really sat up Greg sat us down and some of the producers was like, if we do this right, we could be the next generational show that like defines the era of like teen experience, which I think we've accomplished.
425
00:29:41.163 --> 00:29:41.723
I think so, too.
426
00:29:42.043 --> 00:29:43.164
I mean, that's how we got connected.
427
00:29:45.005 --> 00:29:51.328
But it also can't be easy to have some of your real experiences portrayed.
428
00:29:51.388 --> 00:30:00.933
And so I'm kind of curious as what are some of the biggest misconceptions of how people perceive you as real Spencer and the fictional character?
429
00:30:00.953 --> 00:30:02.934
Oh, man, there's so many.
430
00:30:03.954 --> 00:30:05.595
And this was this was interesting.
431
00:30:07.285 --> 00:30:16.350
I started to realize at the end of season one and kind of through season two and stuff that Spencer James is actually changing my history.
432
00:30:17.071 --> 00:30:22.454
So if you're seeing me walking down the street, and again, this rarely ever happens, if any.
433
00:30:23.034 --> 00:30:27.617
But if somebody walks through to me like, oh, my God, you're Spencer from All-American, Spencer James.
434
00:30:27.717 --> 00:30:29.738
I'm like, yeah, Spencer Payson, nice to meet you, whatnot.
435
00:30:30.339 --> 00:30:34.201
They will start peppering me with questions of like, did you get shot?
436
00:30:34.541 --> 00:30:35.101
Did you do it?
437
00:30:35.121 --> 00:30:35.642
And I'm just like...
438
00:30:36.202 --> 00:30:37.224
nah, that's not what happened.
439
00:30:37.424 --> 00:30:39.848
Or like, no, it happened a different way or whatnot.
440
00:30:40.048 --> 00:30:46.579
And I started to realize like, oh, wow, like Spencer James is now becoming like the common knowledge of my own history.
441
00:30:46.619 --> 00:30:48.623
And for a little bit of time, it made me think that
442
00:30:49.568 --> 00:30:51.129
wait, is my own history good enough?
443
00:30:51.589 --> 00:31:00.216
Is my own, is the actual story of how I got to Beverly Hills and how I did these things, like, is that good enough or is it not good enough?
444
00:31:00.276 --> 00:31:03.618
And that's why we have chosen to go, like, this different route for Spencer James' story.
445
00:31:04.359 --> 00:31:08.462
And I've had every emotion that, like, under the sun that that comes with.
446
00:31:09.102 --> 00:31:12.745
You know, talking to, I've talked to, like, middle schools and high schools, and they go,
447
00:31:13.736 --> 00:31:14.656
have you been shot before?
448
00:31:14.676 --> 00:31:15.137
And I'm like, no.
449
00:31:15.157 --> 00:31:16.997
And they're like, oh, I'm like, wait, what?
450
00:31:18.098 --> 00:31:20.739
Like, I think it's a good thing I've never been shot before, guys.
451
00:31:20.899 --> 00:31:21.139
Right.
452
00:31:21.539 --> 00:31:27.201
But I think that some of the common misconceptions is like I never lived in Beverly Hills.
453
00:31:27.461 --> 00:31:32.243
That was something we did for the show just to make the show a little bit more, you know, dramatic teen drama.
454
00:31:32.263 --> 00:31:37.685
Like there's a structure that you play with when you're that teen drama show on a network.
455
00:31:38.005 --> 00:31:40.546
You know, I never actually lived in Beverly Hills.
456
00:31:41.327 --> 00:31:42.007
I always lived.
457
00:31:42.367 --> 00:31:44.648
at my house in South Central and just commuted every morning.
458
00:31:46.168 --> 00:31:47.469
Like my father is not dead.
459
00:31:47.489 --> 00:31:54.091
I know he, he, spoiler alert, but my, you know, my dad is still alive and well, he's remarried.
460
00:31:54.131 --> 00:31:56.452
He's like, you know, talk to him weekly, you know?
461
00:31:58.292 --> 00:32:00.793
So it was, it was for a short period of time.
462
00:32:00.813 --> 00:32:06.395
I was doing, I realized I had to get to the deep work of like,
463
00:32:07.923 --> 00:32:09.104
Why is this affecting me?
464
00:32:09.665 --> 00:32:16.312
You know, why am I getting annoyed that a version of my history is being altered?
