We visit with legendary super agent Leigh Steinberg several times a year and just talk football, life, business and the modern athlete. If you know of his rocky and wildly successful journey, you know he wants to share his wisdom on the sunny side of the street and his newest book, “The Comeback,” is his playbook for turning life’s setbacks into your greatest victories. We also chatted about the Maxx Crosby situation with Eric DeCosta and the Ravens and the significance of trust in the NFL business world.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Promote and publicize Baltimore Positive’s participation in the GBMC Safe program walk on April 17, including encouraging listeners to attend and donate.

Leigh Steinberg’s Journey and New Book

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the segment, mentioning the NFL Draft and other events.
• Nestor highlights his long-standing relationship with Leigh Steinberg, mentioning their shared history at Super Bowl events and other occasions.
• Nestor introduces Leigh Steinberg’s new book, “The Comeback,” which focuses on turning life setbacks into victories.
• Leigh Steinberg explains the purpose of the book, emphasizing that setbacks are inevitable and it’s important to respond to them effectively.

Overcoming Addiction and Personal Struggles

• Leigh Steinberg shares his personal struggle with alcohol addiction and how he achieved 16 years of continuous sobriety.
• Leigh discusses the concept of denial in addiction and the importance of admitting powerlessness over the substance.
• Leigh recounts a pivotal moment when he realized he was failing to live up to his core values of treasuring relationships and making a positive difference in the world.
• Leigh emphasizes the importance of maintaining sobriety and being a good parent, rather than focusing on rebuilding his career.

Support System and Role Modeling

• Leigh Steinberg credits his strong support system, including clients, friends, and family, for his recovery.
• Nestor asks about the athletes who supported Leigh during his struggles, and Leigh mentions that none of his clients abandoned him.
• Leigh highlights the importance of having a plan to come back and the role of higher power and support from others in the recovery process.
• Leigh discusses the role of role modeling in his practice, encouraging athletes to give back to their communities and set up charitable programs.

Philanthropy and Humanitarian Efforts

• Leigh Steinberg talks about the humanitarian awards given at his Super Bowl party, including the retired player award given to Ray Lewis.
• Leigh explains his approach to bonding with athletes and drawing out their personal compelling issues to inspire philanthropic efforts.
• Nestor mentions an upcoming event with GBMC to raise awareness about sexual abuse and trauma, and Leigh shares his support for such causes.
• Leigh discusses the importance of athletes using their profiles to make a positive impact and the various charitable initiatives he has seen among his clients.

Changes in Sports and College Athletics

• Nestor and Leigh discuss the significant changes in sports and college athletics over the years, including the impact of NIL deals and the transfer portal.
• Leigh explains how these changes have made the landscape of college athletics very different from what it was even a decade ago.
• Nestor reflects on the challenges of keeping up with the rapid changes in the sports industry and the importance of adapting to new realities.
• Leigh emphasizes the need for athletes to be prepared for the business side of sports and the importance of role modeling and second careers.

Trust and Integrity in Sports

• Nestor and Leigh discuss the importance of trust and integrity in the sports industry, particularly in the context of agent-team relationships.
• Leigh shares his belief that teams generally honor their word and the importance of oral agreements in the sports profession.
• Nestor expresses his frustration with the lack of trust in the NFL, particularly with the Ravens organization, and the impact on his personal relationships.
• Leigh and Nestor discuss the recent controversy involving the Raiders and Max Crosby, highlighting the importance of transparency and honesty in sports transactions.

The NFL Draft and Personal Connections

• Nestor asks Leigh about his involvement in the NFL Draft and his thoughts on the upcoming event.
• Leigh shares his excitement for Draft Day, describing the tension and anticipation surrounding the selection of players.
• Leigh explains his role in preparing players for the draft and the importance of having a sense of where they will be selected.
• Nestor and Leigh discuss the significance of the draft for both players and teams, and the impact of being selected in the first round.

