Celebrating the power of possibility.
I'm Lee Smith and I believe anything is possible.
Welcome to anything is possible. I'm Halor and Hilton Hill.
These are great stories about great people whose lives prove that anything is possible.
And I'm excited this episode, this season, to welcome Lee Smith.
Welcome to the broadcast.
What's up brother? How are you?
I am fantastic. Here's where I want to start.
I love your heart.
And I want to figure out how you earned that heart because you got a big, big heart.
You grew up in Powell?
Yep. Well, Emory rolled Powell halls. My mom went to halls. My dad went to Powell.
So they were jerking me back and forth down Emory road my whole childhood trying to figure out where I was going to be.
But yes, right here in East Tennessee.
What was it like growing up in East Tennessee?
It was awesome. You know, my parents met when my dad was playing at Tennessee.
My mom was both North, they were both North Knoxville kids.
Every grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, I truly can't think of one blood relative that doesn't live here.
And so this was home. And then obviously my dad played in the NFL for a little bit.
He got into the NFL as a scab back in the lockout in 87, which was the year I was born and he just hung around.
And then God allowed me to play a long time and me and my bride have lived all over the country with our kids.
But we always knew where home was going to be.
You came back here. Tell me about your dad.
So my pops, you know, grew up with a single mom.
Spent many, many a nights in rooms with multiple people sleeping in them.
And my nano was married five or six times. I to this day don't know who my grandfather is.
So nobody does. My wife is actually currently all this was a 360 or whatever this all this genetic test.
He's been the tube stuff. So I got cousins somewhere that she's found or something.
So she's on a mission. She can't decide if she's just a nosy lady or if she really has these health concerns for our kids.
But anyway, so I don't know who my grandfather is.
So my dad was awesome growing up, man.
He wanted he wanted different for his family. And now that I've gotten older and gotten closer to the Lord and really found grace and forgiveness in my heart,
he tried hard and he taught me taught me so much.
And he always loved my mom and he didn't he didn't want that vicious cycle that he had came through to conquer his family.
And then, you know, later in his life when football was gone and everything kind of got the money ran out and he became that, you know, the concussion movie.
If anybody's out there seeing it, that was a little bit of my childhood once I came kind of in the teenage years.
So alcohol got ahold of him. And that was all she wrote died at 46 years old.
That's young.
Oh, yeah. And he never I mean, I never saw the guy drink a beer say a cuss word, raise his voice at my mom.
Nothing until I was 10, 11 years old. And he just grabbed it. Boom.
And I look back and it's like, man, he tried. I told my mom the other day, I said, I finally have a different perspective of dad of like, he ran the race hard.
And he got me to the final lap. Does that make sense?
Yes.
Like he grew up in just absolute chaos.
And he got me as close as he had the ability to get me.
And I just had to finish the final lap.
Whereas before it's like, you're a drunk, I don't respect you. You let your family down. You're not a real man.
And it's like, dang, man, he changed 80 90%. So you only had to change 10%.
And that shift has been really cool.
What brought you to that shift?
God, 100% telling about your God journey, because that's a real story of possibility.
So I don't do well sitting still reading the books of any kind, no matter how much I'm fired up for Jesus. So I never realized Moses was scared and timid and a baby left in a basket.
And like, I never realized all these things. I thought everybody was David and Simon and, you know, Judas is worthless and, you know, all these things.
And it's like, no, man, like I'm closer to Judas than I am to Jesus.
And understanding just how cool Jesus was with accepting all people. You were just talking about the woman at the well before we started and the tax collector.
It wasn't just a bunch of Simons and David and Samson's hanging out. It was people of all kinds.
So when I kind of got my heart healed and understood that everyone's different and just because they might not fit in this Lee Smith box, like I had my dad in this Lee Smith box.
Like, bro, your only thing you're really responsible for in life is your wife and kids.
And you screwed that up. You're worthless. I don't respect you. Like, you know, I'm glad you're dead or whatever.
And then finally Jesus transformed my heart when I learned, you know, truly the kind of dude Moses was and God chose him still.
And Matthew, we've been watching Chosen. Have you seen Chosen?
No, but I've heard a lot about it.
