It’s taken Joe Unitas a long time to finally write a book of his father’s tales, advice and the father-to-son wisdom that only the son of the greatest quarterback of his generation could hand down through storytelling. The new book “Unitas To Unitas” is now available. Let the son of Number 19 tell you about the Johnny U he knew.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
crab cake tour, Baltimore Colts, Johnny Unitas, family wisdom, life lessons, father-son relationship, discipline, hard work, football legacy, Baltimore Ravens, Joe Unitas, book release, personal stories, childhood memories, sports icons
SPEAKERS
Joe Unitas, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive. We are positively into the holiday season, into the storytelling season, and it’s always crab cake time. Here the crab cake tour back out on the road, presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery. You’ll have Raven scratch offs to give away when we crank the tour back up, whether it’s Cocos or Costas or faith leaves or stay fair, any of the places that you know we’re going to be. We’re going to be Cooper’s north as well as down and Fells Point, eating crab cakes, eating oysters, all of it. Brought to you by our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care as well. And, of course, our 26th anniversary oyster tour brought to you by curio wellness, foreign daughter and, of course, liberty, pure solutions, one 800 clean water. Yeah, I’m getting to be old. There is a 40th anniversary documentary of my time. I brag a couple weeks ago that I bake some purchases on eBay of some old Houston Oiler stuff, some old Louie Aparicio weird stuff. I collect these weird rock and roll belt buckles. But the first belt buckle I ever had came on a Sears belt buckle, 1971 I probably got it. 7273 this is it. This is my Baltimore Colts belt buckle. When I see it, I hear, I see John Zieman starting the band, playing the fight song my dad taking me out to Memorial Stadium and my dad’s the first game I ever went to was the game after Johnny Unitas was dealt to the San Diego Chargers. And my dad was so pissed at that time, or say Schnell and burger to all of them, everybody, that he bought me a San Diego Chargers tenant for my wall, and I wind up falling in love with the Houston Oilers as I’ve had Dante pastorini on. I never had Johnny you on my show. Now, Johnny did the station several times talking to Bob Haney. I have those tapes from back before his his tragic death now almost a quarter of a century ago, but I do remember about three weeks before Johnny’s death, I was on the field for a preseason game at the new stadium, and I remember Chris Redmond had just gotten here, and I had I was always intimidated by John. I saw him at Allison games. I always if I saw him. I saw him. I mentioned that I worked with John Steadman, and that kind of got me over. Got a smile out of John, which wasn’t always the easiest thing in the world for me, and this is back when I had long hair. Was a rock and roll hammer Jack’s guy, too. But John never did the show. He never didn’t do the show. He I never asked him. I just was too intimidated to ask him. I figured, leave John alone. He’s got enough people bothering him. You know, I always felt bad with his hand and signing the autographs and all that, and I never had him on now I regret it greatly, but I will say this on the eve of having his boy, Joe, unite us on to talk about his book, that my last interaction with your dad, Joe, I won’t make me cry. I think I can get through this and tell the story, but I saw your father on the sidelines every week during the Raven era, 9690 790-899-2000, before he passed right. And so he was always on the sidelines. They painted that 19 at one point, like about the 28 yard line where he used to stand. Maybe it was at the 19 yard line, I’m not sure, but it was down in that area. And as a media member the last five minutes of every game I could go on the field and watch the game. And I used to stand next to him all the time, and you know, stage of pleasantry or whatever, I never knew if he even knew who I was. Now, this is in 2001 in that range, before we lost him, and I walked by him, and Chad united us, who was on him. There was a teenager time, maybe you’re like that. And he always had Chad with him. And he walked by me, and he looked up at me, and he said to me in his and I can hear his voice. He said, How you doing? Nestor? Good to see you. He said, my name. And I heard John United say my name. And I’ve been on the air 10 years, and I his voice was ubiquitous to my childhood and hearing him around town. But your dad died knowing who I was, and to me, Oh, dude, that was everything, man, just, you know, just the fact that he knew who I was, let alone that I never had him on the show. But the Joe Unitas is Inc, the book about his dad, and he comes in from the Sin City to fight, City of Las Vegas, Nevada. How are you? It’s good to have you on i i can honestly say I’m not sure I’ve ever had a unite us on my show. Honestly, maybe Chad hung out here 20 years funny, if I don’t know, but I don’t think I ever had a united on my show.
