Imagine we are a pretty waitress who served you dinner
with a wink and a smile. Tip starving writers please!
Check out host Damon D.and his Daily Football PODCAST
| Wade Hampton Peery Self Interview Part 2 |
|
|
| Written by Wade Peery | |||||||||
| Tuesday, 11 March 2008 | |||||||||
|
{mosimage} What's going on everybody, I'm back in the saddle for round two of this self-interview business and I got a pretty good response from the first one so I'm going to do my best to make like Brett Favre and ensure that these get better as time rolls along. Speaking of Brett Favre, he retired recently after 17 years in the National Football League and will go down as one of the greatest football players ever to play the game. I was never a huge Brett Favre fan, but I can still appreciate a good football player when I see one and Favre was the All-American boy. He was one of the most durable athletes in the history of sports and I'm not sure if we'll ever see another quarterback to play the game with the same toughness and tenacity that he did. He was a fierce competitor who truly loved the game of football and from one football lover to another I like to see that passion for the game. It's hard to overstate what Brett Farve meant to the game of football. One thing me and Brett Favre can definitely see eye-to-eye on is the love for the game. Football is the greatest sport ever.
My number one dream woman is of course, Charlize Theron (above). She's jaw-droppingly beautiful. Tall, with a head of beautiful blonde hair and those blue eyes of hers, I just get lost in them. I'll never forget after I watched her in the ultimate chick flick, "Sweet November" and how she took care of Keanu Reeves. She seemed so lovable and down to Earth. She was so full of vitality and life in that movie, I just became enamored with her after watching that movie. I fell in love with her personality as much as her stunningly beautiful looks. Another thing about Charlize is she can look good in a variety of hair dews, but I love her best with her blonde hair. There's something about a blonde woman that has always caught my attention since I was a little kid. I think it's the first thing the eye is drawn to, maybe that's why I've always liked blonde women. One of my biggest crushes in middle school/early high school was a blonde. Man, was she a bombshell, still is to this day. I actually bought her some flowers for Easter I think, but it never really got very serious between us, just talking. She always was fun to talk to and I enjoyed my time around her. Another thing about Charlize Theron is her naturally beauty. Natural beauty is the true definition of beauty if you ask me. When a woman can get up out of bed in the morning with her hair all messed up and still look stunningly beautiful, well it is what I described, an incredibly beautiful thing. I love it when a woman can wear no make-up and still look amazing. That's pretty fascinating to me. Naturally beauty is the best if you ask me, because anybody can put on some make up and look better. Different people are attracted to certain things, I guarantee that you will find men out there that are attracted to a lot of make-up, but I'm certainly not amongst them. One of the first girls I ever liked was like in second grade and she was naturally beautiful. Brown hair with skin as pure as the driven snow, as I like to say sometimes. I remember she would always whine over the phone to me when we were talking for hours, but then I would get to school and realize why I was putting up with all the trouble. I saw her about a year ago and she still looks jaw-droppingly beautiful. I guess I made a good prediction on that one, even back in the second grade. That's my take on women for now...let's hit the next topic. Your grandfather Claude H. Vandyke recently passed away, would you like to discuss that? Of course I would. I could write an entire article about my grandfather and I might still do so down the road. This is my way of paying tribute to him. I had a tremendously rough stretch at the beginning of the quarter after he passed away and it was honestly one of the hardest things I have had to deal with in my entire life. All I could think about was "Grandaddy" as we used to call him. I would wake up in my boxer briefs, he would be on my mind. I would be in the shower, he would be on my mind. I simply couldn't shake it from my thoughts that "Grandaddy" was no longer going to be with us anymore. Me and a lovely lady named Jenna Wojtila were discussing how tough those hard times are to deal with. She was like, "You know, it's hard, because everybody tells you things are going to be okay, when they're not." Truer words have never been spoken, Jenna. It is pretty weird when you have everybody telling you things will be okay, when you know the second you try and fall asleep and you can't shake certain thoughts from your mind, that things certainly are not okay. Those times are very rough, but the biggest thing you have to do is just grind through them. Having your closest friends around you to have fun with you and make you laugh and just enjoy life is one of the best things you can do. I remember the night after I learned of my grandfather's death, I got to go over to my buddy Mark Rose's place to play some flip cup with him, Ryan Cirelli, Eric Pipa, and a few other classic individuals. I also got to see one of the best individuals on this earth, a kid by the name of Neal McCastle. Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, I love Neal. Neal is one of those types of people that brings a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm into the room. He has a special charisma about him and I think that is one of his qualities that endears him so much to people around him. He refers to me as "hypest white boy eva". Whenever I see him I get so excited, it's a great feeling. Just writing about him brings a smile to my face. Okay, back to those tough times. Even though they are hard, I'm a firm believer that time is the best elixir for all wounds. I got a tremendous outpouring of support from so many members of the Ohio University community and I cannot thank them all enough. DeAnna Gatrell bought me a shot one night at the bar and that was one of the nicest gestures anybody has ever done for me. Skyler Courtney sent me a message on Facebook telling me how sorry she was and that if I needed anything to let her know. For somebody to take the time out of their day to message me like that, that was pretty priceless and I'll never forget it. So many of my close friends here such as Mark Rose, Ryan Cirelli, and many others, were so very understanding during that time of hardship and it is pretty amazing when you have "high-quality individuals" around you. I simply cannot thank them enough. I still miss him greatly and always will, it has just been much easier for me to deal with as time has passed. "Time heals all wounds," as they say. It is very true, especially when it comes to tragedies such as dealing with a death in the family. I was really happy because I got to spend some high quality time with my grandfather around December 22-23rd of 2007, when me, my mother, and my grandmother were riding in the car to Charlottesville to see Virginia play Elon in basketball. I was excited to see the Cavaliers sparkling new basketball facility, John Paul Jones Arena, because everybody in my family except for me had seen it. I'm the biggest fan in the family, so it was pretty weird that I hadn't gotten to see it yet. Anyways, I got to ride in the backseat with granddaddy and I was greatly enjoying myself because I was "shooting the breeze" with him. It's something I greatly enjoy doing with so many people. I love talking and me and granddaddy discussed a variety of topics, mostly about football, but he also was talking about cows. He was telling me how big Jason Witten's father was, because Jason Witten is from the Southwest Virginia area. Jason Witten, is of course, the All-Pro tight end for the Dallas Cowboys. I remember we also got to eat at K and W cafeteria and that was pretty cool for me, because it was my first time eating there. Grandaddy loved eating there and I was loving every minute of it. I feasted upon some crab cakes and some spaghetti and I was totally in love with the place after my first experience. It's like a nicer version of dining hall food, because it is home-cooked and you can get southern food such as cornbread. I'm telling you, K and W cafeteria makes it happen people! The thing that amazed me about my grandfather is how he never complained. I'm a man that finds a lot of things wrong with this world and a lot of times I just rant and rave about the littlest things. Like I said, I have pretty high standards for a lot of things and when those standards aren't met, well then I begin to gripe and wonder why there is a gap between what I think should be and what really is. I cannot recall a single instance in which my grandfather complained. He enjoyed the simple things in life, such as his family, his golf, and his garden. I'll always have a great deal amount of respect for him for his ability to never complain. I loved talking football with my grandfather. I mean, I love talking football with anybody, let's be honest here, but granddaddy shared a passion for the game as well. I always loved talking with him about certain games. Some people will say that football is just a game. Football has played such a big role in my life, to say that it's just a game would be unjust and unfair to how big of an impact it has made on me. If you reword that and say, it might be just a game, but it's a game that I hold very dearly and closely to my heart, then that would be much more accurate. I'm going to miss my grandfather greatly and wherever my travels in the game of football may take me, I will always hold him very closely to my heart. Rest-in-peace granddaddy. You started drinking again in November of 2007 after quitting completely for over a year and a half. Would you like to discuss that for a bit? Absolutely, I'd love to talk about it. The speeches to the Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco class at Ohio University were an extremely good thing for me and I felt like I did some good by making those speeches. If I didn't have any kind of good message within those speeches, then I would've felt like those were a waste of my time. I enjoyed giving those speeches and I could just as easily give another speech defending my decision of going back to drinking. In the end, nobody made me give those speeches to those classes here but myself and if I want to go back to drinking again, then that is my decision. I've always been a person that has not cared about what other people think of me, so if people want to think I'm a hypocrite for changing my decision then they can go ahead and think that. I've come to learn that not everybody in this world is going to like you, you just have to remember the people that enjoy your presence and worry about them. In the end, each individual on this earth knows what kind of person they are at heart because of the decisions they have made in their life. Some people can live with more things than others and I'm often amazed at how much certain people can live with. Some people are very good at treating people very poorly, but they are still able to wake up, look in the mirror everyday and tell themselves that they are a good person. I don't know how certain people do it, I really don't. I like to think I can forgive and forget with all people, but if somebody really hurts me, then they might not deserve another chance. Like one of my friends said, "Everybody