465
00:32:18.294 --> 00:32:22.218
And it just came down for me of going, you're a producer on the show.
466
00:32:22.318 --> 00:32:28.524
You're telling your stories to the writers in this room and we're putting it through this machine that then makes it consumable for the masses.
467
00:32:28.544 --> 00:32:28.704
Yeah.
468
00:32:29.899 --> 00:32:30.739
You did your job.
469
00:32:31.079 --> 00:32:33.080
Let them do their job and tell a compelling story.
470
00:32:33.300 --> 00:32:40.401
And I think there was a little bit of ownership that I had to let go.
471
00:32:41.361 --> 00:32:46.002
And you really have to, at that point for me, I had to go, Spencer James is not Spencer Paysinger.
472
00:32:46.263 --> 00:32:46.483
Right.
473
00:32:46.843 --> 00:32:57.425
This is a character that we have created to, I guess, be a beacon for the teen experience of that era.
474
00:32:57.445 --> 00:32:57.585
Right.
475
00:32:58.245 --> 00:33:00.426
You know, I can't tell my story from 20 years ago.
476
00:33:00.446 --> 00:33:01.626
I don't even remember half of it.
477
00:33:02.126 --> 00:33:15.509
So it's like we need to have, we were fortunate to have Spencer James and all the other, you know, amazing characters that we created on the show kind of be beacons for the different perspectives that teens are experiencing or have experienced these past, like I'd say 10 years at this point.
478
00:33:16.009 --> 00:33:16.250
Right.
479
00:33:16.890 --> 00:33:23.171
And how have you actually then found joy in your own narrative?
480
00:33:25.672 --> 00:33:26.112
I think just...
481
00:33:27.358 --> 00:33:35.785
The DMs, the appreciation, the fact that my aunt was in Africa last year and they were raving about All-American.
482
00:33:36.085 --> 00:33:37.887
And I didn't even know we were seating in Africa.
483
00:33:38.227 --> 00:33:47.735
I've been hit up and reached out to from so many different interesting corners of the world that I'm like, wait, how do you guys like this show?
484
00:33:47.755 --> 00:33:48.256
Like what?
485
00:33:48.376 --> 00:33:51.358
So I think there's a lot of appreciation in that.
486
00:33:52.539 --> 00:33:53.941
And again, at the end of the day, like,
487
00:33:54.601 --> 00:33:55.221
I'm a teammate.
488
00:33:55.902 --> 00:33:57.142
I'm the consummate teammate.
489
00:33:57.262 --> 00:33:58.283
It's never about me.
490
00:33:58.823 --> 00:34:00.644
It's all about achieving a common goal.
491
00:34:01.524 --> 00:34:19.252
And coming from sports, being put into this environment where not everybody in a production is keen on making sure everybody's getting their just due or their equal share or fighting for the right stories to tell in the rooms and whatnot.
492
00:34:19.272 --> 00:34:19.472
Yeah.
493
00:34:20.432 --> 00:34:24.274
I'm somebody that it doesn't matter how I'm treated or whatever.
494
00:34:24.374 --> 00:34:30.438
If there's a team goal that needs to be attained, I can be that teammate to help push us there.
495
00:34:31.018 --> 00:34:31.939
I can get the nose.
496
00:34:32.019 --> 00:34:33.300
You can tell me you don't like something.
497
00:34:33.660 --> 00:34:34.920
I can move the soapboxes.
498
00:34:35.481 --> 00:34:44.326
I can be there at 4 a.m. picking up, which actually happened, picking up glitter off the field because we blew a glitter box too soon.
499
00:34:44.646 --> 00:34:47.348
I'm the teammate that just wants to have the best product
500
00:34:48.208 --> 00:34:50.491
on the field, on tape, no matter what.
501
00:34:51.452 --> 00:35:01.624
And that's what I find appreciation for is like nobody on that set, nobody in the writers room or the producers can look at me and go, like he's just mellowing it in.
502
00:35:02.124 --> 00:35:08.752
I find joy in this story because I know I'm doing my part in making sure it's the best story it can be from my POV.
503
00:35:09.402 --> 00:35:10.163
Yeah, I love that.
504
00:35:10.984 --> 00:35:16.211
And you also, you've co-founded a production company called More Street Productions.
505
00:35:16.831 --> 00:35:17.232
Yes.
506
00:35:17.252 --> 00:35:21.657
And that tells stories between the intersections of sports and community.
