Akbar Gbajabiamila

Who am I?

What am I?

I woke up every day with a mission to go accomplish X, Y, and Z. And so the only difference is that

you're 25, 26, 27 years old and you're going, wait a second, I poured everything I had into making it to the pros and what did I sacrifice?

You have to sacrifice something to gain something.

And you sacrifice all the extracurriculars.

But now it's over.

And now it's over.

And you're now stuck with what do I do?

How do I do it?

you know people see you a certain way people only want to put you in a certain box and you're trying to break out of that box so how did you do that how'd you go first of all so you're done so you're done with football what are you getting into next how long was that gap before you figured it out and you said oh this is my next job i moved through pain is really what i did in order for me to transition i had to move through pain i was down in the dumps you know i remember not wanting to leave my house

I would go out at nighttime so nobody would recognize me.

Not that I was super famous, but in San Diego, when I retired, I went home.

Like it's just, people always ask me, you still play, you can still play.

And I'm like, gosh, I don't want to answer this anymore.

But what I did was I took a leap of faith.

And even though I was feeling all of this sadness, I said, let me take the equity that I built up in my life so far, which was in sports and let me try to leverage that.

So I went to a local station in San Diego, NBC seven 39.

And I asked, Hey,

Can I do the Aztecs and the Chargers post-game show and I'll do it for free as a broadcaster?