Joe Unitas 04:33
Well, I appreciate you. Let me be the first.
Nestor Aparicio 04:38
Well, you’ve been gone a while, right? Like, I mean, I don’t know a whole lot about the family. I don’t know many of you very well through all of this, it was a different era for me. I knew Artie Donovan a little bit more and some of John’s teammates, Lenny Moore, we lost John so long ago now that it feels like I if he had lived longer, I would have it would have been more fun to talk about the old. Times a little bit with him. I never had that chance. And I think any of you who are still alive who can tell that story, whether it’s John Ziman, any, anyone that was around John in the orbit, there’s, there are stories that you want to tell, and now a way to tell it. Now I go out to Amazon your books out here. Joe, yeah,
Joe Unitas 05:20
no, I appreciate it. You know, I didn’t want to write it, to be honest. I I’ve been working on a screenplay that I’ve written, trying to get that made for a long, long time, and we just finished this huge rewrite. And this one writer contacted me, and she had tried to get a book done with my dad a long time ago. It never came to fruition. And then she contacted me. I’ll figure one. I don’t want to write anymore right now. And then she stayed on it. And I was like, Okay, fine, we’ll go ahead and do it now that it’s all done, and looking back and, you know, the process and reliving some of those, you know, childhood memories, the lessons that I was taught by Him as a kid. Now being a parent, and, you know, passing those on to my own three sons, I’m really glad I did it. It was a great experience. And now there’s something tangible that hopefully my boys can take and one day, when they become parents, maybe use, use some of those life lessons that my dad passed on to me. Well, you
Nestor Aparicio 06:22
know, I I just think about great local stories and families, and I think a Cal Ripken and his dad and his dad’s legacy in the cow senior foundation all that. But Cal wrote a book really early on after losing his dad, you maybe even career study might still be going on time. Wrote a book in regard to lessons and the Ripken way and the Unite us way. And clearly we’re in a different era. You know what I mean? Like, I remember when the team came to Baltimore back in 9697 and all the pissed off colts fans in the 4100 club. And you know whatever the old set was, and Michael olester, my my cranky old buddies, one of those people, and my dad was gone by them. I lost my dad 92 so I never got to go to a Ravens game with my dad. But like even people like wanting your dad to be the offensive coordinator, and your dad saying the game’s different than it was for me, you know, in the 60s, and how the game is perceived and how it’s changed through all of this, that the stories of whatever it used to be, need to be told. And that’s kind of what I try to do here. And I think the life lessons is saying what made someone great then is still what makes them great now, um, but I think there was a attention to detail that happened back then, and certainly not an internet and not sort of the cultural awareness of football as much as everybody’s a critic now, in the modern era, and the game has gotten so big that the fundamentals of what you’re taught in a house maybe not different than what he brought to a huddle to some degree,
Joe Unitas 07:55
probably not at all, knowing him, right? He was very direct about everything, but, yeah, I mean, it comes down to, you know, the biggest thing, one of the chapters in the book, is about being disciplined, and anything that you do right, you’re not going to have success if you don’t have the discipline to put in the work day in and day out. There’s no, no shortcut, you know, none of this entitlement crap that we hear about so often nowadays. It’s no, you got to go to work if you want to do something, you got to do a day in and day out. Stay focused. Don’t quit, right? We my dad had a famous line for us. He said, Don’t ever quit something, right? It’s a horrible habit to get into, and people do it every single day.
