This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” October 1, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: The football season is back in full swing, and even with his day job keeping him busy, my next guest found time to write a terrific new book. “Roll of a Lifetime: Reflections on Faith, Family and Significant Living,” reveals the fundamentals on how to live a successful and meaningful life, and I’m joined by the author right now. He is a host of CBS Sports’ “The NFL Today,” and Showtime’s “Inside the NFL.”
J.B. — James Brown is here.
How are you my friend?
JAMES BROWN, “THE NFL TODAY”: Good to meet you, first of all.
HANNITY: I feel like I know you.
• Video: Watch Sean’s interview
BROWN: And I hope it’s not too pretentious. Because you know what? I’m so humble and low-key, but, hopefully, it’s pretty decent.
HANNITY: Well, do you know, it actually goes into Tony Dungee, who we’ve had on this program many times.
BROWN: That I know. That I know.
HANNITY: He’s a good man, and he says you’ve taken the approach and advice of a high school coach to be a role player. That’s an interesting choice, because I think a lot of people in TV and radio are a bunch of egomaniacs. So that’s a different role than most people.
BROWN: You know, that is TV, for sure. But I learned a long time ago, playing in sports. Morgan Wootten my high school basketball coach, who by the way is in the Naismith Hall of Fame, — pro basketball, basketball hall of fame — God first, family second, stole third, and then basketball. It is all team orientation. Red Auerbach who was a very good friend, a mantra for his outstanding players — check your ego at the door. It is all about the team. Whatever your God-given talent is, use it for the benefit of the team.
HANNITY: You know what? And I agree with all on that. I’m thinking, all right, this sounds a lot like my family, my father. Your father often worked three jobs. My father worked a ton. My mother worked a ton – and worked really hard for his family. Tell us a little bit, because that really impacted you obviously on your life.
BROWN: That is where it all started, with the nuclear family, and I do not think I appreciated the contribution of my father until I got a little older, to see how hard he was working so that Mom could stay home. Because she’s always, Sean, wanted to be an excellent homemaker, to indoctrinate us with the right sense of values. And I think she did an excellent job.
One of the things that liked to do — even like to say that my mother and father have high-school diplomas, but they had Ph.D.s in common sense.
HANNITY: Which we need a lot more of today. You took the risk. You said, “I was a mama’s boy.” But you went on to explain it, and you also explain how your mom was the disciplinarian in the family.
BROWN: We called her — we called her “the sergeant.” Sean, she was only 5’5″. I remember one time she drove the point home. I think I came home — I was a big basketball star — came home, and didn’t answer her properly when she asked me a question. And I had a little bass in my voice. And she looked at me said, “Young man, first of all, you’d better take the bass out of your voice.” And she hit me right about here, the solar plexus.
She said, “Let me tell you something” in her vernacular. “I born you in the world and I…”
HANNITY: I’ll take you out.
BROWN: You’ve heard of it —
(LAUGHER)
HANNITY: We heard the same thing. I’ll tell you, my father would just whip off the belt. And I went running. And I was crying before he ever got me.
BROWN: One beating by my father did it, because he didn’t know when to stop. I did though.
HANNITY: I want to get back to the faith aspect that they instilled in you, in all of this. You got — you were with the Atlanta Hawks in the draft, and you stayed in your house for two weeks when you were let go, two whole weeks of your life.
BROWN: Painful.
HANNITY: I bet it was.
BROWN: Because I really wanted to become a professional basketball player. I thought I was destined to.
HANNITY: You went to Harvard.
BROWN: To get ready for the game of life, for sure. Bill Bradley was a hero, but my mother and father drove home a point, academics, education, that is the foundation for success in the game of life, but I still wanted to play basketball, I was going to enjoy —
HANNITY: Forty thousand dollars a year?
BROWN: Big money back then, Sean, absolutely, but it didn’t happen. The athletic road was literally snatched from up under my feet sooner than I had planned.
And when — many people say, “Oh, you know what, the coach” – Simmons at the time — “showed favoritism in a guy who couldn’t carry your shoes” you know?
No, the fact of the matter was, when I looked at myself in the mirror. So I believe don’t play the victim game. I realized the reason I didn’t make it is because I didn’t work as hard to stay on top as I did to get to the top.
My high school coach again said there’s no such thing as standing still. You’re either progressing or you’re regressing. And I regressed.
HANNITY: You did? You really feel that, if you had worked harder, you would have — that would have made all the difference?
BROWN: No question about it.
HANNITY: But you were young. You don’t really have those same — the same discipline as you do when you’re older. I did not develop discipline until I got much older. You know.
BROWN: Likewise. But as I was becoming a good ballplayer, I followed the prescription for success that my coach laid out.
HANNITY: Yes.
BROWN: It was a direct cause and effect relationship. I put in four or five, six hours a day on the basketball court and in the classroom, for sure, as well. And my mother wouldn’t have it any other way.
But when I got to college, a big man on campus, got a little complacent, resting on my laurels, and guess what? It sure — it certainly paid dividends negatively at the end, because when I had an opportunity with the Hawks, I realized my skills hadn’t developed the way they should have, had I been practicing all along.
HANNITY: It’s a great book, and it’s a great life story. And I think people are going to get a lot out of it. Because they’re going to relate to it a lot. You show a lot about your faith. But also the development of your life. I mean, you guys are having fun on Sundays.
BROWN: You know, and I talk in there also some of the lessons I learned in corporate America about the many different reasons why people aren’t successful in corporate America, or in a different job, where they have correlations to the game of life. And we talk about, you know, your attitude, your thirst and hunger for knowledge, interpersonal skills. But you can have fun. One of those agreements is having fun. And when you’re winning, you can have fun.
HANNITY: But I guess being around Terry Bradshaw, it’s really hard to have fun, you know?
BROWN: You have no choice but to. He kept us laughing in the studio.
HANNITY: Is he that nuts? Is he that nuts?
BROWN: Nonstop.
HANNITY: But he’s funny. He’s great.
BROWN: Believe it or not — And it’s a shame that he has to suffer with the perception of being a rube or country bumpkin.
HANNITY: I love him.
BROWN: The guy is as sharp as. He is the quickest wit I have ever worked with, Sean.
HANNITY: It’s a great chemistry. It’s a great book, and it has great life lessons in here. And I’ve got to be honest, I feel like I know you, because I watch you so often. But it’s an honor, honestly, to have you. I love the book. And it’s a lesson that we can all learned and get a lot out of. Thanks for being with us.
BROWN: Continued success to you, as well.
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