507
00:35:22.478 --> 00:35:27.004
One of my favorite docs that you did on the unscripted side of your work is BS High.
508
00:35:27.144 --> 00:35:27.365
Yeah.
509
00:35:27.785 --> 00:35:39.715
which tells the story of a fake high school in Ohio, Bishop Sycamore, where they play the esteemed prep school IMG Academy.
510
00:35:40.576 --> 00:35:43.158
Can you tell me why this was an important story for you to tell?
511
00:35:45.153 --> 00:35:52.616
I think the story was important for me because on one hand, when I first heard that this was happening, I didn't see the game.
512
00:35:52.776 --> 00:35:54.677
I was just seeing like, what's going on on Twitter right now?
513
00:35:54.737 --> 00:36:00.380
Something, wait, there's a school that got blown out, but they're saying it's not even a real school.
514
00:36:00.420 --> 00:36:01.400
So how did this happen?
515
00:36:02.281 --> 00:36:09.844
And when the world was pretty much shitting on BS High, Bishop Sycamore, I'm not going to identify them as BS High, Bishop Sycamore.
516
00:36:10.928 --> 00:36:12.129
I was like, there's no way.
517
00:36:12.209 --> 00:36:27.076
Being in those locker rooms on the field, understanding so much has to go right for 50-plus people, the athletes as well as the coaches, to be in on this con, that it just doesn't make sense.
518
00:36:27.516 --> 00:36:35.099
It doesn't make sense that they would have 18, 19, 20, 22-year-olds all willingly being like, we're just going to lie.
519
00:36:36.240 --> 00:36:36.380
Yeah.
520
00:36:37.509 --> 00:36:41.195
So that was the initial reason I was like, nah, I think there's a story here.
521
00:36:41.335 --> 00:36:42.557
Because who's lying to who?
522
00:36:43.078 --> 00:36:45.101
They can't all be in on this secret.
523
00:36:45.121 --> 00:36:49.828
And if they are, that's interesting of how they even got them all to be in on that secret.
524
00:36:50.589 --> 00:36:51.510
And the other thing was...
525
00:36:52.532 --> 00:37:00.080
The fact that these coaches, there are these type of coaches in every city, in every community, all across the world.
526
00:37:00.700 --> 00:37:04.824
Like naturally in the U.S., like it's prevalent with like youth sports and whatnot.
527
00:37:05.065 --> 00:37:12.312
But coaches that somewhat prey on the youth that are tasked with.
528
00:37:13.685 --> 00:37:21.597
bringing these youth athletes, these high school athletes, these prep athletes into manhood, like that is a very serious position.
529
00:37:21.778 --> 00:37:25.363
And I think a lot of coaches, there's not 100%...
530
00:37:26.856 --> 00:37:28.637
there's not really a good like vetting system.
531
00:37:29.417 --> 00:37:34.140
A coach can just say, a person can just say, I wanna start coaching and they can get onto a local team and they can bounce around.
532
00:37:34.680 --> 00:37:41.343
And now we're trusting them to lead our children into puberty, into adulthood.
533
00:37:41.403 --> 00:37:44.365
And I always say this, as a father of two young kids,
534
00:37:45.764 --> 00:37:47.886
I am not raising my kids by myself.
535
00:37:48.426 --> 00:37:50.687
Me and my wife are not raising the kids by ourselves.
536
00:37:51.128 --> 00:37:52.689
The world is raising our kids.
537
00:37:52.729 --> 00:37:52.889
Yep.
538
00:37:53.209 --> 00:37:57.132
So when they are in front of a coach, what is that coach about?
539
00:37:57.672 --> 00:37:58.393
What are their beliefs?
540
00:37:58.593 --> 00:38:02.936
What are they teaching these kids when we're 50 yards away in the stands just watching it happen?
541
00:38:02.956 --> 00:38:05.497
Like, I want to understand who these coaches are.
542
00:38:06.058 --> 00:38:12.262
So BSI to me was something that was – I was drawn to tell that story because –
543
00:38:13.654 --> 00:38:19.137
One, if you look at that, if you look at that, the poster of BSI, it looks just like my dad.
544
00:38:19.297 --> 00:38:23.359
Like I saw the silhouette of the figure that they have.
545
00:38:23.719 --> 00:38:27.260
And I'm like, that could literally be my father right there because my father was a football coach.