deserves a second chance, but some people just don't deserve it." Human beings are very funny in that we each have certain things that will push us over the edge in ending a relationship or forcing us to get mean in a relationship. We all have certain criteria, certain pet peeves that really grind our gears. Let's say somebody lied to you about something important and the one thing on this world you cannot stand is being lied to. Then that might force that person to end the relationship and never talk to that person again. It's a privilege to be in somebody's life and to experience the highs and lows of life with somebody, not a right. Too many people seem to forget that these days. Once you abuse that privilege, it can easily be revoked by the person on the other end. That second paragraph didn't have much to do with the question, but I felt those thoughts on relationships with people needed to be expressed. You're one of the bigger football fans anybody will ever meet. What is your favorite position in football? Over the past few years, I've developed a strong affinity for the quarterback position. It is head and shoulders my favorite position in all of sports. I'm sure people will disagree with me on this, but I feel like there is no other position in sports where you can control the outcome of a game like you can from under center. I love the aura surrounding the quarterback. I think the position gets all the credit it deserves in American society. I love the idea of the "natural born leader" taking his respective team to "the promised land". I always joke with my buddy Mark Rose, who used to be a quarterback in high school for the Cloverleaf Colts, "You gonna take me to the promised land Mark Rose?" He responds with an emphatic, "You're already there." Matt Schaub is probably my favorite quarterback of all-time. The golden armed gunslinger was one of the most accurate quarterbacks I'll ever watch in my lifetime and it was a thing of beauty watching him march the Virginia Cavaliers down the football field with efficiency and ease. He is Virginia's all-time leading passer and peppered his name all over the record books at Mr. Jefferson's "academic village". He was named the 2002 ACC Offensive Player of the Year and led the Cavaliers to a surprising 9-5 record that season. He capped the year with a 48-22 throttling of the West Virginia Mountaineers in the Continental Tire Bowl. Boy, was it a thing of beauty watching that sea of yellow clear out of Bank of America stadium before halftime. It was one of the most beautifully orchestrated offensive game plans I have ever seen in my life and Schaub's impeccable passing only made it look that much better. Former Virginia offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave was the conductor of that gameplan and I actually got to speak with him in person about that in Indianapolis. He responded, "Yeah man! We got it goin'!" One school I've developed a very strong passion for in the past few seasons is the place I like to call "Signal-Caller U." That school is of course Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah. The BYU Cougars are arguably the top program in college football when it comes to tradition at the quarterback position. The school produced one of the most legendary signal-callers in football history in former Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer. Detmer won the Heisman Trophy in 1990 for what will be remembered as one of the greatest seasons by any quarterback in college football history. He tossed for 5,188 yards and 41 touchdowns in 12 regular season games, setting 42 NCAA records in the process and tying for five others. The school also produced the likes of Jim McMahon, Steve Young, John Beck, and the Cougars current golden armed gunslinger Max Hall. Max Hall will likely end up in the top 5 in the school's all-time leading passer list. He was just a sophomore this past season, but still shredded opposing defenses for over 3,800 yards through the air. The funny thing is he's succeeding former BYU great John Beck and he actually went to the same high school as John Beck, Mountain View High School in Mesa, Arizona. Hall actually broke some of Beck's records in high school and he will look to do the same at Brigham Young. John Beck is one of my favorite quarterbacks of all-time, because of his beautiful ball placement. His ball also has a nice tight rotation on it every time it comes out and it looks like something a ball machine is spitting out, certainly not a human being. His hissing spirals land in such amazing target windows that I really can't believe it. I still think he's going to be an amazing quarterback with the Dolphins. He peppered his name all over the BYU record books in college, ranking second all-time on the school's all-time leading passer list to Ty Detmer. Beck was too good in college to be a failure in the pros, mark my words. The guy is destined for one place: greatness. You discussed the band Polydream in the last interview, what is the latest band to catch your interest? One of my best friends on the planet, fellow football junkie/writer extraordinaire Brian Vornberg introduced me to this group called Under The Influence of Giants when I was visiting him in Austin, Texas. Austin is one of my favorite cities in America, by the way. What a beautiful city. Under the Influence of Giants remind me a lot of 311 because of their mellow sound and they have a lot of really smooth guitar sounds in the background of their music. I love the song "Stay Illogical". Their entire CD is pretty amazing if you ask me. If you haven't checked them out, I highly recommend them. I've been listening to a lot of John Mayer lately. I have a CD that I just bought off Rhapsody online full of songs by him and Jack Johnson and it is pretty smooth. I enjoy listening to that