Nestor Aparicio 08:40
For you with these things you heard in your ears and things you may have been saying your own, kids or employees, if you have such a thing, or people that are important in your life, that are foundational, uh, principles, if not beliefs, certainly habits. Let’s just say, right? Um, beliefs that lead to habits, right? Did you ever write them down? I mean, I, I’ve done a lot of Tony Robbins training. I mean, I come from all hardscrabble Dundalk background, building the business. 40 years into this, my dad had some principles, and I don’t, I haven’t put that part of it together to put my dad’s stuff. He used to say some of it doesn’t make some stuff my mother said, certainly doesn’t make any sense years later, but my but things they did made sense, and I guess also the way they did things, not even what they said, as much as what they did and how they conducted themselves. Um, I’ve never written that on a Crip sheet, but I’ve written a crib sheet for what makes me tick, and I guess it probably wouldn’t be too far off from what made them tick if I if I had to go back and do it that way. I didn’t have a famous parents, though, you know what I mean. I didn’t have united to carry around, to have them say to you, what did your dad teach you? Because your dad was clearly great, and the things that made him great, um, discipline. You mentioned being direct. That’s an interesting way to put Johnny and I blunt might be the word. Now, I don’t know, you know, too blunt to some degree, politically incorrect or whatever it would be, but your dad was direct, if nothing else, like I don’t he was a pretty straight shooting man, more so than you could be allowed to be, and in this era, I think
Joe Unitas 10:20
absolutely. Yeah, he used to tell us, hey, be direct. Tell the truth. If they can’t handle it, that’s our problem.
Nestor Aparicio 10:27
Move on. He had no problem being moving on at all,
Joe Unitas 10:31
not at all. But no, I never really wrote it down like you’re talking about, until we got into this, right? Putting together the book, and just thinking back about all these different things in my life, and having him around and different shared experience, because I was like, okay, and then just started, well, that’s what that one was about. Well, this is what this is about, for sure, right? You know, like I have just looking at it, you know, doesn’t cost anything to be nice,
Nestor Aparicio 11:04
by the way, Lenny Moore, I quoted him two weeks ago. I wrote a letter to the new owner of the Orioles, and I literally quoted, I used that quote. I attributed it to Lenny because I heard Lenny say that at cocktail events every year Ed block, when he lost his boy, Leslie the whole deal for his foundation, Lenny used to say that all the time it doesn’t cost you a cent to be kind, to be nice, to be Yeah,
Joe Unitas 11:34
yeah. And this is like earth shattering news here. It’s kind of common sense things, when you start thinking about it and just but to set sit down and write it out, then it, oh, yeah, of course that. Why wouldn’t we do that? I’d be, be a good teammate. Don’t lie. Be disciplined. You know, support. Make time for your children. And I get into things that he taught me about being a father and using those now with my own kids. But yeah, it was not a list Nestor that I like had, you know, up on a wall somewhere that he had handed me years ago. It’s something that just came to fruition as we were putting this together.
Nestor Aparicio 12:15
But Joe Unitas is here in the book. I want you to hold the book up here in a minute, unite us. To unite us. Joe united as told to Christine said, it setting Clark, and we’re going to talk forwards by Joe Namath and Dan Fauci. They played against them, so my first ever Colts game, and I talked to Stan white about this all the time, because he sacked Joe Namath and separated his shoulder. And it was right, your dad was running around in the gold pants and the the bolt Thunderbolt helmet, the 19 on it with the Chargers at that point. How old were you then? I don’t need me.
Joe Unitas 12:46
I wasn’t born.
Nestor Aparicio 12:47
You weren’t born. You were born after, okay,
Joe Unitas 12:49
I was conceived in San Diego.
Nestor Aparicio 12:53
Okay, fair enough. So, yeah, okay, so
Joe Unitas 12:56
I was born in 74 right? He retired after that, 73 season, all right.