546
00:38:27.981 --> 00:38:37.505
So knowing that and knowing everybody probably has a coach or an uncle or a father that's in that position guiding young athletes.
547
00:38:39.762 --> 00:38:47.406
I'm more familiar with that story than any other story or with that experience than any other experience like in my life right now because I've been through that.
548
00:38:48.127 --> 00:38:54.410
No, you're hitting on a really important note, I think, especially for listeners that don't know the youth sports world.
549
00:38:54.430 --> 00:39:00.113
You know, I'm a board director on the Army of Survivors, which raises awareness to abuse in sports.
550
00:39:00.834 --> 00:39:01.054
And...
551
00:39:01.892 --> 00:39:05.016
It is like the youth sports industry is insane.
552
00:39:05.036 --> 00:39:05.937
Yeah.
553
00:39:05.957 --> 00:39:12.404
And people don't, you know, my father, he used to, um, he used to say it's, it's kind of like the concept of takes a village, right?
554
00:39:13.030 --> 00:39:18.874
When you think about the breakdown of a student athlete or just students in general, they're going to school at 730.
555
00:39:19.575 --> 00:39:23.978
They're spending at least 730 till almost three o'clock with teachers.
556
00:39:24.719 --> 00:39:30.063
And then they're going to their extracurriculars, whether that's art club, whether it's sports, it's then a coach or more teachers.
557
00:39:30.663 --> 00:39:36.928
And then you might get your kid for the dinner time and then homework and then bed and repeat.
558
00:39:37.048 --> 00:39:37.228
Yep.
559
00:39:38.279 --> 00:39:43.743
And I think that's also where this very important conversation of education comes in.
560
00:39:44.823 --> 00:39:57.011
And I guess as a father yourself, how are you balancing kind of lack of control of what your kids are being taught?
561
00:39:58.151 --> 00:40:06.636
what they might be taught in the future, but then instilling your family values in them to grow up in a way that you're proud of?
562
00:40:06.876 --> 00:40:08.257
Yeah, that's a great question.
563
00:40:08.417 --> 00:40:11.438
I think for us, it goes back to the community element.
564
00:40:12.199 --> 00:40:20.323
I'm part of a really dope community of friends and colleagues that we've all made a choice to live in the area that we live in.
565
00:40:21.063 --> 00:40:23.205
There's, at any given time, if we...
566
00:40:23.965 --> 00:40:41.593
If I send a group chat out to those friends and colleagues and whatnot and say, hey, I'm having something in my backyard, it's nothing for 15 to 20, you know, little predominantly black kids to be in the backyard and their parents on the patio with the fire going and us talking and hanging out and just kind of being in community.
567
00:40:42.133 --> 00:40:46.255
And I think that's the important thing, especially with everything that's happening now in the country.
568
00:40:46.275 --> 00:40:48.695
Like, we kind of have to turn inward.
569
00:40:49.696 --> 00:40:58.739
I made a point in 2016 when my wife was pregnant with our daughter during the 2016 election.
570
00:40:59.459 --> 00:41:03.161
My wife saw it on the – she saw the writing on the wall and said, I'm not watching this.
571
00:41:03.181 --> 00:41:03.701
I'm going to sleep.
572
00:41:04.261 --> 00:41:05.501
I stayed up and watched the whole election.
573
00:41:05.822 --> 00:41:09.243
I'm sitting at the edge of my bed and I'm looking at, you know, Trump getting to office.
574
00:41:10.283 --> 00:41:11.784
And this is before All-American.
575
00:41:11.804 --> 00:41:15.626
This is before some of the other businesses that I've been fortunate to be a part of.
576
00:41:16.307 --> 00:41:32.637
And I made the commitment to myself and my family to go, I need to make sure my circle, my community, my neighborhood is as strong as it can be because I cannot rely on this man, this person out there in the world to have any sort of impact of my just day-to-day.
577
00:41:32.837 --> 00:41:32.997
Yep.
578
00:41:33.757 --> 00:41:42.025
And, you know, fast forward to now where I have a seven-year-old daughter, I have a five-year-old son, and he's now back in office or will be back in office.
579
00:41:43.046 --> 00:41:47.050
It's kind of doubling down on that mission of no matter what.
580
00:41:48.892 --> 00:41:52.994
What the world looks like, what's going on, I need to make sure the neighbors know who I am.