Final Thoughts and Future Plans

• Nestor and Leigh wrap up the conversation, with Nestor expressing his admiration for Leigh’s work and his new book.
• Leigh mentions his plans for future books, including a parenting guide for youth athletes and a book on health and wellness in sports.
• Nestor reflects on the importance of resilience and overcoming setbacks, drawing parallels to his own experiences in journalism and sports.
• Leigh and Nestor share their mutual love for baseball and the Orioles, ending the segment on a positive note.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

NFL Draft, Leigh Steinberg, The Comeback, life setbacks, sobriety, addiction, trauma management, role modeling, philanthropy, sports agents, career reinvention, NIL deals, conference realignment, gambling threats, trust in sports.

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Leigh Steinberg

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Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W n s t am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive, positive to get you ready for the NFL Draft. We’re in the baseball season. Any breaking news happens first on the W n s t tech service. That’s all brought to you by Cole roofing and Gordian energy. And, of course, right on the Maryland crab cake tour with fadeleys This week, where cost us on the 16th, Koco’s on the 23rd which is draft day, and then that at Pizza John’s in Essex on May 1. I will have Harlem Globetrotter scratch offs as well as the Maryland treasures, and a big shout out to GBMC, as well as our friends at Farnham and Durham are for keeping us out on the road here during the spring season. This is going to be a great segment. I’ve done a lot of rock stars, a lot of Canadian rock stars. We’ve done all sorts of politics as the election comes up, but sports is my home, in my castle. This guy somehow befriended me before the Jerry Maguire thing. And I think if I aied pictures of Lee Steinberg and I at every Super Bowl, at every event, at owners meetings, at places we’ve been together. We went from young to middle age together here, and he has another book that he has written, and I’m going to get to the draft and mahomes and all the other stuff that we could talk about here. But there is a new book. It is the comeback, a playbook for turning life setbacks into victories. And I’ve known Lee long enough to idolize you, maybe in the early going. See you have your struggles, and you invite me to your Super Bowl parties year after year. And then you really had a second act here with this mahomes thing that people from the Jerry Maguire era, or even remember you from Aikman and Warren Moon from when I was a very, very young pub reporter. But you have had this second act, and you’re obviously out on the front end of writing about it and writing these life’s lessons that just when you think you know everything is when you start to learn stuff, right?

Leigh Steinberg  01:50

Yes, so I wrote the comeback, because in life, people experience setbacks. And it could be financial, it could be health, it could be marital or it could be substance abuse. And the question is not whether that’ll happen. It’s inevitable. There’ll be some crash at some point. It’s how do you respond to it? So I’ve taken my own struggle with alcohol 20 years ago and talked about how addiction affected me and the steps I took to come back from it, getting to the current point where, a couple of weeks ago, I celebrated 16 years of continuous sobriety. And I also tell the stories of a number of athletes who also experienced setbacks. So it’s Troy Aikman and Warren Moon and Steve Young and Patrick mahomes and Troy Aikman wrote the forward

Nestor Aparicio  02:54

trauma and crisis management and knowing your own limitations, what really happened to change you. I mean, I can honestly say, Lee, I’ve known you long. I mean, I think the first time I had you was maybe 9495 so we’re going back by 32 years. I remember you coming by the set, and I was worried about you because you looked out of it in a way that I didn’t know what it was. I later learned about the alcohol issue, but in my presence, I saw this in you. And I don’t know what was it a talk? Was it a daughter? Was it a child? Was it a busy way? Was it a person of God like what changed you to make you go sunny side of the street?