Nestor Aparicio 13:01
Now, when do you get that California looking at that West Coast thing going on? There you go back to your roots. So from your perspective, in your march with your father and these things he taught you clearly. Now, as I hear it and feel it, into the 80s and into the 90s, you don’t know a life where your father wasn’t this incredible celebrity, right? Like, I mean, just everywhere he went, especially in this town, once he came back, you didn’t know a life outside of Baltimore, right? Like, I mean, John was here that whole, I mean, I spent my whole childhood going to colts games. And, you know, he was always a, I mean, whether it was Johnny you lanes, and we had a colt lane on Mayor Boulevard outside my house, I passed every day going to high school, and then obviously, you know, the lounge and all the other things that the radio shows. And then losing the Colts not too long after, in real time in 84 and then the fight to get the team back. And they were all we had left. We didn’t have the team anymore, right? And your childhood, dude, you were 10 years old, when the team, oh, it’s
Joe Unitas 14:02
horrible, right? We would go to the, you know, we had season tickets. We every Sunday, right? We go to Mass in the morning, right? He would we come home from mass. He would pop up like two, three big buckets of popcorn on the stove, dump it into the brown grocery bag and off we would go to the game. Me, him, mom, Chad, yeah, yeah. Chad was around, but he was born in the 78
Nestor Aparicio 14:34
but yeah, telling me Johnny popped his own popcorn for Yeah, for colts games, really,
Joe Unitas 14:39
yeah, heck yeah. Holy popcorn. So much better than the stadium popcorn. We all know that only
Nestor Aparicio 14:45
thing you could do, so, you know, only way you get this is to get the book. You know, hold the book up for me and talk about how to get it and give everybody the whole low down on it. Joe.
Joe Unitas 14:53
So can you see that? All right,
Nestor Aparicio 14:56
I see it perfectly. Yes. That’s Johnny. You right there, holding you. You. Yeah,
Joe Unitas 15:00
I was a teeny little baby that was his, uh, bring it in really close. Yeah, there
Nestor Aparicio 15:04
you go. Life lessons learned. There it is. Alright. Well, tell tell me about like this, putting this thing together when it started to get it done. And literally, these life lessons that you had to write down for the very first time. You’re inspiring me, Joe, watch out. You know, my dad, I’ll start hearing my dad my ears and thinking, what did he really say? And what did he really mean? And at 56 and I guess you were well into your 40s before you thought about this, right?
Joe Unitas 15:32
Yeah, I mean this again. This was just brought to me, this idea by Christine, probably, I don’t know, two or three years ago, like I said initially, I was like, No, I’m not doing it. Not interested. And then she kind of came back around again, and we talked about a little bit more, and I was like,
Nestor Aparicio 15:53
okay, not interested. Maybe exploitative. A little bit like, No, it just doesn’t need to be done. No. Well, I
Joe Unitas 15:57
just, I’ve been, I started writing this movie script, Nestor, back in 2006 when, when Johnny the Tom Callahan book came out? Did you read that? I have that on my shelf? Yes, yeah. That’s best book ever written about my dad. Okay, so I got the right to that from Tom and went to work to start writing this, this screenplay, right? And it’s evolved over the years. I mean, gosh, we’re almost at, what, almost 20 years now that I started, but I just finished this big rewrite, like in 2022 when she came to me, and that’s where I was like, No, I’m not interested in writing right now. And then she came back and we decided, okay, well, if we’re going to do it, it’s got to be I had to figure out some way that would make sense for me to want to do it. So I took I said, Okay, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll do life lessons. We’re going to incorporate those lessons into me as a parent now, and also what’s kept me on the path since 2006 to try and get this movie made right, all the obstacles we face, the things we’ve had to overcome, right, having a director attached, and he fell out, financing falling out multiple times, but just Not quitting Right? Like, we kind of alluded to earlier, so that’s like, Okay, well, now we’ve got this framework, let me come up with the stories, and now we’ve got this book that’s ready for people to read, that’ll be out tomorrow.
