Yesterday, former Bucs great Warren Sapp, pitching his book “Sapp Attack,” dropped in on the one and only “King of All Media,” Howard Stern, heard exclusively on SiriusXM radio.
It was a raucous hour-long sit down and Joe cannot remember a more spirited interview Stern has had outside of Mr. T or the Insane Clown Posse.
Of course, Joe took notes as Sapp finally met his match in someone that controls an interview. Here are highlights:
* Warren Sapp was the “baby boy” of his family and all five of his older brothers were running backs. They would come home with all sorts of bumps, bruises and injuries and Sapp’s mom wouldn’t let Sapp play football as a result. When Sapp was a sophomore in high school, a family friend convinced her to let Warren play, only because he wouldn’t play running back.
* Sapp weighed 225 when he graduated high school. “I’m a safety trapped in a 300-pound body.”
* Sapp said he never thought he was an NFL prospect until he was switched to defensive line at Miami. Sapp was originally a tight end.
* The last time he saw his estranged father was just after the Bucs won the Super Bowl, which was their first meeting since Sapp was in junior high school. At the meeting 10 years ago, Sapp told his father, “You have grandchildren you will never meet. I just want to tell you that now. Just drive away.” Sapp, however, is close to his uncles, his father’s brothers.
* Sapp grew up a Cowboys fan and fantasized about being the next Tony Hill.
* The infamous draft report: Sapp was expected to go high in the draft but late on the Friday night prior to the draft, not quite 12 hours before the draft began, Chris Mortenson reported that Sapp had flunked seven drug tests at Miami; six for pot and one for cocaine. This dropped Sapp’s stock so much he fell to the Bucs. Sapp vehemently denied ever doing coke, not even to this day. “I never took seven drug tests at Miami but I took three NCAA drug tests. I never even sold crack!”
* Howard Stern kept badgering Sapp about having to sell his shoes as part of his bankruptcy and Sapp claimed he hasn’t had to sell anything.
* Sapp said the NFL is so proactive these days to help players not blow their money, that if a player wants to go into business with non-football player, NFL security will run background checks on prospective business clients/partners to determine if they are shady or not, all as a courtesy.
* In so many words, Sapp confessed he learned far too late what a wise investment prophylactics are.
* “Howard, I want to put my foot so far up your @ss,” Sapp said after Stern kept pestering Sapp about his incident in Miami two yeas ago during Super Bowl week with his then-girlfriend. Sapp’s charges for allegedly roughing her up were dropped, but not before Sapp spent a night in a Broward County cage and was briefly taken off the air by the NFL Network. “How does a man wait 37 years to be a woman-beater? She was a psycho, some chicks are just crazy.”
* Sapp claimed he nearly got thrown out of the University of Miami for a one-punch fight at a basketball game when he was a freshman. Sapp dropped a guy with a left hook to the cheek that drew blood. He was hauled into a dean’s office and had to beg not to be run out of Coral Gables. The altercation began when Sapp was defending Canes receiver Lamar Thomas who was undercut on the basketball court.
* “Pressure is making a $5 bet with $3 in your pocket.’
* Sapp claims he never dated a celebrity.
* Warren Carlos Sapp II, Sapp’s son, is playing football for the first time this week. Sapp said he and his son have never watched a football game together though they enjoy watching baseball games when spending time with each other. Sapp’s son is a big baseball fan and Sapp would rather have his son play baseball. “We’ve already got all the football trophies you can want in the house.”
* Sapp’s secret to being a successful broadcaster on the NFL Network: “The eye in the sky never lies and I’m going to say what I see on the field for those six-seconds of play.”
* Sapp cannot fathom putting a hit on a player that ends his career. “You don’t take turkey off a man’s table, Howard.” He cited the Lawrence Taylor-Joe Theismann hit that ended Theismann’s career, when it was Taylor who was the first who screamed for Redskins medical staff to treat Theismann. “You don’t ever want that feeling on your resume.” He said he saw three players in high school that were hurt so bad they never played football again and the memory of each shakes him to this day.
