Pushing Jeeps and Wrestling Pigs: Mike Alstott and Lorenzo Neal’s Unique Training Habits
It was a very special day for Pardon My Take today, but especially Mr. Commenter, who came dressed in a full tuxedo: Fullback Friday. Former players Mike Alstott and Lorenzo Neal joined the show to discuss the best position in football, bench pressing, and more. During the interview, the foursome also evaluated some of the training tactics they pursued during the bulk of their careers, and the results are just the most fullback things ever:
Mr. Cat: Is it true, Mike, that you used to train by pushing your Jeep at the practice field at Purdue?
Mike Alstott: Yeah so, my defensive lineman, after leg day, we’d go back.
Mr. Commenter, Fullback Enthusiast: Wait, you’d go back after leg day?! You’d push your jeep…
Mike Alstott: Yeah, so there was a parking lot for the band, right. It was all marked out, painted in the parking lot for a field, you know, a 100-yard field. And it actually had a little slope going in one way. So, he would get in and turn up Metallica, Led Zeppelin, whatever, get after it, and push it all the way up. Alright. Next person, turn around. We just switch off and keep on doing it.
Mr. Cat: I mean, that’s a stereotype for a fullback, but I fucking love it. And then did you also train with tires?
Mike Alstott: So, I actually started pushing a station wagon in high school, so that’s where it started from. And then I had the Jeep when I went to college, but we’d actually have, where we are at, down at the cornfields, and all of a sudden there’s cornfields so we actually used to go from telephone pole to telephone pole pushing it. And then when I was in high school, I used to have tires and run 40-yard dashes in my yard and have a strip of no grass because that’s where the tires were every day.
It doesn’t get more fullback than pushing cars and ruining grass with tires. The grit is just unmatched. Alstott mentioned this later on in the interview, but there weren’t many resources available in terms of getting and staying in shape as there are today. So you had no choice but to get creative. The satisfaction of pushing a damn Jeep 100 yards seems like it would be something else. I wouldn’t know.
Mr. Commenter, Fullback Enthusiast: What about you, Lo, what did you do to train?
Lorenzo Neal: You know what, I just picked up pigs and bucked hay.
Mr. Commenter, Fullback Enthusiast: You serious?
Lorenzo Neal: Yeah, I’m from the farm and a town called Lemoore, California. Just a lot of pig balls, ate a lot of pig nuts.
Mr. Commenter, Fullback Enthusiast: I’ve eaten a couple of nuts. I’ve had Rocky Mountain Oysters before.
Lorenzo Neal: Yeah, so you cut them, throw a little oil in there, make sure you put a little rubber band around them, give them shots. Yeah, so I’d grab these pigs and wrestle them. I had to get up every morning, believe it or not, 4:30 every morning. I’d run for 150 yards, 16 tackles a game (average), and then I have to get up the next morning and my dad says…
“Rise and shine, those pigs don’t care how many yards you ran for today, boy! Get up. Let’s go.”
Mr. Commenter, Fullback Enthusiast: For what reason were you picking up the pigs?
Lorenzo Neal: Because you had to give them shots, move them to different pens. Calves, calves. You know, when the mom had the babies, you got to get the calves out because it’s cold. They’ll freeze outside. You’ve got to bring them in and put them in a little stall, give them milk, so you do a lot of runs. I’ll tell you; I’d go to school smelling like pig shit!
Ah, nothing like the aroma of pig shit as you’re strolling along the hallways to get from Biology to Calculus. What an incredible story by Lorenzo Neal here. Just imagine running for 150 yards and recording 16 tackles in a football game being the SECOND craziest thing you’d have done that week. And what a line from his father, too. You think those pigs give a shit?! Absolutely not!!!
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