Nestor Aparicio 17:35
Well, you had to have a purpose for it, right? Like, like, literally, to write a book. It’s a very solitary thing to do. It’s very time consuming. It’s incredibly emotional to write about anything that’s as close to you that you almost from a psychological standpoint. It’s like a stove you don’t want to touch because it gets hot, you know? And and I would have to think that through, to think through my father and writing that through at this point in my life, even though I’m sure my father gave me lessons that and it’s not, you’re not, you’re not getting rich doing this, right? I mean it literally. I don’t think anybody’s writing a book thinking they’re going to make a million dollar, because I assure you, as an author of three of them, you’re not. But at some point it became, it becomes a calling, right? And until it becomes a calling, you shouldn’t do it. I would tell anybody that, yeah,
Joe Unitas 18:22
the little bit that they gave me to write it, that I’m if I, if that’s all I get, that’s fine
Nestor Aparicio 18:29
to get
Joe Unitas 18:31
rich by enemies, exactly, right? But no, it was good, you know, it’s a good thing for for for me. Yes, it was emotional, right? Definitely cried sitting at the at the keyboard a lot, but overall, now that’s all said and done. You know, I said this. I’m glad, I’m glad I did it. You’re
Nestor Aparicio 18:50
not gonna make me cry reading his book now, are you? No, probably not. Okay, good. You’ll be
Joe Unitas 18:57
like, God, Joe’s an idiot.
Nestor Aparicio 19:01
He did as a kid. I’ll be honest with you, so much of that part of it, especially now the ravens are here and mature. And I have my own story to tell with my own Chad with the Ravens. And I still kept my cold spell buckle. I still have all my old Houston Oiler stuff and the cold stuff to me, just so you know, of my age. And I tell you, I, you know, went to those games when your dad was with the chargers, when you were getting conceived, somewhere out there in Ocean Beach or some Pacific Beach, somewhere out there, um, back in the in that era, um, you know, the Colts were my childhood. That’s what I went. I never went to a Ravens game with my dad. Every game I ever went to with my dad was a Colts game until the Colts left. And I went to a couple Eagles games in the late 80s, whatever that was like a teenager, but my childhood, 7374 75 Bert Jones, 76 Lydell, Mitchell, 77 sack pack, 78 the krona into the upper deck. Then the everything that happened after that, when you were 4567, that the team kind of fell apart in our sleeves. And you know, Frank Cush, all of that childhood stuff, I don’t want to say I suppressed it, but I worked at the paper beginning in 84 begging to get a team back, serving crab cakes, stealing a team, benefiting from that all the rest of my life, the last 30 years. But there has been a point where I was so angry at the logo that my wife, when I got married 25 years ago, she go, why do you go to Indianapolis? You’re pissed off in the minute you get there, you see the Colt helmet. You go to the Colt team shop at the mall in downtown Indianapolis. You go to the Hoosier dome. I mean, I had a lot of male angst, which we’re all familiar with in this country, in regard to the Colts, to the point where, like, it felt like the ex girlfriend you didn’t want to admit. You didn’t want to see any of the pictures. You didn’t want to you know, I used to hang at Gattis bar in Dundalk when I was a kid that was adorned with nothing but black and white colts photos from field level, like the cults were revered in my my life, in my neighborhood and my family. I saw my father right twice in his life. Today, his sister died, and the day the Colts left town, I can tell you, March 29 1984 I saw my father crying over jelly stain Baltimore Sun that morning. And all these years later, now adult tell anybody, all right, especially when it comes to Raven stuff, because I lived it all. There were two books on the Ravens. I 27 Super Bowls. All that I have gotten, really in the last couple of months. And I guess maybe it leads me to you a little bit. And I did a thing with Tom Maddie. There’s a book out and losing some of our cult legends that we’re losing here toward the end of their lives, that when I Google things to go buy stupid stuff on the internet that I have no use for, or look at it, or per it, just to look at it. It’s some 1960s or 70s. And it’s not even my association to my Colts. It’s more my dad’s colts and your dad’s colts that I see old ticket stubs, and I see I almost bought a 1959 championship game ticket stub for 100 bucks last week because I saw it, and it just looked like something I wanted to have, even though I wasn’t alive. Then either there’s just something really romantic about the Baltimore Colts, it doesn’t feel dirty to me anymore, and I’ll get emotional even saying that it doesn’t. It doesn’t feel like a Pandora’s box I don’t want to get into. It feels like something I want to hold and collect after spending a long, long time not wanting anything to do with that ex
Joe Unitas 22:21
girlfriend. Yeah, no, it makes sense. I use that analogy all the time with our people, like, are you still a cold saying, like, hell no. They left me. They broke my heart when I was 10 years old. Screw up. Can’t stand the cold. Joe
Nestor Aparicio 22:33
Flacco does look good. Neck gear done. He’s a little bit you gotta admit that right? Your dad would say, look at that. And say he’s a good looking quarterback. He does things the right way. Your dad would like Joe. Yeah,
Joe Unitas 22:43
Joe, Joe. Joe’s amazing. We were joking the other other day in this group chat for fantasy, I said, Joe’s incredible. He throws touchdowns and makes babies.
