Straight from the Source

00:00:04 Speaker 1: Comeback Stories is a production i've Inflection Network and iHeart Radio. Welcome back everyone to another episode of Comeback Stories. One of your co hosts, my name is Darren Waller. I'm joined by my friend, my guy, my brother, Donnie Starkins. Donnie, how you doing man, Feeling great? Man. It's always a good day when we get to jump on the pod. Absolutely. I'm super excited about the guests that we have on today, a man whose name is a household name as far as in the NFL world, you don't see any breaking news happen without this man's name attached to it most times. But we're excited to show a human side of the man everybody knows is Adam Schefter. Adam. Welcome to the show man, Darren, Donnie, nice to be with you, and Darren, let me be one of the last to officially welcome you to the New York, New Jersey area. But nice to see you in our neck of the woods here, and I hope it turns out to be a tremendous chapter in what has been a great career for your short far man. Thank you so much, man, it's a blessing to hear that from you. I mean, I've known you for a little while. Now I got to connect with you a little bit and connect with your daughter and to be able to connect with her. It's just really cool moments. Man, So grateful for your time and you are willing to come on and talk to us. Well, it's my honor. You were incredibly kind to my daughter Dylan for a show that she does for Nickelodeon each week, Slime Time, and again, my interactions with you've been great. I have great respect for everything that you've done and everything that you've been through and all that you do for people. So anytime you call, anytime you message, you know, I'm there for you. Man, Thank you. But we we love to dive right in and we want to know as we paint the picture of your story, like what was what was growing up like for you? Where did you grow up? What was the environment like? What was the environment side of you? Like? Take us through that. Oh, well, growing up you know, I grew up in a middle class neighborhood on Long Island, the south shore of Long Island, right by Jones Beach, a place called Belmore. JFK or Belmore was named of the city. It's Belmore, Jay was name of the high school. High school that produced, amongst other luminaries, Amy Fisher, who shot Joey Butterfugo's wife in the face, Steve Levy, the great ESPN sports anchor, Michael Core's, the fashion designer, amongst many of the people that went to our high school. And you know, I grew up as a guy that loves sports. I watched everything. I loved reading the newspaper. I loved reading the newspaper and finding little pieces of information to tell my father when he got home from work. Oh, Dad, you're not gonna believe this. The Knicks might trade for this guy. Oh the Yankees might sign this guy. Oh the Jets are gonna hire this coach. Like I loved that stuff. I never thought I could make a living doing it. Honestly, I thought, Okay, I'm gonna go to law school or business school. You know, my parents had a five and dime type store on Long Island. Maybe I'd worked there. And I went to the University of Michigan and in September nineteen eighty five, is a freshman. I wanted to get into this fraternity and I didn't get in. And when I didn't get in, I'm like, well, I gotta do something to keep busy. So I went down to the football office to see if they needed somebody to pick up jockstraps and hand out water bottles, and they didn't need anybody. And so went to the basketball office to see if they needed somebody, and they didn't need anybody. And so when I got rejected from the fraternity, the football office and the basketball office like, well, I don't even know what I'm gonna do. You know what, let me volunteer for the student newspaper. And literally that's how it just started. And if the fraternity had tended an imitation to me that in freshman year there were about fifty guys going out for about ten spots, I think I would have been very happy just being in the fraternity, being one of the guys hanging out with the ladies. Like I never would have gone to the newspaper, and I never would have gone to this business. It would have been something that would have been beyond my wildest dreams. And so this was born out a projection. This was born out of people telling you know, And what I've come to learn is there are a lot of people and a lot of walks of life. Every time somebody tells you know that just creates an opportunity for you somewhere else, and it's up to you to take advantage of that. Now. I never would have known that as an eighteen year old freshman at the University of Michigan in September of nineteen eighty five. But you learned these things over time, and then you work hard to make the most of it. And that, to answer your question in a roundabout way, is basically the start of this and kind of where I came from growing up in Belmore Long Island, going to school at Michigan, and winding up doing this. It sounds very clear that you had a dream from the start and ended up living that dream out. And you talked about some rejection along the way that could have easily deterred you from wanting to achieve your goal. Was there was there any thing, like growing up, like when you were in school, that that you had struggles with that early on could have deterred you, Like for me, it was I done with like not being black enough, insecurities of just kind of who I was on the inside. Was there any type of pain or confusion that you dealt with as a as a young man. Well, you know, honestly, you mentioned a dream like you know I had. I didn't have a dream like this was. This is so far beyond my dreams. And I think back to my childhood and you know, my grandfather who I was very close with, you know, he told me that I was making a mistake going to college, that I should just come to work for the family business. And you know, it was a case where, again, this is so far beyond anything that I could have imagined. You know, the adversity that that happens