581
00:41:53.234 --> 00:41:55.074
I need to make sure they know who my kids are.
582
00:41:55.094 --> 00:42:02.637
I need to make sure the person walking down the street sees me and says hello, because I'm going to say hello, because we need to be in community, in neighborhood together.
583
00:42:03.297 --> 00:42:08.219
And I think I'm pouring that into my kids to where they don't need to.
584
00:42:08.639 --> 00:42:16.622
They're going to understand the world is this big, grand place where all these different perspectives and viewpoints and ideologies are going to kind of crash in together.
585
00:42:17.122 --> 00:42:21.264
But when they are in their community, that is the thing that they can control.
586
00:42:21.505 --> 00:42:21.665
Yep.
587
00:42:22.005 --> 00:42:30.269
You know, the school that we have our kids in, it is a school that teaches our kids that they are young black kids in this world.
588
00:42:30.950 --> 00:42:34.352
And it's not because I'm against diversity or anything right there, but...
589
00:42:35.232 --> 00:42:47.197
This world is going to attempt to tell young black girls and boys who they are earlier than these kids can develop a sense of identity for themselves.
590
00:42:47.657 --> 00:42:48.978
So for us, it was really...
591
00:42:50.118 --> 00:43:02.529
It was really important for us to put them in a school that's led by a black female doctor that has predominantly black women as teachers, that they're talking about probates.
592
00:43:02.609 --> 00:43:05.152
They're talking about African-American studies.
593
00:43:05.172 --> 00:43:06.293
They're talking about African studies.
594
00:43:06.313 --> 00:43:10.657
Like, my daughter comes home singing, like, the most—
595
00:43:12.498 --> 00:43:13.839
Negro spirituals and stuff.
596
00:43:14.159 --> 00:43:28.544
So it's like, I understand that the world is going to like force my kids into like certain boxes that they think it's, it's up for me to instill in our kids that you don't have to walk into those boxes willingly.
597
00:43:28.824 --> 00:43:28.964
Yep.
598
00:43:29.164 --> 00:43:33.005
You know, you can define yourself for who you are and how you want to be presented in this world.
599
00:43:33.145 --> 00:43:35.206
And for them to have such a strong
600
00:43:36.839 --> 00:43:44.667
identity of self early on of being young black kids in this city, in this country, in this world was like paramount for me and my wife.
601
00:43:44.927 --> 00:43:51.674
We'll get to them being part of the 5% that is out of middle school or high school, whatever.
602
00:43:52.095 --> 00:43:55.899
But right now it's really about incubating like who they are in this world.
603
00:43:57.340 --> 00:43:58.922
Just through a specific perspective.
604
00:43:59.655 --> 00:43:59.855
Yeah.
605
00:43:59.895 --> 00:44:04.979
And I, I, it probably helps them be comfortable and their most authentic selves.
606
00:44:05.399 --> 00:44:05.999
Absolutely.
607
00:44:06.540 --> 00:44:16.867
And especially even now as, as adults and we're, we're in this period in our country again, it really is leaning on what does our communities look like?
608
00:44:17.467 --> 00:44:19.789
Who are the types of people we want to surround ourselves with?
609
00:44:20.089 --> 00:44:26.314
And also the art that we lean into, whether we created ourselves or absorb it from others.
610
00:44:27.194 --> 00:44:28.215
And, you know,
611
00:44:29.216 --> 00:44:39.323
Despite, like you said, what's going on in the United States, in the outside world, you've done that through even your investments and ownership with Hilltop Coffee and Kitchen.
612
00:44:39.383 --> 00:44:41.505
And that is right in your neighborhood.
613
00:44:41.565 --> 00:44:50.051
So can you speak to that venture and what that was like to create this space for your community?
614
00:44:50.672 --> 00:44:58.457
Yeah, I mean, ironically, Hilltop and All-American were kind of being pushed at the same time together.
615
00:44:58.817 --> 00:45:01.499
Arguably my closest friend, his name is AJ Relon.
616
00:45:01.539 --> 00:45:05.941
He's the creator of Hilltop, him and his business partner, Yoni Hagos.
617
00:45:06.782 --> 00:45:10.464
So they run a hospitality company called Good Vibes Only Hospitality.