Nestor Aparicio 22:53
Yeah, it smiles the whole way. I mean, he’s my you know what? So
Joe Unitas 22:59
relax. That’s the thing that’s so cool about him, he’s just chill the whole time.
Nestor Aparicio 23:03
You know, I having Johnny unitases kid on the show here, and Joe Unitas, I should admit to you 40 years into this. So I want to bring up John Steadman name just for a minute, because i i perv eBay Right to Buy weird stuff. And I’m telling you, I went into a colts rabbit hole. About 90 days ago, I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve bought anything. It’s like going to New York. I want to eat everything, but I only eat a couple things. But I was looking, and I’ve seen all of this really, really neat old stuff. And then somehow I got into a room and Stedman stuff was in there. There was some like, earn that the governor of Tennessee gave him like in 1969 it was five bucks, and I didn’t buy it. I felt like a schmuck, but I did buy a book of Steadman stories, the best and worst of Steadman that I didn’t know existed. And in it are these amazing columns written in the 60s about all of it, the famous Brooks Robinson thing, when he talked about what a good man Brooks, like your dad’s profiles and all of that are in this $16 crazy book that smells like an old library. It was signed to some lady named Marlene, and it’s got John’s signature in it, and all that Steadman I’m talking about, not united. And, um, there’s a piece of that that I had to have, right? And I guess that taps into where you are with telling these stories, to making somebody like me want your book, or want to attach to that a little bit, because I was so attached to Stedman, right? Like Steadman was like a father to me. We lost Phil Jackman a couple of weeks ago. So I am really going through that. Remember the sopranos when Tony Soprano saw the ducks, and it meant something. I’m going through that right now. You know? I mean, I’m 56 and you’re one of the ducks, and you come to me, you’re a younger duck, even Joe, Little Joe Unitas, who grows up to write a book, but this is how your dad’s legacy is going to get passed on, above and beyond amici over the goal line, you know, and the gold arm, and all of that that there is. There’s a richness to all of it that only you could express. Yeah,
Joe Unitas 24:59
I think. To be honest, it doesn’t have anything to do with football. It’s just about father and son relationship, and, you know, things that were taught. I mean, there’s the forward that touches a little bit because of, you know, fountain and Namath and what they contributed. But yeah, it’s not much about football at all.
Nestor Aparicio 25:17
Well, I’m happy you finally got your thing together. I hope the film. I’ve been hearing about it for years. I think I had maybe met you at a Super Bowl or two, maybe on a radio I mean, I feel like it likes pet, you look so much like your brother. You look so much you look like your father. I mean, in the same way Ryan reckon I see him, and it’s like I I see Cal at 22 every time I look at the kid I you know you’re wearing that 19 hat. You it’s a little spooky. Do you do look a lot like your dad?
Joe Unitas 25:46
Yeah, I get that a lot. He used to always say, you’ll grow out of it. Don’t worry about it.
