Marcellus Wiley is an interesting Dude. He grew up in Compton, moved across the country  to go to Columbia for college and ended up playing for a decade in the NFL – a Pro Bowler and All-Pro in his career – before getting into the media side of things. As it turns out, football was just a means to an end for him.

For a transcription of parts some this interview, check out the report over at The Sporting Blog. We spend a lot of time discussing the mentality of the NFL players who seem consumed by football and nothing else. Wiley explains that while he was at Columbia, some of the kids he went to school with would get dropped off in helicopters and had more money than he could ever imagine…and more money than he’d ever make just being a football player in the NFL. He knew then that the NFL was a stepping stone to other things in life and not his only legacy.

But it is the legacy for a lot – dare I say most – NFL athletes? I get his thoughts on players who stay in the game too long, especially those who have multiple concussions and continue to go back on the field. We talk about the safety measures in the sport – with better helmets and padding and preventative measures – but at some point, isn’t the culpability with the player to know when to quit? Isn’t having a life after football worth more than the money or fame you get for playing that one extra year?

Did you know he could type 82 words a minute? When he was in the seventh grade?

We talk about the Wonderlic test, and I ask if it’s a fair assessment of a player’s intelligence as translated to the football field. Wiley thinks that it is, as he explains that the questions aren’t difficult, but the way they are packaged is what’s hard to see through. He explains that the way a question on the test is worded is actually a strong parallel to reading and deciphering a formation on the field. He also points out that most kids take the test wrong. The first side is full of word problems and the second side is math, so it makes sense to flip it over and do the math first, then go back to the longer reading comprehension questions. If you stick with the reading, some kids never even get to the math questions. He said he figured this out about 10 questions in. This is a smart dude.

We talk about when he realized he wanted to get into the TV side of things and if TV is just way to raise his profile for future business endeavors. Lots of analysts show up to raise their profile – some, like Emmitt Smith, do it to stay relevant until they get into the Hall of Fame – so is the media side of things a means to an end as well? He says that it’s not, and everything he’s done – NFL included – has been leading up to what he’s doing now. He stressed that it wasn’t that he didn’t work hard as a player, but football was never the whole world to him. He always had different interests and always saw a bigger picture.

We talk about his company Prolebrity, and how that will help athletes promote their goings on to other athletes and the general public. He’s concerned people are too reliant on Twitter to find out what’s going on, and this site is geared toward helping athletes when the go to a new city, or want to get the word out for their charity/promotional events.

We also discuss the new show, Winners Bracket, starting this weekend at 5 p.m. on ABC. Wiley and Michelle Beadle are hosting the bracket-style show that pits 16 of the best highlights against one another to determine the week’s best highlight. Or something like that. Honestly, if you watch the clip, it seems like a well-packaged excuse to show some cool highlights. The show is really predicated on the interplay between Beadle and Wiley, and we discuss how that’s worked so far in rehearsal, and if he’s excited, or concerned, about having so much rope on a show like this.

Also, being a football guy, is he concerned that he’ll be pigeon-holed and people won’t find his general sports knowledge as palatable? He’s quick to point out that he likes other sports more than football – (note: this is on the heels of a debate he and I have about the clip ESPN has out where he completely downplay’s Lionel Messi’s amazing goal last week) – and it gets into an whole discussion about how he’d rather watch the track and field finals in the Olympics than the Super Bowl, if they were both on at the same time. So, rather than ask about Donovan McNabb to end the show, we talk about Usain Bolt.

We turn to track: he tells the story about how he beat Warrick Dunn in a race when he was 11, being a 6-foot running back as a freshman in college who was fast and leaving school a 6-5 defensive lineman who wasn’t nearly as fast. I get to tell my stories about when I was the fastest kid in my class – our relay team qualified for nationals – only to grow up, realize I became the slow Jewish kid, and ended up writing about sports.

Check out Winners Bracket this Saturday. Thanks to Marcellus, and thanks to you for listening.

Tags: Marcellus Wiley