Leigh Steinberg  03:38

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Well, the hardest thing in any addiction is the concept of denial. Which is it? The substance convinces you you don’t have a problem. So the first key step is to admit that you’re powerless over alcohol and your life’s become unmanageable. And I was sitting in my parents home, I closed my office, I had closed my condo, and my only coherent thought at that point was, Where can I find more vodka? And I had an epiphany. My dad had raised me, Nestor, with two core values, one of which was treasure relationships, especially family, and the second was to try to make a meaningful difference in a positive way in the world and help people couldn’t help themselves, and it was clear to me I was failing on both counts. So I had a moment where I said, Wait a second, I’m not a starving peasant in Somalia. I don’t have the last name Steinberg in Nazi Germany. I’m not sick in any way other than the substance. What excuse do I have not to live up to those admonitions? And so I. I dedicated myself to making sure a, I’d be a good parent, and B, I’d maintain sobriety, and I wasn’t really worried about rebuilding a career. You know, I had a fairly dominant practice and sports. I mean, I had 64 first round draft picks in football, and the very first pick in the first round, eight times, and 12 players in the Hall of Fame, and then a reasonable size baseball practice basketball. I wasn’t worried about that. I was worried about maintaining sobriety and being a good parent, and then what difference could I make in the world on issues like racism and domestic violence and the environment?

Nestor Aparicio  05:52

Well, your Super Bowl parties every year, we’ve always talked about there was always a cause involved. It was always something that really taught me, something something that let me think Lee’s out on the West Coast. Stuff’s coming to him quicker than it’s coming to me, and he’s bringing it to me because, oh, I’m a media guy. Maybe I take it back to Baltimore and I’ll talk about it in some way. Maybe I found Baltimore positive after my wife almost dies twice 12 years ago, to say, you know, maybe chasing Peter Angelos or Steve bishati around looking for a media pass, isn’t you know, my cause in the world, and I think for you, with what you had built and the people around you, I wonder when I saw you struggling and didn’t know you well enough away from that, but maybe some of your quarterbacks, some of your clients, people on your inside, part of your whole Mojo was to make them better people and to help people around them and make them and make them better, teammates, better friends, better business people, better citizens, better celebrities in lots of ways, in that Jerry Maguire way that some of them did not surround you and tried to help you, given their own fame and their own failings and their own relationships being surrounded by lots of people that had lots of problems. I mean, the NFL brings a lot of money a lot of light, but the problems get a lot bigger.

Leigh Steinberg  07:09

Well, I was lucky, because I had such a strong support system. Once people knew that I was working a 12 step program with a unique fellowship, and I was supported by clients and by friends and by family. And you can’t do this alone. You can’t come back, Nestor, by yourself. You need the help of higher power. You need the help of a number of different people and and I found a unique fellowship and a 12 step program that helped me. But none of the athletes abandoned me. They were all they were all there and supportive. Are you

Nestor Aparicio  07:56

more appreciative of maybe someone? You don’t need to add any of the names, but you know your client list, we can go back to the people you knew before you had your issues that they reached to you in the middle of and say, Lee, you’re spiraling. Lee, can I help you or and then you look back and think, wow, those were the people that love me for real the most when they recognize this in me and tried to help me.

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Leigh Steinberg  08:22

So really, at the end of the day, it’s an inside job. You have to fundamentally change and and you have to have a plan to come back. And I would say that it became crystal clear in middle of this, at the end of life, it won’t be newspaper clippings. It won’t be career achievements that you remember. It’ll be family, friendship. Are you there for friends when it might cost you something to be a friend and and what good you gave back to the world? You know, part of our practice always was asking the athletes to retrace their roots. So probably over 200 of them set up high school scholarship funds or worked for church or Boys and Girls Club. A number of them have revisited their universities. Troy Aikman endowed a full scholarship and then gave a million dollars, and then they’ve set up charitable and community programs, taking the leading business figures, political figures and community leaders on advisory board. So that’s work done, putting the 220th single mother and her family in the first home Bethel ever owned, or Patrick mahomes with his 15 in the mahomes is where he helps kids at risk in hospitals who are hungry. And so it’s athletes making a difference. And so part of what. Keeps me in this field is the ability to use role modeling to make a significant difference in the world.