Nestor Aparicio 25:51
Well, I don’t think, especially around a smile every time you smile, I’m seeing your dad. So your hopes for the book, and I guess passing it on, even for your own family, give everybody a little update on what’s going on with you, besides just the book, because everybody loves your family and everybody wants John’s kids to do well,
Joe Unitas 26:08
yeah. I mean, I’ve got, you know, three, three sons, you know, one is in his late 20s, living in LA and working in the music industry for Sony, doing great. He’s out there discovering talent and signing them. I have a son is a sophomore in college. I’ve got a My youngest one is a senior in high school, right? So we’ll be, we’ll be an empty house here Nestor come August.
Nestor Aparicio 26:34
Have they read the book yet? Or no, or have they just Cliff noted it, or, like, not get around to it? Or No, I
Joe Unitas 26:40
gave it to him like I sent him the PDF. Don’t ask
Nestor Aparicio 26:44
him if they’re ready, because they can lie to you. You know, you don’t give a quiz over Thanksgiving, whatever you do,
Joe Unitas 26:49
right? So the oldest one, he texts me and say, Hey, I just finished it, and he actually used the line in an office meeting. It doesn’t cost anything to be nice.
Nestor Aparicio 26:59
So that’s that was his tip. That was his tell that grandpa was alive.
Joe Unitas 27:04
Either that or he just read the chapter headings.
Nestor Aparicio 27:08
Well, that would be a funny, funny thing like at the Thanksgiving to honor your father and everybody has to get up and read one of his life lessons to everybody that you know, that I want to be at the United table for that, share that one out. That’ll be a good thing to sell your book, put that out on the internet when that’s Well, I mean, did the wisdom that is passed down through this? I want to promote the book, hold the book up one more time united, to unite us life’s lessons passed down from father to son. Show everybody that book and and tell them where they can get it. Does. Joe,
Joe Unitas 27:34
so I’ve been told it’s already out in local Baltimore stores, and then Amazon, Barnes and Noble has it.
Nestor Aparicio 27:44
It’s a click away, basically, right? Yeah, yeah.
Joe Unitas 27:47
I mean, what Amazon doesn’t have, you know, has everything, right, anything.
Nestor Aparicio 27:51
What would your man make of the internet? Tell me Tell the truth. What would he make of it? He
Joe Unitas 27:55
probably wouldn’t use it all that often.
Nestor Aparicio 27:58
He’d be strategizing it somehow, right?
Joe Unitas 28:00
No, it’s funny. We have, I have some typed letters from him that he sent to my acting teacher when I was in LA in the early, like, very, very early, 2000 2000 actually was 2001 because he was going to come out to LA. I was getting married. We were going to my wife, and I were getting married on September 28 2002 and he passed away on September 11, 2022 or excuse me, 2002 right, so, but he and my acting teacher had some correspondence back and forth prior to the wedding, and we were going to go and play golf with my teacher, who was from Virginia, and he loved my dad. He’s like, your dad is my idol as a kid growing up. And it’s just, I tell the story about how I just happened to come into his acting school. It’s pretty cool, but so, yeah, he actually sent me. My acting teacher sent me the letters that he and my dad had going back and forth. And the thing that’s funny, you asked me, I would even use the internet all the letters that he wrote, they were all capital letters. The whole thing was caps lock. And he would type, you know, like one finger.
Nestor Aparicio 29:21
Famously, His fingers were like seeing Ray Lewis’s hands, or my friend Brian Baldinger, yeah, football player hands from that era. Didn’t, you know, fingers didn’t make it. Yeah, they were,
Joe Unitas 29:32
they were mangled, right? He had to have the knuckle replaced. You know, couldn’t wear rings
Nestor Aparicio 29:39
autographs too. Isn’t that something that these kids all want rings? You know that they and like, you know, he earned the rings, but couldn’t even wear them, right? There’s something about that, right?
Joe Unitas 29:49
He wouldn’t have bought him anyway. He didn’t care about that stuff. Yeah, he just,
Nestor Aparicio 29:53
I would say anybody asked me about John, I say is one, no nonsense, man, you know. I mean. Mean, like he did not have time for fools, as far as I could tell, right?