Bro, like my kids vague to watch the next episode. It's unreal. Then we go to church and they're like, remember, dad, we watched that. It's awesome.
So anyways, God transformed my heart and there's no doubt about it.
A couple months after I retired from the NFL, which was two years ago, I was in church by myself, which to this day I have no idea why I would have been in church by myself that day without my wife or my kids.
But it was, they might have been sick or something. But I tell people all the time, like, I heard God for the first time ever.
It was the only profound, like real profound God moment of like feeling and hearing. It wasn't like a hey, Lee, you know what I mean?
But I knew, like, it was non-negotiable.
What did you know at that moment?
He told me I would never drink again.
Really?
Yeah. And so then I started.
It's interesting to me that you did drink after you saw what it did to your father.
So here's what's crazy. Alcohol has completely controlled that side of my family for a long time. And even my mom's side with some addiction issues and things.
Once again, dumb teenage and young 20 year old male mindset, I can drink it and won't conquer me like you did him because I'm not soft.
Yeah, you're a warrior.
I'm not we get exactly. And then with that one or two nights a year, I would lose control. Moderation is not something I'm good at.
My work life, my family life, like I'm all go all gas, no breaks. But I would have three glasses of wine at dinner.
I'd have a couple beers. I would do all these things 50 times a year. But those two nights, I'm going to try to ruin my life.
And finally, I know what God was doing. He was throwing me a life raft, man. Like he knew your transition out of all you've ever known.
You're starting a new business that you know nothing about. And your family life looks different. Being in Knoxville full time is going to look different.
Everything is going to look different. And if you still have access to that crown royal, something bad is going to happen.
And I mean, that's part of the negotiation process. It was awesome.
All right, God, how about just vacations? How about just at home with my wife? How about, you know, only wine? You Jesus drink wine?
All these things and there's just this profound like sex movies choking me. No. And I haven't had a drink since that day. Not one.
And I'll never drink again. I just finished this awesome pool house at our house. I put we won't talk numbers, but there's some good wine in that cellar that now everybody else gets to drink.
Right. And awesome bourbon bar. But I'm about to get all the alcohol out of my house. I told my wife the other day, I said, we're done. I don't want anywhere near my house.
Possibility powered by Covenant Health, Home Federal, and the Knoxville News Sentinel.
And what were the instructions beyond you're not drinking anymore? That was it.
I felt God and it wasn't like the message Jason Hayes shoreline shout out my dog. So it wasn't like Jason was up there talking about drinking or the sermon had nothing to do.
Of course, it always correlates some kind of way. Right. Sinful behavior, no matter what he's preaching on, it can correlate. But it was just like, it was like I couldn't breathe.
It's like, it was it was it was crazy. But it was it was all drinking. There was no other like transform your life, getting your Bible come closer to me.
It was literally here's a life raft, you big dummy. And I'm trying to save you. You better trust me on this one.
And then I've just been chasing him ever since. Man, it's been so cool.
Was it was that a moment where you also saw and embraced your father's humanity?
Not quite. I think once again, I think it was a life raft to so much healing in so many different ways.
Right. That moment led me to literally it was last week. I call my mom, text my mom.
Last week, two years later, finally, I have this shift in my brain of like, oh my God, he got me to the final lap.
All I had to do was fix the drinking, which by the way, Jesus fixed for me by choking me out in church because I was too stupid to fix it myself.
So you got me to the final lap, but I didn't even fix till I was 36 years, 34 years old.
So you come back, you have this career in the NFL, bills, patriots. What other team?
So the Patriots drafted me and cut me in and actually played for the Patriots. But I was there.
You know, that and cussed out by Tom Brady for 30 days and then got fired. My rookie year.
And then played for the bills for six years. The writers for four and the Falcons for one.
Right. Ended with the Falcons. So you come back home and you've got to figure out a new chapter to your life, but you also found purpose because
triple F is not just a training facility. This thing is drenched in purpose.
Absolutely.
How'd you get there?
So once again, we'll go back to my pops just because it did influence all of my kind of football life and post football life.
And I was an NFL PA rep for a lot, a lot of years. I played 11 years. So and once my wife always tells me, you can't be Superman to save everybody.