a lot. I've just been rotating with those two CDs lately. I'm one of those people I really don't mind listening to one CD over and over again. If I really like a song or a CD, I will never get sick of it. Both of those CDs fit that mold. Some of my other favorites include my main man R. Kelly. R. Kelly is silky smooth like Ray Allen's jumper. He constantly produces rap hit after rap hit, yet the mainstream media is always all over his back about the whole peeing incident. I'm not condoning peeing on young children by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm still listening to R. Kelly's music and enjoying myself while doing it too. Songs like "Gigolo", you can just crank those in the stereo and cruise to those on the road. I love coasting to some R. Kels. I'm a big fan of Usher Raymond as well. He's a masterful dancer, one of the best in the world is a matter of fact. He also reminds me of R. Kelly in that he just keeps cranking out hits. R. Kelly has been in the game for much longer, though, let's realize this. I like Usher and R. Kelly teaming up in the song, "Same Girl". That's a real good one. Both guys have super smooth voices so it flows well. Bow wow feat. T-pain "Outta my system" is a pretty smooth song that I enjoy if it's on in the bar or the radio. I talked about how much I love O.A.R. in my last interview, I'm a pretty big fan of Coldplay as well. I need to see them in concert sometime. Their lead singer has a remarkable voice and their songs are great songs to help you get through those hard times. I've become a much bigger fan of different types of music since I've been in college. Music, like many other sections of this interview, could end up being a novel in itself, so I'll just cut it off there. You're a big football fan and are always watching highlights of prospects on rivals.com. Why don't you talk about some of the best prospects you've ever watched coming out of high school? When thinking about this question, the first name that comes to mind is Tray Blackmon, a linebacker who currently plays for the Auburn Tigers. He went to LaGrange High School in LaGrange, Georgia and led his team to back-to-back state titles after he racked up a combined 231 tackles during his junior and senior campaigns! He racked up 116 tackles one season and 115 the next! Simply eye-popping numbers to say the least. Rivals.com rated him as the top outside linebacker in the country in the 2005 class and I totally agreed with them on that assessment. He was rated as the 17th best overall prospect in America. If you want to see some of his high school highlights check them out here: http://auburn.rivals.com/cviewplayer.asp?Player=55743 He's one of the hardest-hitting football players I've ever seen in my life. Blackmon is blessed with an amazing amount of lateral speed and just hits with a tremendous amount of power. There was one hit on his highlight tape where he hit another player so hard that he did a front flip over them while he was bringing them down. I couldn't believe my eyes. If you get a chance, check out some of his hits on YouTube. Like one TV announcer noted, Blackmon lives for the head on collision. I think he'll earn first team All-SEC honors next season for the Tigers. He's poised for a breakout year after he posted 45 tackles in nine games last season as a sophomore. He has excellent instincts and is oozing with speed and power that most people would kill for. He's pretty much the best linebacker Auburn has seen since the legendary Karlos Dansby roamed the Plains. Trust me, Tray Blackmon, a name you should definitely keep your eye out for next college football season folks. Another player who was one of the most gifted players I've ever seen out of high school was a signal-caller by the name of Chad Henne. He hailed from West Lawn, Pennsylvania and attended Wilson High School, the same high school that former Penn State legend Kerry Collins attended. Just how good was Henne coming out of high school? Well his high school coach saw Kerry Collins play as well and he claimed Henne was better. That's how good. If you want to watch his high school highlights here is a brief video from Youtube:
{youtube}d9JngXxqlME{/youtube}
Set as favorite
Bookmark
Email This
Trackback(0)
Comments (3)
Lloyds Apple
said:
|
|||||||||
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed |
Your self-interviews are epic and entertaining. I am going have to conduct a self-interview as well. You are clearly your biggest fan and your harshest critic.  Seriously though, no worries on the not drinking, drinking thing. It's a social thing for most. I'm going to have to check out Under the Influence of Giants. Sorry to hear about your Grandpa. |
|
report abuse
vote down
vote up
|
Natasha McCastle
said:
 |
"a kid by the name of Neal McCastle. Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, I love Neal. Neal is one of those types of people that brings a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm into the room. He has a special charisma about him and I think that is one of his qualities that endears him so much to people around him. He refers to me as "hypest white boy eva". Whenever I see him I get so excited, it's a great feeling. Just writing about him brings a smile to my face." Dont think I'm a creep or anyghing but I think this Neal fellow you are talking bout its my brother...I was bored in class and just google'in people in my family and this popped up...Is this Neal you talking bout black?   |
|
report abuse
vote down
vote up
|
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Latest Comment
DRS Gear
Buy NFL 2008 Tickets
Click on the team to view available tickets at the best price!| DRS Sections/feed Define Search All-in-One Feed NFL--RSS Feed MLB--RSS Feed NBA--RSS Feed NCAAF--NCAAB--RSS Feed Recruiting --RSS Feed MMA-- RSS Feed Allies: |