618
00:45:10.764 --> 00:45:16.868
And at the time, if you've been to L.A., if you're a millennial or whatever in L.A.,
619
00:45:17.692 --> 00:45:21.215
You have a story about being at their sports bar that they own called The Parlor.
620
00:45:21.495 --> 00:45:30.542
It was off of Melrose, and they had pretty much a 10-year run where they were the sports bar to go and watch any type of game, Super Bowl, any type of championship.
621
00:45:30.582 --> 00:45:33.084
It was just kind of the best place to be in the summer.
622
00:45:33.104 --> 00:45:36.527
Being mid-20s or whatever, you just found yourself there.
623
00:45:38.123 --> 00:45:41.166
He grew up with my wife's family.
624
00:45:41.586 --> 00:45:48.333
And at the time that him and his wife at the time were pregnant, we were pregnant with our daughters as well.
625
00:45:48.433 --> 00:45:50.795
And their daughter and our daughter are now like the best of friends.
626
00:45:51.676 --> 00:45:54.899
But he was like, hey, man, I'm thinking about kind of closing up the parlor.
627
00:45:54.919 --> 00:45:58.482
I want to do something more family friendly, more like poignant for the neighborhood.
628
00:45:58.502 --> 00:45:58.642
Yeah.
629
00:45:59.383 --> 00:46:00.523
I'm thinking about doing a coffee shop.
630
00:46:00.683 --> 00:46:03.384
And at the same time, me and my wife, we had just moved into our house.
631
00:46:04.285 --> 00:46:07.166
And in our neighborhood, like there wasn't really that many options for us.
632
00:46:07.306 --> 00:46:09.627
And we were like, oh, maybe we should put a coffee shop in as well.
633
00:46:09.667 --> 00:46:13.068
So you have these two different entities thinking about the same thing.
634
00:46:13.708 --> 00:46:18.090
That next week, he took me to this old tax office and was like, I think this could be our first location.
635
00:46:19.030 --> 00:46:21.051
And I think about a year later, we ended up opening.
636
00:46:21.171 --> 00:46:23.052
And it was, it was such a,
637
00:46:23.972 --> 00:46:28.038
In hindsight, I had no idea what to expect getting into that industry.
638
00:46:28.158 --> 00:46:28.739
I just knew.
639
00:46:28.759 --> 00:46:33.727
And it's kind of been my thesis on like how and where to invest.
640
00:46:34.107 --> 00:46:37.853
It's like I love investing and pouring my time into people that know how to do it.
641
00:46:38.153 --> 00:46:38.353
Yeah.
642
00:46:38.554 --> 00:46:39.175
You know, I'm...
643
00:46:40.410 --> 00:46:45.493
I kind of have to be a little bit more cautious because I'm not the millionaire athlete.
644
00:46:45.653 --> 00:46:47.735
I'm not the guy to sign the big contract in the NFL.
645
00:46:47.775 --> 00:46:57.661
But I've been fortunate enough to be in situations where good friends of mine who are experts in their field have opportunities coming up, and they just allow me to tag them all.
646
00:46:58.421 --> 00:47:04.866
So for me, Hilltop represents something that was born out of a need for community at that time.
647
00:47:05.426 --> 00:47:06.607
But then also from...
648
00:47:07.307 --> 00:47:17.036
a handful of people in the neighborhood that were all having kids at the same time that wanted their kids to grow up knowing a sense of ownership, knowing a sense of like, hey, that's ours.
649
00:47:17.096 --> 00:47:23.261
You know, we have four, I say four and a half locations across LA because we have a partnership at LAX with Randy's Donuts.
650
00:47:23.902 --> 00:47:27.585
But when we drive by one of the shops, like my daughter's like, hey, that's Hilltop.
651
00:47:27.605 --> 00:47:27.785
Like,
652
00:47:28.045 --> 00:47:29.386
You know, we own Hilltop.
653
00:47:29.426 --> 00:47:30.506
We have a piece of Hilltop.
654
00:47:30.686 --> 00:47:31.546
Yeah.
655
00:47:31.566 --> 00:47:33.707
And there's just power in that.
656
00:47:33.867 --> 00:47:42.590
There's just power in seeing how where we came from in 2016, 2017, it being an idea to what it is now.
657
00:47:43.430 --> 00:47:44.550
Like, that's why we did it.
658
00:47:45.010 --> 00:47:48.311
You know, I can go back and talk about how big the mission was and this is what we want to do.