Nestor Aparicio  10:07

You mentioned all of these very personal things, you know, and they’re branded, and that’s all nice, but I have a feeling that Patrick mahomes, when you start to dig into him and the early part of his success, given his father’s success on the field and what his dad accomplished in the baseball space. And I know of your heart for the Dodgers in my Aparicio background, these athletes, and once they’re of that age, and I remember you bringing Patrick mahomes by when he was a rookie at the Super Bowl, and before that of Roethlisberger, and just generations of these young people that it isn’t hard to tap into something that means something to them once they do something well, especially when they’re in their early 20s, and you know, the world is there for them, and they want to win Super Bowls and make more money and do all of that, but they all have some, and I know this from being a journalist for 35 years, there’s always a soft part in there in some way for something, that if they had that amount of money, they could write a check, they could have a cause, that they would do something on behalf of their mother, their sister, someone they love, a coach, whomever it is. And then that next step of becoming a superstar in mahomes’s case, and having something that never gets old for them. It never, it never gets tiresome for and I’ve seen this in Ray Lewis, John, different people in my town that Brooks, my God, Brooks, Johnny, you all of that, that when they found their their place, it never left them. And they love coming back to it, and it’s the most important thing they do, and it’s the thing they talk about when they get to be old like us, about the glories and the Super Bowls. That’s all nice, but it’s that thing that I did that made a difference.

Leigh Steinberg  11:50

So this year, at our Super Bowl party in San Francisco, we give humanitarian awards to an owner a player for things to do philanthropically, and the retired player award went to Ray Lewis, and he was there to accept it. So what I do is, initially, in those first interactions with athletes, I say, is there anything in your own life that’s a particular compelling issue to you that if you had the profile you’d like to try and remediate, and so it’s all listening skills, as you well know Nestor. It’s drawing out another human being, getting below the surface, peeling back the layers of the onion so that you can bond with that athlete at with his heart and his mind, put yourself in in his heart and mind you see the world the way he sees it, or she sees it and and then go ahead and act. It also can be a trigger for positive, imitative behavior. So when I represented the heavyweight boxer Lennox Lewis, I had him cut a public service announcement that said Real men don’t hit women. And that could do more to trigger healthy attitudes and rebellious adolescence towards domestic violence than 1000 authority figures ever could.

Nestor Aparicio  13:23

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I need to point out that we’re going to be walking a mile in their shoes next Friday for the Safe program over GBMC, a great little segway there. It’s April 17. You hear this after that. You can always contribute. It happens every year over GBMC, and you can learn more there@gbmc.org which is on that point of sexual abuse and trauma in our very region. Here, Lee Steinberg is my guest. His new book, next book, the latest book, The comeback, a playbook for turning life setbacks into victories. From the legendary sports agent who inspired Jerry Maguire, comes a powerful story of resilience, reinvention and rising stronger than ever. And yes, I’m reading from the internet playbook for turnings life’s setbacks into victories. Lee is my guest. Is there when you’re doing a book like this at this point, and Brian Billick as my partner, always tell me, I keep these little stories and I write little things and I write little vignettes, and I have a little fun, almost like all my musician buddies that think they have pieces of a song or a riff or whatever they would record, I do that with my own words in various ways. Now, this becomes a greatest hits in some way, because it’s where you are right now, and it’s everything you’ve accumulated, and if you missed a couple of this or a couple of that or the book, it’s kind of all in here, because you bring more wisdom than you ever had into this. Do you feel like it’s the last book you write? Do you feel like you gotta get everything in there when you’re doing this thing?

Leigh Steinberg  14:48

Lee, no, it’s my fourth book. The first was winning with integrity, which was the 12 Steps of negotiation. The second was the agent, which was not a. Biography. The third was a book I wrote with two doctors on concussion and collision in athletics and and this is the next. No, I have many more book ideas, including a parenting guide for kids for parents of youth athletes, which nobody gives you a driver’s license to tell you how to motivate your five year old when they go off to play soccer. Are they supposed to win at all costs, or is participation the key? And if they don’t have a good coach, if they don’t like the position they’re playing if they’re not getting playing time, do you counsel them to stand up for themselves and assert themselves, or suck it up and learn character so and then there are always issues in even though the comeback is about resilience, I also talk about n, i, L, S, and gambling and conference realignment and health and wellness modalities that are revolutionizing the way that that players get protectively covered against injury and rehab quicker. So there’s an endless amount of topics to talk about.