along the way is all the rejection that comes your way and trying to pivot from that and figure out what you could do. Like I didn't go to Michigan with the goal to work for the student newspaper. That wasn't what I set out to do. It just kind of happened. And even then I spent a couple of years, you know, in the student newspaper. I'm like, wait, wait, there are people that do this for a living. I had no idea, Like I thought, it'll sound strange, but I thought these were jobs that other people did, like that you weren't good enough for them, so that other people would do them. And what I came to realize is that people can do anything they want if they set their mind to it. You know, if they want to become the President of the United States, go go work to make that happen. You want to become a center a congress person, we make work to make that out. You make it to the NFL very hard. Some people are finacolytically blessed, like myself, But your work hard and you do your best. I actually now think, in hindsight, knowing what I know, that had the Michigan football team or basketball team given me a job back in the day, I think that I might have made my way in that particular field. I don't know what I would have done, whether it would have been as as a great equipment manager, somebody that was a director of operation. I have no idea, but I was placed to the newspaper by accident, through default, and then just tried to make the most of it. And so when you asked for the setbacks, and you know, the obstacle like it was all that like I had so many rejection letters when I was trying to get a full time job at a Michigan It took me two years to get a job. And I always tell people there was a bar in the Michigan campus called Dominics that would give you a free you drink for every rejection letter. And I tell people, I forget about a drink. I could have owned the bar if I wanted. That's how I appreciate you painting that perspective and just how you grew up. And I'm going back to where you would read your those little like the possible transactions, like if that's where your eye went to. I was thinking back to where my eye went and it was always like statistics and the you know, the top ten batting leaders. I was a college baseball player, so I was fascinated with the newspaper, but it was more around standings and statistics. But yours was actually in these possibilities of transactions. Looking back, like where do you think that came from? And that that was where your focus was. Well, I did love sports, I mean there's no doubt about that. Like I used to watch and listen to every picture of every Yankees game. You know, I'd watch all the football game. I mean I was I was a sports junkie. That that's where from I couldn't get enough sports as a kid, but you to read the newspaper. I don't know, It's just something that I loved it. It transported me to a world that I really got a lot out of that that it just I don't know what it was, you know, I it was something. Everybody's got hobbies, everybody's got day, everybody's got something they love. Some people love music, some people love movies. I love sports. So the more I could immerse myself in that world, whether it was reading the newspaper or watching TV or listening to the radio, the more I would do and the happier I was. So that that's all that that was, and it again turned out to be my professional calling, though I had no idea if that would be the case. That's so cool that you you painted that picture, because you know, and you said, transported you to a world of possibility. And it's almost like the possibility was the possibility of the trade or the transaction that was going to happen. And for many people, I think they have this gift. They have these passions when they're younger, and as they get older, they lose those passions because society says we need to do this. We need to be this job title to be successful, and oftentimes it's parents and it's the upbringing that says you need to go be a doctor, you need to go be a lawyer, and then we forget and we lose our gifts, and many people get to the top of the ladder and they end up realizing that they're leaning up against the wrong wall. They have all the success, but they're miserable. And it's just so cool that it's the setbacks and the rejections that actually led you to this point, because it is all about perspective and how it's not the actual event that happens, it's the meaning that we attached to it. And I'm so grateful that you were able to I was able to hear that story, and others are going to be able to hear that that is what led you to what you get to do today. It's just really cool to hear. Well, you know, here's the thing. I never considered myself overly intelligence or articulate or gifted in anyone area. But the one thing that I was I was driven, and I was ambitious and I was determined, Like I wanted to be a sports reporter in the worst way once I got a taste of it, like it mattered so much to me that at the age of twenty three, I'm sending applications all across the country and where ever a newspaper called to offer me a job, whether it was South Dakota or Georgia or Louisiana, I was gonna go, Like it didn't matter. I was leaving my family, I was leaving my friends. I was going wherever they offered me a job, And it just happened to be that it was Denver, Colorado. They called and offered me a job, and I flew out there at the age of twenty three, really didn't know very many people at all, and started a new life where I began writing for the Rocky Mountain News, which is now basically got a business, and their assignment to me was as a general assignment reporter, and I got to do a lot of stuff with the University of Colorado and the Denver Broncos, and again, more accidents, more craziness. Right when Colorado was awarded a baseball team, a Major League Baseball franchise in the early nineteen nineties, I went to the newspaper and begged them to let me cover the Colorado Rockies, and they hired this experienced baseball