But all my teammates want me to be the union rep. Of course I do it.
Thankless job. They sure don't pay you for it. But you know, all the guys are going to play in the NFL after me. I hope I left it better for them.
So all those things considered with my dad's demise and early death and all the things I've seen with former teammates that transition out and really
struggle, you know, the NFL statistics, 75% divorce, 75% bankruptcy. You know, we see the numbers as players and I got an ad to live it as a kid.
So I knew I had to have something when I left the NFL to give me purpose and I knew that it was involved around kids and athletics.
So that's how triple F was born, man. And then obviously we established a nonprofit organization as well right when I transitioned out to make sure our inner city youth, mostly inner city,
not all in the inner city, but our kids with no fathers like my dad, my dad was a no athlete left behind. Now my organization is called no athlete left behind.
I want to serve all those kids that had the childhood my pops had so that they don't have to deal with the rep repercussions in childhood that I had.
And even if they are living a similar childhood that I am that I did, which most of them are actually all of them are of our of our know I slept behind kids.
I want to be that that light and that safe place and safe haven form that I didn't have.
Triple F for profit. We were going to serve Jesus. We're not going to apologize for it every Monday night. We have a Bible study.
I was my turn this Monday night. We talked about Second Timothy and being a leader and how Saul raised Timothy and if it wasn't for Saul understanding his leadership,
we wouldn't be talking about Timothy. So all you boys need to go find your Timothys. That was the message Monday and that was that's for all our kids.
So for profit triple F and the no athlete left behind kind of aligns with triple F and we take care of those kiddos and for Jesus into them and manhood and help them understand some of the stuff we were talking about earlier
and we might not all look the same. We might not have the same color tan but humanity is a cool thing and we're all going to love each other and do life together. It's going to be cool.
I love that. Two things. One, no athlete left behind. You just had the big sneaker ball.
Yeah man.
Look at your face light up when I say sneaker ball. Talk about that.
You know it's cool because number one it was cool for my wife and my girl Jenny's that's my sis and my daughters. They get to play in this awesome event.
And also you know you establish something. It's hard to raise money for something if no one knows it exists. I always tell people if I had the best brownies and if I had the best cinnamon rolls in the world better than Cinnabon.
Cinnabon is still going to trump me because everybody knows Cinnabon. Nobody knows Lee Smith cinnamon rolls.
So getting the word out there to people of like hey man this is what we're doing getting some awesome people in town. There's so many great foundations.
I was at the men of valor breakfast yesterday with my buddy Josh Smith.
Outstanding.
Change my heart. Change my heart. I told my wife when we left I've always said that I love kids. Broken adults somebody else can deal with them. I want to deal with kids.
Broken adults are setting their ways. I don't want no part of that. Once again it's that it's stinking daddy issues bro. It's ridiculous.
So I'm like I go to that and I told Josh I said all right you change me. You change my heart once again from that day in church until now just all these things are happening because I submitted to God in the first time and only time to this day that it was ever like that real moment.
Now I'll read the Bible and I'll be in church and I'll feel things. Obviously I know when God's working through me in a lot of ways. Derek Carr used to always tell me I'd say man I felt something and he's like Lee that's not something that's God.
So a million a million God moments but this was a big one and then so many things have changed. So men of valor event 650 people in the room. You know the first year they started men of valor I doubt there were 650 people in the room.
So getting the word out for these kids all our kiddos were there dressed up in the nicest clothes they could possibly find. And like I told you earlier you know a couple of our kids are just like man I've never been in a room with this many rich white people.
And immediately they're uncomfortable. And just getting to be that person that's there to say hey man like it ain't got nothing to do with like yes like we're all humans all these people are here because they love you and want to support you.
And then Rodney Hudson who's my son's godfather who is about as black as it gets is there and he's made 80 million dollars playing football and he's there to support these kids and he looks like him and feels like him and smells like him but at the same time he's
intermingling with all the white people and all the rich people and it's like whoa man there's people like me that live like this and eat this good food and all this is cool and it's just it fires me up to just show these kids and it's not just black kids we have a lot of white kids in our program too that obviously from broken homes and horrible backgrounds but they feel the same way walking in the room man.