Joe Unitas 30:04
Yeah, but yeah, to your point about his hands, I remember when at the end of before he passed away, you can see on the screen, he used to have to hold the pen like this to sign autographs, right? Yeah, this finger would not bend. You know, I just, like, held it in there. But I never
Nestor Aparicio 30:21
asked him for it. I’m like, Yeah, I don’t even have a selfie with him. I just I had so much respect for your father that I left them alone. And I think I’ve said that out loud 1000 times because, like, how did you not have Johnny you on the show? I’m like, I just never wanted to bother him. I felt like everybody bothered him, and I felt like when he’s running around at Towson games, and inevitably, that must have been you. It must have been used a little kid out there when Terry true AX was coaching in 19, you know, whenever it was 8788 a you know, during that era of basketball, you must have been 13 years old. You were the one out there at Towson center. And I wasn’t going to be the 10,000th person that went up and said your dad was my idol. But you probably heard that every day of your life, right? I mean, you’ve had the last name to carry with you. That’s a very common thing, but very uncommon for the rest of us. Say your dad was my idol growing up. That was not the first time you heard that. No,
Joe Unitas 31:10
it was, you know, that’s pretty arrogant, but it was common. You know, you grow up in it, and that’s but it’s nice, you know, it’s great to hear that. I mean, I still in my my line of work, I’ll still have people, you know, when I introduce myself to say, Hey, I recognize that last name. Were you related? Like, wow, he hasn’t been here. You know, he passed in 2002 22, years later, and people are still, still asking. So it’s pretty awesome. Makes you feel good? Well, my
Nestor Aparicio 31:38
old man loved your old man, even though he loved Ordell Bracey more. And I’ve told Ordell that I wouldn’t have told John that I probably would admitted that to John. John probably would say Good. Ordell was a good man, you know, but um, my dad when I was a little boy, so Johnny was gone. I’m talking 7475 I went to every game with my dad when I was six years old, seven years old, just all of that. Mercury Morris, Jim K I remember all of that. And my dad thought himself clever. He wasn’t if he was here now we were as clever as you thought you were. But he would always try to explain to me, unite us. Unite. I didn’t understand what unite meant. Like United Auto Workers, my dad was united steelwork, right? Unite us, Johnny, unite us. And the plane that would fly over saying, unite us to bring us together. So I’m glad your dad’s bringing us together all these years later. I’m glad the book is out, uniting us. Unite us to unite us. And that’s just you and I T A s the way God meant for it to be. Life’s lessons passed down for father’s son, Joe United is my guest, as told the Christine setting Clark forwards by Joe Namath and Dan Fauci, couple Hall of Famers there, and former guest on my program as well, even though John didn’t come on, you are the first United to unite us, Joe. And I hope folks go out and buy the book and and get your dad’s life lessons and your family’s good name. And I hope you have fun out there in Vegas, and you’re gonna have better weather this winter than we’re gonna have. Are you gonna be back here, signing or doing any of that kind of stuff This? This? No,
Joe Unitas 33:08
nothing’s planned for that at this point. If it comes up. I mean, I certainly could I like getting back to Maryland. I don’t have that opportunity too often. I would definitely come though, Chad is still there. He’s down in Annapolis. I go see him in my his my sister in law and my two nephews. That’d be cool.
Nestor Aparicio 33:27
Well, you know, around four dude, you know, so,
Joe Unitas 33:33
yeah, I’ve gotten soft with that cold weather buddy, right? I do not do it anymore. Yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 33:39
once they find the West Coast, they find it hard to get back here. You know, it is cold during the holidays and all that stuff. Joe Unitas is out there. His his book is available anywhere good books are sold. Unite us, to unite us. And it has a blue and white cover, just like John steadman’s book had 1974 we are going to be getting up on the holidays. You’re taking the Maryland crap gate to out on the road, brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I’ll have some scratch offs to give away during the crab cake tour. All Dates up at Baltimore positive, and getting through and marching through all sorts of stuff here in football season, as Lamar goes for MVP, or as they say, MV three, we are wnst am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive you.