Nestor Aparicio  16:25

You know, generationally, you know, I came at this in the early 80s, when I had my first press credentials, around the hockey team, around the baseball team, and the Orioles in the late 80s. Then, of course, the Ravens came here in the 90s, and I was syndicated. So, I mean, you know, through all the sports and all, I don’t feel like it changed that much. Maybe it did in a scouting way, from the 80s into, let’s say, the odds, but obviously the birth of the Internet, and me being around even modern coaches then, who thought my players aren’t going to tweet, my players aren’t going to be on social media, let alone where we are? You said n, i L, and we’re just getting through the n, C, A tournament. We’re lacrosse season around here. How much it’s changed in the last 20 years, 10 years, five years since I got thrown out of the NFL that would I recognize what a 17 year old sees the world in the land of Donald Trump, in the land of social media and n i l money and social influence in so many ways, where coaches are moving all over the place. I don’t recognize college athletics at all. I think it’s changed that dramatically. But what we’re seeing with a young athlete that you’re trying to represent, and the way they see the world completely different than rod TIB, well, and Jerry Maguire, or in any romantic way that it really is the business of business, of business that’s brought on throughout all of this that goes to a five year old, you know, getting a scholarship or joining a club program, or all the things that I see, rather that I don’t recognize, but that have become the business of Sports that that you oversee, in a lot of

Leigh Steinberg  18:02

ways, it’s completely changed. N, i l changes everything, because all of a sudden you have a 15 year old wanting a marketing director to brand him and negotiate for endorsements. And I school to college, recruiting has become a big money issue, and then there’s a transfer portal, which undercuts what we know. And then you have conference realignment. I went to Cal Berkeley, when you walk across campus, you look out at the Pacific Ocean in the Golden Gate Bridge. Cal is now in a conference, which is the ACC, which is your side of the country. And traditional rivalries gone, you know, regionality gone, and then you have gambling, which is the existential threat to sports as we know it, because all it will take is an athlete who hooks up with a an athlete who hooks up with A gambler and either shaves performance or ends up giving inside information to that gambler, and pretty soon, if people question the validity of the that it’s a real contest played with two teams winning with neutral referees and the same rules, and they start to question that and wonder whether something is fixed, then all of a sudden you have wrestling. So if Rip Van Winkle had gone to sleep five years ago and reawakened, he’d be in culture shock. And so our business is fundamentally changed. Nestor the thought of. Me trying to sign a 15 year old. I just told you our philosophy is role modeling and second career and health and wellness. These are all abstractions to somebody that young.

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Nestor Aparicio  20:17

Lee Steinberg is here. He has written a book called The comeback. I highly recommend that not just this segment a playbook for turning life setbacks in the victories. It’s available anywhere books are sold. I want to move off the book and just on to like, not just a draft, but what’s happened here. You’re an agent, and if you’re representing Max Crosby or someone like that, that’s having the injury this tampering period, and then sort of, what’s your word worth on Friday versus Monday, involving doctors? Very, very sticky situation with Eric dicostia here, and the max Crosby situation Hendrickson, and it played out on a quite a national stage, at a time where agents are trying to negotiate and know that they’re on the up and up, and when they have a handshake on a deal on a Friday or Saturday, they have it. Um, there was just a lot of debate about ethics and integrity and doctors and cold feet and a lot of money. And I just wanted to see what you thought of it. I thought was

Leigh Steinberg  21:17

completely confusing, because you would assume that a team motivated to make that kind of a dramatic trade would have complete access to the medical situation involving the player, that it would not be a Surprise if it goes through a physical that that the Raiders had, at some level, had to assure Baltimore that they were getting a player that could perform for them, and the fact that something undisclosed was discovered is just a strange occurrence, especially that was the blockbuster trade of the off season. And now I don’t know why the Raiders would ever trade a player like Max Crosby. There are only so many game changing athletes in pro football, and he’s one of them. And if you have them, you keep them and build around them. So I didn’t quite understand unless it was a dramatic rebuild. So the whole thing’s confusing.