* Stern asked Sapp if the NFL is regulating hitting so much that the game is turning into “two-hand touch,” and Sapp screamed “You can’t hit receivers now! They’ve built the autobahn down the middle of the field, where you been?”
* Stern was offended that in Sapp’s book, he mentions how Brad Culpepper referred to Sapp as “colored” and that Sapp called Culpepper “Whitey.” Stern seemed to think that Culpepper was throwing out a racial slur. Sapp explained it’s different in the south and the nicknames were nothing but terms of endearment and that he and Culpepper are great friends. Sapp explained that the Bucs were nearly named the Florida Crackers when the area was awarded an NFL franchise in the mid-1970s.
* Stern asked Sapp about the brotherhood of the NFL and Sapp said it is tight. When Stern mentioned it seemed to him the same as veterans who served together in combat, Sapp got defensive and said “I wish we would stop comparing football to the military” and explained “When Brad Culpepper don’t hold the A-gap, I don’t get shot.” Rather, Sapp agreed with Stern that the NFL fraternity is more like a motorcycle gang. “You eat, chew, sleep the same dirt. When you spend that amount of hours with someone, you really become close.”
* During his “Dancing With the Stars” appearance, Sapp was smitten with Brooke Burke. Understandable.
* Sapp continued to suggest Jeremy Shockey was the whistleblower in the Saints bounty scandal mess, though offered no specifics. Though Sapp first mentioned this on NFL Network months ago, it was his other job, with “Inside the NFL,” that that he lost his Shockey comments; not the NFL Network.
* “Sunday is my pleasure, they pay me Monday through Saturday.”
* Bill Belicheat told Sapp he wanted to draft him in Cleveland so bad that Belicheat became aroused (as in standing at attention) while watching his tape from his playing days at Miami. But Michael Lombardi, then a Browns front office man, refused to draft Sapp and vetoed Belicheat’s wishes because Browns security was spooked after digging into Sapp’s background, which later turned out to be inaccurate. Lombardi, who now works with Sapp at the NFL Network, said that had the Browns drafted him, the team never would have moved to Baltimore. “I love Bill Belichick,” Sapp said.
Lombardi later worked with the Raiders when Sapp was in Oakland and Sapp said Lombardi is still tormented by being fed wrong intel, thus passing on drafting Sapp in Cleveland.
* Sapp misses training camp but not so the rigors of day-to-day NFL life. “I wanted to make practice so hard that it was worse than anything I ever saw on Sunday so that would make playing a pleasure. I had butterflies and everything until that first hit.”
* Sapp described the very play where he decided it was time to hang up his cleats. Against left guard Daryn Colledge when Oakland hosted Green Bay in 2007, Brett Farve called a play-action pass which Sapp said he had seen from Farve too many times to count. “I’ve seen that play, forever. A five-step drop. He’s going deep!” Sapp read the play like a book but couldn’t get off the block of Colledge. Then, Sapp said, if he couldn’t get loose from Colledge, it’s time. “I didn’t want to walk in a room on Monday morning and see that. I knew right then it was over. I didn’t have the physical ability to get around this bum.” Sapp said he could have played “two or three more years, easily,” but didn’t want to be remembered as a hanger-on. “I gave everything I had on Sunday.”
* When Stern asked Sapp if he was angry he never played on “a killer team,” Sapp shot back in disbelief, “I won a world championship in Tampa. You ever hear of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? The icicle orange? I won a world championship there.”
* Stern didn’t seem to believe that Sapp lost his Super Bowl ring.
“Where’s your ring?”
“Uh, that’s the one — I lost it.”
“Did you sell it or did you lose it?”
“Howard, I wouldn’t lie to you.”
To hear the full interview between the “Quarterback Killer” and the “King of All Media,” click on this link. Warning: Segments of the interview are very graphic in nature and are for mature audiences only. It is very NSFW of the highest order.
Click here for a few SFW clips from the interview.
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