writer by the name of Tracy Ringles beat. He was a legendary baseball writer and he wanted to cover the beat, and he wanted to bring in one of the people that he knew as an established baseball writer named Jack Eckin. And so there was no room. So I couldn't cover the baseball team. I couldn't do what I wanted. I was forced forced to stick on the football beat and covered the Broncos. And so I covered the Broncos there for almost sixteen years. And I tell people, I went to the University of Michigan undergrad, I went to Northwestern Graduate School, and then I got my masters in football from the Denver Broncos. Because I just hung around that building for almost sixteen years, dealing with the players, the coaches, the front office people, and you learned what was acceptable and what wasn't, and what worked and what didn't, and what people were good with them, what they were, and you know, I was I'm grateful to the time that the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post gave me being around the NFL. And again, like I said, didn't sit out to do it, was stuck doing it, and it led to where it did. Oh, this is pretty accidental. Is this is amazing because I feel like what you're saying is, as long as you have a love and a hunger for your craft and the process of that craft, as opposed to the results or where you may end up or a job being exactly the way that you wanted, doors are going to open for you. Like you just showed up with passion, like I love to do this. I'll do this wherever it takes me, whatever the role is, whatever they're paying me, I'll take it as opposed to having demands or thinking like oh I got to make this much or I need to be writing here, I need to be But you're showing up and these opportunities just happen to fall in your lap because the love and the passion is there. And I feel like a lot of people may have that backwards, like in a year like twenty twenty three, they want things to be great with at the time that they show up, as opposed to allowing the process to take time, allowing me to develop, allowing situations indoors to open for me at the perfect time that they should, and my skills and my character will be developed enough for me to succeed in these roles that come. But people don't necessarily get that. Well, you know, jar think about your NFL journey, and yours is a unique journey, right, But you think about it, right, You didn't come into the league right away and light the league on fire. It didn't happen. And aren't a lot of people that just step in and dominate their profession right away. It takes time, it takes training, it takes work, right Like so I spent sixteen years in Denver learning how to be around a football team, you know, becoming a newsman, and that's the education. And by the way, the way I felt was if I had covered the Denver Broncos for the Rocky Mountain News and then the Denver Post for the rest of my career, I was good with that. Like, I loved it. It was great. Now it evolved into a job eventually at NFL Network for five years, which led to a job at ESPN, where I've been since two thousand and nine. So it's over almost fourteen years now. It feels like a lifetime. So I think the point is is that people might have an idea of what they think they want to do, but the idea is just to do good work with whatever it is that you're doing, give people you're all and let's see where it goes. You don't know where it's gonna go. Like people may sit out to become a doctor and maybe come I don't know, like a medical expert on TV. Things happen. You can't walk yourself in. You just have to work hard, do good work, and then you see where that goes. Adam, how do you? So? I wanted to I know we have a limited amount of time and maybe we'll have to get you back on for around two but with and one of the things I wanted to acknowledge you for is beyond like being you know, ahead of the game and breaking the news, is just there's a way that you your communication style and how clearly you articulate things, And that obviously comes with just being in the work for so long that you've been doing, but so one I wanted to acknowledge you for that because as I watch you on TV or hear you, I'm like, he's so clear and concise on the things that he's saying, Like he knows what he's talking about. But I also just wanted to ask you, like, with the hustle and the bustle and how hard you grind, how do you find balance? And what does balance look like for you in your life today? Well, first and foremost, thank you for the kind words. And I would say this that you know, I think that being in newspapers trained me to think efficiently and train me to think in a way not to be worthy. And two verbosts, so you're always thinking, you know, what, where, when, how, why? Like bam in a sentence, and that training to write a strong lead in a short amount of time became so ingrained in my thinking from all the writing that all I do now is I'm just doing it in a verbal way on television. So when a text comes in that Darren Wallers traded to the New York Giants, I can quickly just formulate that in my mind and be like moments ago, the Las Vegas writers trade Darren Wallers the New York Giants for a third RAMD whatever it was, and and it just my brain has been trained and wired that way from newspapers. Now, as for the balance, my brain isn't wired as well as it should be. I think I think everybody in any line of work struggles with that to a certain extent. You do the best you can, but you can't sing in all areas all the time. If you give more time to your professional career, there's no way that your personal career can't suffer some If you give all your time to your personal life, there's no way to your professional career. The trick is to find that balance, and it's different for everybody. Some people five for different things. Everybody's got different goals in life. It's all about what makes you happy. I know that, you know, it's important for me to be around my family and my daughter, my son, my five dogs