Nestor Aparicio  22:34

I i Stand on your side of the fence, and the books that you actually write in the words that I believe you live by, which is trust in Your word and a handshake and old world values and everything that my father taught me, and everything that every important journalist and every person of trust, big Trust has, and that’s been betrayed to me in a lot of ways, With the Ravens organization for being a PSL holder and all of that. So I have long since thought they were people of integrity, because I know better. Eric decostas in my phone, so I can indict Him at any level. I was John Harbaugh as well. But the level of trust it takes at your level to make a deal for millions of dollars in years and salary cap space, and I’m pulling my client off the market, my client is committed to you, and we’re shaking a hand, and we’re coming in and we’re doing a physical and that’s not perfunctory. That’s a serious thing. But where is trust in your industry? Deborah, when you make that sort of a deal, isn’t that the absolute basis of the basis of everything we ever do as human beings, that if we don’t have that, we ain’t got nothing.

Leigh Steinberg  23:42

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So it’s a completely oral profession, so we’ll reach a deal with a team and announce it before any papers have been signed. They don’t do that in other industries. In other words, they’ve reached agreement, and when you make that agreement, you know, based on endless interactions and relationships with people in sports, it’s all oral. It’s all based on trust in Your word. So the truth in the matter is that I’ve always been able to rely on the fact that teams will honor their word.

Nestor Aparicio  24:26

Yeah, well, and I think the industry has to work that way. And I think when it go, when it gets a ride, this is why this became a hot button here and now that the ravens are drafting 14th, and they have Hendrickson and they have cap space, and, you know, I guess it will all work out, and there’s misunderstandings as it all goes. But how is this draft looking for you? Do you have some players involved? Obviously you have some rooting interest, because you got players all over the league, and you want people to do well and be in good situations. And I could ask you how mahomes is doing as well, because that’s pretty important to the AFS. See in the order of how things are going to go this year.

Leigh Steinberg  25:04

So I’m not representing a whole series of draft picks this year. I’ve been working on other projects, but the Draft Day is my favorite day of the year. You have all the hopes and dreams from someone in pub Warner. They’re surrounded, if they’re not in the draft city, by friends, family, aunts, uncles, by pastors, and you’re in a massive room filled with this is your life, types of relationships and then attention ratchets up. It’s my job to have done enough interactions with teams that I have a pretty good sense for where a player will be drafted. So it shouldn’t be a huge surprise. It might be these three teams, but I know that they’re the ones that have been the most active, and so you prepare a player for that. But the tension ratchet stuff, draft time is not real time in between picks Nestor, it’s water torture time. Every second seems like a minute. Every minute seems like an hour. Drip, drip, drip, and then all of a sudden the pick comes and joy and ecstasy breaks out around the room. And it’s, it’s my favorite day of the year.

Nestor Aparicio  26:32

Well, I tell you it’s, it’s our favorite day too, of this time of the year. If you love the NFL, it’s the one time the year something actually happens, along with the tampering period and the free agency period. Lee Steinberg’s got a new book. It is the comeback. He’s always very generous with his time and lots of advice in here, lots of overcoming adversity, embracing change, redefining what success really means in your life. And it’s a playbook for turning life setbacks into your greatest victories. And I’m looking forward to fingering through it as well. Lee, I hope you’re having a good spring with all this payroll and the Dodgers out there I got I’m sitting here watching part of the Orioles right now. I know it’s baseball season for both of us as well. I will reconvene with you at some point after the draft. We get ready for some real football around here. And I do wish you great luck with the book, and I’m sure it’s going to be a big success for you.

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Leigh Steinberg  27:18

Thank you. Nestor

Nestor Aparicio  27:20

Lee Steinberg joining us from the west coast, the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers. We’ll deal with them later on. We had the pirates last weekend. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive. Stay with us.