YNS Live with NFL Thread PIVOT feat. Michael V. Zordich

Listen to a new episode of PIVOT, a show brought to you by YNS Live with NFL Thread recorded live on Fireside with hosts Juliet Hahn and Cynthia Zordich featuring special guests Michael V. Zordich.

 

Michael V. Zordich is the son of YNS Live with NFL Thread co-host Cynthia Zordich. A former Penn State fullback and captain and Carolina Panthers fullback, he is the owner of Fancy Meats Processing Plant and Butcher Shop in Cadiz, Ohio.

 

Michael, along with a team of Penn State leaders, is featured in the John U. Bacon’s Fourth and Long and Michael Nash’s documentary about the Penn State 2012 season - Saving The Roar.

 

Follow Michael on Instagram and check out Fancy Meats at Fancy-Meats.com.

 

 

Remarkable Quotes

 

“Don’t be afraid to sacrifice pay for passion. Go try things. Go do something new. That was big for me. I went from a solid paycheck to making 8 bucks an hour as a ranch hand living out of a camper. It’s a reintroduction when you get stripped down. You are forced to know another side of you.”

 

“You can find a new passion but you’re always going to want to play the game. I still wake up and want to be playing. I still have dreams that the phone is ringing and I’m picked up and on a team. I don’t think that’s ever going to leave. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing, you know. Because you got that call before. You know that feeling. It was a part of your life that doesn’t exist anymore but it is still a part of who you are.”

 

“As players, we go through self-doubt and misery. It’s easy to question yourself and get down on yourself. Truth is - you have to because it’s the only way out of it. Don’t be afraid to be down in the dumps. You’re allowed to feel that.“

 

“It is interesting to wake up to the fact that you have to discover something. But to discover- you have to do something. You have to give yourself purpose day in and day out to climb out of that hole you put yourself in.“

 

“What people don’t realize is the mindset of the game and what a player is conditioned to. You go from the locker room where you’re around like-minded guys that feel the same way about the team, about pain, about wins and losses. That mentality is not here in the real world. So, in a lot of the interviews I had, I found I had nothing in common. I felt like an alien. They just didn’t see the way I did or think the way I was conditioned to think. That was my biggest struggle.“

 

“Going through it was a wild ride for me. I couldn’t handle it so I escaped and went a little crazy. It took a while to realize that this wasn’t me but just me going through something. And you're really going through it.“ 

 

“You question: Who? Why? What’s going on up there? Where did you go? I was blindsided by this thing. You go to a dark place. I guess it’s depression but it’s a lot of anger, too. I totally disappears from myself and just went a little crazy. Football was the one thing I wanted to do. It’s all I ever thought about doing.“

 

“I never thought about what I was going to do after football. When guys came to the locker room to talk about it - I was not thinking about that. It was always football for me.  If I’m not thinking about that - I’m not thinking about the game. Where’s that energy going?“

 

Sponsor

 

The YNS Live With NFL Thread Super Bowl Experience is sponsored by Shutterstock Editorial.  Wherever you go - Shutterstock is there to capture it!

 

Contact Shutterstock at [email protected] and take the field with Shutterstock’s award-winning photography superstars.

 

 

 

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• Fireside: Juliet Hahn | Cynthia Zordich
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