that we have. You know, I love that. But it's also there are times when work is busy, and you know, I have a friend who was very successful. I was with him this week and he telling me about how his wife was really getting on him for not being present at all times. And I'm like, oh, I've heard that many times, you know, many times, And I'll bet you that we are hardly in the minority of people who have heard that. People who are passionate, dedicated, committed to their jobs probably carry it with them a lot of the time. And so while you're sitting there having dinner with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, a spouse, or you're thinking, oh, well, I get to check on this, or what's going on with that, or how am I going to handle the situation? And that's just natural because that's what it takes sometimes, and so people don't always love that. But reality is your brain's all over the place. I try my best to have a balanced life, and I think I often do, but I'm sure that sometimes I fall short, just because that's the way it is, right, Like, you just can't be all things to all p at all times. It is very hard to do that in all areas. That's a fact. Man. I'm interested in how since that you've grown such a large profile and following and everybody knows who you are and everybody can tweet at you or comment on your posts, Like, was there what was it like adjusting to that? Was there a lot of pressures you're putting on yourself? Was there anxiety to perform? What kind of things were you dealing with when things kind of blue beyond your wildest dreams? Yeah, I do think it's an adjustment. It's a blessing and it's a burden. It's both right, and I think, much like when you're a professional athlete, Darren, you just have to just do the best job you can. Focus on that and try your best to tune out the noise. Right, And so I think I think I'm pretty good at it. I'm probably not perfect at it. I rarely read comments. I really just try to avoid it. Of course, I'm human every now and then. You know, you see some things, some things you're proud of, some things bother you because you're human. But overall, you know, I know, you know the work that I put in, I know the level of fairness I try to have, and people don't understand always know everything that goes into every situation, and so you just do the best you can. I've done this job now for thirty three years. Thirty three years, and the job has changed quite a bit over that time, and the time when I was a newspaper reporter and the news cycle was really twenty four hours. The stories would run the newspaper and then they show up and you look, and then there wouldn't be stories again until the newspaper showed up on your doorstep the next day and now you know, the news cycle is less than twenty four I can just anytime you post on Twitter or Instagram or threads or whatever it may be. It's just everything is faster, quicker, more sudden, more people scrutinizing everything. Uh, it's it's a tougher, more critical world where people, you know, everybody's a critic and everybody has something to say. And you know, I wish we lived in a world that was a little bit more positive and a little less negative, but this is how it is. Right Like, people are going to rip the New York Giants if they don't win, and they're gonna praise it when they do it. It's just it's kind of how it goes. That's the world we live in. Can you tell us a little bit? And I know we've got a limited amount of time again, and I think an important part of your story is the story of Joseph Mayo. And for the those that don't know that story, can you can you let us in and let the listeners in a little bit about that. Yeah, my wife always married to a man by the name of Joe Mayo and they obviously he lost his life on nine to eleven he worked for Canther Fitzgerald and he was one of three thousand plus people who perished that day. And it was a day, you know, the most memorable day in my lifetime, the most memorable day in a lot of people's lifetimes. And it's hard to imagine. I shudder to think that there would be a day that would be more memorable than that day. I hope it never occurse. You know, my wife when she lost her husband, she had a one year old son. They had just bought a house a month before he died, and she was left to raise their son, Devin, on her own. And I married Sharry about six years later, and I moved into the house that her and Joseph bought, and I helped raise the son that her and Joseph helped raise, and I basically stepped into his life. And so I don't know. In the fifteenth anniversary of nine to eleven, ESPN had asked me to do a piece, or I had asked on the tenth anniversary, I think it was I volunteered the ESPN. I'm like, hey, if you want to do a piece, I would do a piece on my wife plate husband, and like, yeah, I don't know, we'll say. You know, nobody expressed any great interest in it. I got it, you know, Like I said, there are a lot of families that were impacted that day. For some reason. On the fifteenth anniversary, one of the ESPN producers came from was like, I think we'd like to do that on Joe. I'm great now. I didn't even know what form it would take. And I worked with a producer at ESPN, Dominique, who did a great job, and we put together story that was on Joe. And what was amazing was we're on set and right when I got upset, my phone blew up and it was like all kinds of people from all walks of life, entertainment, politics, people were touched and moved by Joe's story. Which could just google it, you know, Adam Schefter or Joe Mayo's story on ESPN. And so somebody saying, well, you should write a book about it, and I said, I don't know want to write a book. But I did write a book. I enlisted the help of a guy that I knew, a great writer from Sports Illustrated, Michael Rosenberg, who went to the University of Michigan, and Michael helped me through it, and we called it Demand. I never met a memoir, and it was a book about Joe and me stepping into his life. And that's basically the