659
00:47:48.331 --> 00:47:52.552
But like, it was kind of just being along for the ride and allowing myself to be surprised.
660
00:47:53.372 --> 00:47:58.973
And just kind of honestly riding the coattails of two really good friends that had experience in the restaurant industry.
661
00:48:00.153 --> 00:48:04.394
That's interesting how you said that you allowed yourself to be surprised.
662
00:48:04.934 --> 00:48:12.995
I think sometimes, especially as creative people, we lean towards our passions and interests and it takes us somewhere.
663
00:48:13.472 --> 00:48:23.489
But then really, when you allow yourself for the uncertainty and to explore and be surprised, it takes you to new levels.
664
00:48:23.690 --> 00:48:23.830
Yeah.
665
00:48:24.190 --> 00:48:25.593
So what's next for you?
666
00:48:26.813 --> 00:48:31.495
Oh man, I've recommitted to writing.
667
00:48:32.095 --> 00:48:41.418
I think in this industry, in TV and film industry, there's, you spend so much of your time on the business of being creative instead of just being creative.
668
00:48:41.978 --> 00:48:46.360
That what's next for me is kind of just building out my structure for my company.
669
00:48:46.560 --> 00:48:53.743
You know, the past couple of years, it's been sort of a by-project basis and me and my producing partner, Dane Mork, that's how we've been operating.
670
00:48:53.763 --> 00:48:54.723
And now it's just about,
671
00:48:57.061 --> 00:49:14.751
It's about expanding our foundation, expanding our structure, making sure like when we are kind of stacking these things on top of each other, whether it's we're directing a series for UCLA football right now, where I'm writing a film about, you know, the only black man to make it to the NFL Hall of Fame without playing the game.
672
00:49:15.071 --> 00:49:20.034
You know, he's a phenomenal scout in the late sixties all the way up to the, to the 20 teens named Bill Nunn.
673
00:49:21.235 --> 00:49:24.417
So it's, it's about right now I'm writing, I'm developing, I'm,
674
00:49:25.158 --> 00:49:28.821
I'm trying to be the best dad that I can, the best husband that I can.
675
00:49:29.942 --> 00:49:35.168
That comes with a lot of therapy, a lot of books, a lot of rediscovering.
676
00:49:36.689 --> 00:49:42.270
kind of like rediscovering like my own joy, my own systems, redefining my own systems.
677
00:49:42.290 --> 00:49:49.992
Because again, 36 now, I'm looking at 40 not as a sense of like dread of, oh my God, I'm 40 now.
678
00:49:50.012 --> 00:49:53.593
It's like, oh no, like that's a, I want to earn the right of like old age.
679
00:49:53.853 --> 00:49:54.713
I want to earn old age.
680
00:49:54.753 --> 00:49:57.674
I want to have the privilege of it, I would say.
681
00:49:58.194 --> 00:50:01.315
So it's really gearing up over these next five to 10 years of,
682
00:50:02.015 --> 00:50:07.718
from a company standpoint, building out Moore Street to be a big player in both scripted and unscripted.
683
00:50:08.178 --> 00:50:14.721
But then as a man, as a husband, as a father, making sure like I'm just present as much as I can, as much as I can be.
684
00:50:15.881 --> 00:50:18.502
Not scrolling as much on my phone.
685
00:50:18.863 --> 00:50:24.545
But then also like me and my daughter and even my son now, we're starting to have like those real conversations.
686
00:50:24.985 --> 00:50:25.305
I love that.
687
00:50:25.826 --> 00:50:30.928
We're starting to have like me and my daughter the other day, she we went into this whole conversation about
688
00:50:31.688 --> 00:50:33.990
about Trump and about the country.
689
00:50:34.030 --> 00:50:34.450
How old is she?
690
00:50:34.490 --> 00:50:34.970
She's seven.
691
00:50:35.290 --> 00:50:36.071
Yeah.
692
00:50:36.171 --> 00:50:41.394
And she's coming with like, because her school, her school definitely, she's in an advanced program.
693
00:50:42.035 --> 00:50:43.596
The school is an advanced school, in my opinion.
694
00:50:44.056 --> 00:50:45.677
But she's coming with like thoughts.
695
00:50:45.897 --> 00:50:47.718
It's not just, he's the president now.
696
00:50:47.778 --> 00:50:49.279
She's like, well, how does this affect us?