It's all the rich people here whoa whoa whoa whoa yeah that's people in your stats and pockets but they get big hearts too.
Talk about manhood and why that's such a cornerstone of what you do.
So I think it there's a you know everybody out there on tiktok has a million little you know hot takes Jordan Peterson to all these guys but a man is going to show your son how to be a man and it's going to show your daughter the kind of man she needs to chase after and that's as simple as it gets for me to these boys it's like number one when you make a decision that can cause you to become a father.
The responsibility that comes with that or else you have now drugging someone else into the mud that you're in.
It's the same thing I tell my boys all the time is when God gives you with the gift of leadership which he does not gift everyone with when he gifts you with the gift of leadership.
It is a double whammy when you make a bad decision because you're dragging the people with you.
And that's something that I look back on and I really wish that I would have understood is like people are going to follow me whether I was going the right way the wrong way.
And it's almost it's it's turning your back on God when he transforms you from Saul to Paul.
Once he became Paul anytime he led people the wrong way.
That's a bad deal.
When he was Saul he didn't understand and that's one thing I tell these boys is like if you're fired up for Christ and if you love Jesus now you're in Paul land and there's responsibility that comes with that and being a man and understanding that every decision you make is going to pull your future kids your future wife your friends that are following you into the darkness and that just that just can't happen.
Talk about your wife.
My homie Alicia Smith. High school sweetheart so been together forever.
She didn't grow up in the most fruitful fruit bearing home either.
So we got married when we were teenage kids ran off to the courthouse didn't tell anybody and hit it to Marshall University where I was after I got kicked out of Tennessee after I got arrested and coach former.
I give coach former crap every time I see him now kicking me out he coached my dad obviously I want but it was the best thing that ever happened to me and every time I see him I give him a big hug because he saved my life finally saying get your butt out of here and go get yourself fixed.
So I realized that my wife was the only person in the world that I ever didn't want to let down I was very self destructive still to this day I don't understand how to take care of me.
And then God is starting to slowly not slowly he's working to his time but I'm starting to learn have take care of me to take care of others I've always been horrible at that.
So I'm good at taking care of other people though for the most part and once I didn't want to let her down she got pregnant a few months after we got married as college students we had two kids in college had a mortgage and car payments and you know it was by here pay here type stuff it wasn't like I was going to the Cadillac like I am now.
But donating plasma twice a week mowing every yard I could find painting every shutter cleaning every mulch bed wall playing college football and getting to college degrees with a wife and two kids but she's been right there since the plasma days 17 years later.
I give a crap sometimes now I tell she's on full scholarship but but we were we were on food stamps at one point so she's my rider died best friend in the whole world.
She regardless of in our down moments or when things are hard marriage ain't for quitters it ain't for the faint of heart we have our issues like everybody else does but she's my buddy she's awesome pal girl mother of my babies.
If you were giving just a final thought on possibility in the show as anything is possible what would you tell people about because I don't know if you imagine your life turning out like this and being on the trajectory it's on now would you say about possibility.
Always knows you're playing in a fellow's never a shadow of a doubt always knew that I was going to play as long as I wanted to play and I was going to go home.
But always planned as if that wouldn't happen a plan does if this is going to be my last game.
I'm talking financially and and things like that but in my brain I don't I don't think people understand the power of the human mind and our thoughts.
So this is what I tell our kids all the time what you watch and what you listen to controls your mind.
Nothing ever plays in my car besides the message on serious exam now my kids tell me I'm ancient because I have Pandora and I guess Spotify is the new thing or whatever but nothing plays in my car besides Christian music nothing.
And anything that you watch and anything that you hear is going to control your thoughts whether you whether you think it will or not.
And that's probably not needed to say to most people to watch your show obviously but to everybody else out there that might peek at this what you watch what you hear controls your thoughts.
And you have to tell yourself every stinkin day what your future is going to look like and then the five million times that the short term immediate looks the opposite you can't let it distract you from what you know the long.
It's amazing Lee Smith thanks for being on my new thing as possible.
I got thanks for the appreciate much love.