story. You know, listen. Like I said, that event was enormous to everybody, it feels felt even more enormous on the East Coast. I was living in Denver when it happened. But you know, my parents' best friend perish that day. I had fraternity brothers that perish that day. My wife lost her husband that day. The people that I call in laws lost their son that day. You know, it's hard to be from the East Coast and not know somebody. We lost somebody that day who was impacted. And it's just a way to honor and remember and let people know a little bit about the life of Joe Mayo. And like I said, there were a lot of people, great people who tragedy lost their lives that day. What do you think you learned about yourself in that process of building your marriage but also you know, stepping into the place that she felt like her previous husband was in, Like you served and helped care for a son that wasn't yours. Like, what do you feel like you learned the most or grew in the most through that season. I think we're learning all the time to be honest parent. You know, it's it's not a simple easy thing. I learned at that time that I think that marriage comes along with a lot, but when you tack on the added circumstances, there is even more layers to it. And so it's hard. And and like I said, you know, I said in the book, like we still have pictures of Joe that hang in our house. You know, it was his house. We live in that house, and I've just tried to honor him and respect him and tried to look out for his family, to do my part to look out for the people that he loved the most. It's, uh, you know, it's it's it's a very braine thing. Like I said, I'm not the only one who's lived this kind of life who stepped into these set of circumstances. I have other people that have done the same. I can't tell specific what did I learn. I learned it it's not always easy. I learned it's hard. I learned you can't replace that person. I learned that person lives on even though they're God. I learned that you can't be that person and all you can do is the best you can. I mean, like, I don't know all these little picky little things that I learned, I don't know what they amount to, but you know, you just you know, it's such a sad thing. You know. Today today is the is the anniversary of Joe's parents, and uh, you know, I texted them this morning to wish of a happy animal. And you know, our family is unique because our kids have three sets of grandparents. They have Joe's parents and my wife's parents and my parents and I have two sets of in laws. I consider them in laws, and so it's there's a lot of unusual family structures in the world we live in today, and that's our version of our unusual structure. There's a beautiful lesson of selflessness and that because I feel like a lot of men may want a situation that is perfectly suitable to them or something that you know they would dream of. But here you are being presented with a beautiful situation with a beautiful woman and an amazing marriage with some extra things attached to it, and essentially you have a choice of like, you know, this isn't what I intended on, but I can. I can still show up in and focus on the beauty and gratude of the situation. And I feel like you've done that your entire life, through your your journey as a reporter too, and it just spills over and these lessons that we learn just there's no boundaries to where they can go in our life. They are character and who we are and who we're growing into. It goes into everything that we do. And it's cool to see you have such a and at such an angle and a perspective on that situation and you willing to share that with people. Man, I think I think that's beautiful. Well, I appreciated its. Like I say, it's everybody's got a story, and that just happens to be our story. Maybe you can take us out at them and just share with us. Like when you hear the word come back, what does that mean to you? It means everybody in any walk of life is going to have setbacks, no matter who you are, no matter what you do, and every single person is gonna have a setback, and every person is going to have a chance to repeatedly come back because there are enough bad days in this world, you get a chance to come back from them. There's enough rejection this world, you get a chance to come back from that. There is enough negativity and setbacks that everybody continually has the chance to come back from something. And it's up to them to choose whether they want to do that and how fast they want to put it into motion. Well, they just want to accept it and be defeated and crushed by it. And the people who have shine the brightest, like Darren and I'm sure you Donnie, they've taken those setbacks and they've pushed ahead, and they pushed forward and they pushed through the setbacks so that they could have the type of glorious comebacks that deserve to be highlighted. That's so well said, man. Thank you for your time. I know you gotta run and catch a flight, and you've been so gracious to carve out this window of time for us man, So we really appreciate you, and I'm looking forward to seeing you around this season and everywhere you travel. Everywhere you go, man, I just hope it's safe travels and wishing nothing but peace and success. Well, thank you, guys, I appreciate it. Donnie, thank you for having me. Darren. Thank you. Hey, I'm in the New York area, Darren, you need anything, you can make a call here, Yes, sir, we'll do man. Thank you, Adam, appreciate your time. Thank you guys, have a great day. And I just want to thank everybody for joining us for another episode of come Back Stories as well. Hope you keep downloading us wherever you get podcasts. Tell your friends, tell your relatives, tell them to keep coming back because we're going to keep coming back in your lesson our DNA and check us out on Inflection Network on YouTube as well, and we will catch you guys next week. Comeback Stories is a production of Inflection Network and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.