697
00:50:49.400 --> 00:50:49.500
And,
698
00:50:50.500 --> 00:50:53.623
What's like, is he going to hire people that are going to help us?
699
00:50:53.843 --> 00:50:55.445
And I'm just like, all right, let's get into it.
700
00:50:55.685 --> 00:50:55.885
Yeah.
701
00:50:56.165 --> 00:51:06.655
So it's being right now as a father specifically, being equipped to distill this information to her to a point where she can understand it.
702
00:51:06.935 --> 00:51:10.118
Because I'm not so sure my parents did that to me.
703
00:51:10.158 --> 00:51:11.319
And again, I'm not.
704
00:51:12.789 --> 00:51:20.574
I don't think – I think, like, my generation, like, we're starting to uncover all this, like, trauma and stuff that's happened to us.
705
00:51:20.594 --> 00:51:21.575
And we're putting names on it.
706
00:51:21.595 --> 00:51:22.375
We're labeling it.
707
00:51:22.435 --> 00:51:25.838
And we're actively attempting to address it.
708
00:51:26.378 --> 00:51:34.023
But what comes with that sometimes is, like, degrading our parents of, like, all the things that they didn't do for us.
709
00:51:34.303 --> 00:51:34.523
Right.
710
00:51:35.064 --> 00:51:36.384
And one thing I always say, like –
711
00:51:37.445 --> 00:51:39.266
In my head, I was never poor growing up.
712
00:51:40.806 --> 00:51:44.467
My parents gave me everything that they can give me under their own power.
713
00:51:44.907 --> 00:51:51.029
But more importantly, my parents raised three black kids in 90 South Central off of Slosson and Western.
714
00:51:51.149 --> 00:51:54.670
And none of us like touch gangs, violence, anything like that.
715
00:51:54.690 --> 00:51:56.611
Like that in itself is a success story.
716
00:51:57.191 --> 00:51:59.212
So as a parent now in that position.
717
00:52:01.573 --> 00:52:05.954
I give praise to my parents for raising my raising me and my brothers with like.
718
00:52:07.883 --> 00:52:11.804
one fifth of the resources that I have to raise my kids with now.
719
00:52:12.865 --> 00:52:19.027
And not putting that on my kids to be like, back in my day, well, we had it this way.
720
00:52:19.507 --> 00:52:20.087
It's like, no, no, no.
721
00:52:20.107 --> 00:52:21.688
Like y'all should learn.
722
00:52:21.708 --> 00:52:25.569
Y'all should live from this place of abundance that we've been able to create.
723
00:52:25.609 --> 00:52:26.810
But it didn't just start with me.
724
00:52:26.850 --> 00:52:28.730
It started with my parents.
725
00:52:28.790 --> 00:52:35.813
It started with my grandparents and even beyond that, all the decisions they made to get me into the position where I know I'm going wrong with this, but
726
00:52:39.193 --> 00:52:42.976
A year or so ago, there was some crumbs on the floor.
727
00:52:44.337 --> 00:52:47.760
And I was telling my daughter, like, hey, you left those crumbs there.
728
00:52:47.780 --> 00:52:51.803
I want you to pick them up because we don't want roaches to come in the house.
729
00:52:51.884 --> 00:52:54.646
And she looked at me with a dead face and was like, what is a roach?
730
00:52:55.727 --> 00:53:03.293
And I was like, I think, if anything, this is the clearest example in my head that I think I have made it.
731
00:53:03.853 --> 00:53:07.295
to where my daughter can't readily identify what a roach is, you know?
732
00:53:07.795 --> 00:53:31.966
So it's just like going back to like your question, just like being present to be able to, just to be able to be there for them and raise them to be as like strong and empathetic as possible in this world because, you know, we don't know where this world is going, but I'm not going to sit here and subscribe to the idea that like everything's going to hell because again, it goes back to your community and like what you make it.
733
00:53:32.365 --> 00:53:32.565
Yeah.
734
00:53:33.646 --> 00:53:48.483
No, I and that's what I appreciate about you is you are a leader in these community efforts and you've been so open about how your sparkle has changed throughout the years and you make others feel OK with that change and embracing it.
735
00:53:48.563 --> 00:53:50.685
So thank you, Spencer, for joining us today.
736
00:53:50.705 --> 00:53:51.266
Thank you.
737
00:53:51.466 --> 00:53:52.007
Sparkle on.