BV: What has this experience been like for you?
JG: "I didn't really know what I was signing up for, to be honest with you. When Ryan proposed that we do this — and he 100 percent deserves credit as the mastermind behind this project — I just thought it was going to be me, him and Hangartner meeting on FaceTime, screen sharing and having some fun. I didn't think anything would come of it. Fast forward to when we're having our due date for the final version of the book, and I think to myself, 'Holy cow, this is actually a real thing.' So it's kind of surreal. It never was on my bucket list, but it's pretty awesome."
BV: If you had to fill out a résumé for some reason, would you now include 'author'?
JG: "I'd probably have to put published author, but I'd probably be snickering when I did it. The thing that's most enjoyable about all of this is I can just say that I'm a published author, which makes me laugh for some reason. I think of all the great literary authors out there, and I would say that Hangartner, Kalil and Gross are right up there with them."
BV: You could wear a T-shirt that says, 'I'm a published author.'
JG: "Right? I'm a published author and I have my school bus driver's license. Go figure." (both are true, by the way)
BV: How did you guys do the actual writing?
JG: "We did a lot of conference calls and decided all the areas we wanted to touch on. If you break football down to every final detail about what type of pen to take notes with, there's a million different topics. So we settled on what ended up in the book and then some. Then we split it up, and everybody took on a third of the work. Geoff and I did the majority of the editing, and that took a while to get it all in one voice. We didn't want people to be able to tell who wrote what. It was a lot of work. There was no ghostwriter. We had some editing help from our publisher, but we wanted to do everything on our own."
BV: Why didn't Ryan help with the editing?
JG: "He's creative. He's not detail-oriented on those types of things. He'd be the first to tell you — If you give him a pen and paper, the content's going to be awesome, but it's not ready for print. And not typos, to clarify. Not typos, but grammar, punctuation. Run-on sentences are a real problem, too."
BV: So he's a big fan of commas?
JG: "Yeah, he likes commas. Plus he likes to start sentences with 'but' and words you're not supposed to start sentences with. So we had to fix a lot of that. But if it weren't for him, the content wouldn't have been worthwhile, so we took it and accepted it for who he is."
BV: Do you feel like you're a good writer now, or is it something where, 'Compared to Kalil, 'I guess I can do this'?
JG: "Kalil's entertaining to read because his vision is outstanding. My point with him is he needed Hangartner to clean it up. Hangartner needed Ryan to write the content, and I could dabble on either side. So the marriage of the three of us worked out pretty well."
BV: I'm guessing there were some, let's say, interesting stories that came up. How much did you leave out?
JG: "The book's based on experiences that happened to us or players we were very close with, but none of it is an actual story. There was a lot of content that we decided to keep out. Some of it because we thought it was maybe a little too edgy. We wanted this to reach a broad crowd — middle age school kids all the way up to guys like you and me. But we also wanted to leave out some stuff to be part of the culture of the NFL that not everyone knows about."
BV: What's your target audience?
JG: "Anybody with even the faintest interest in professional football. We wanted it to have credibility, so in order to do that, it couldn't be a children's book. But at the same time, I have kids, we all have kids, we all think the NFL has a huge fan base among younger people. So we didn't want to exclude them or speak about issues that were inappropriate for kids. My wife's grandma loves it. She's almost 90. She thought it was great. We've had kids, women, men. If it's sitting on your coffee table, which is where it should live, it's not going to be one you pull out, read cover-to-cover, put back. It's almost a reference book. You could open it to any page in any chapter, read two pages, laugh and move on. So enjoyable to a wide group of people, but your average NFL fan is the person who's really going to enjoy it most."
BV: We've joked about your new role as an author, but really, all this has to be kind of cool, right?
JG: "It's really cool. It's a whole industry that I've only been a consumer of. I have more books than I can even get through right now because I buy them all the time. The biggest thing is I love making people laugh. So to be able to do something different that's hopefully going to do that, that makes me real proud. And if people say they like it, that's even better because the worst thing you can do is put something out there with your name on it and have it be garbage."
BV: Is there going to be a sequel?
JG: "I don't know. If you would've asked me two years ago, I would've said no. You know what's funny? We didn't draw up a business agreement. We're just now taking care of the business end of things. We didn't view this as something for a monetary reward. It's just been enjoyable to go, 'Oh, wow. People actually like it. Woah, someone just put in an order for 600 copies. This is awesome!'"
BV: Did someone really just do that?
JG: "Yeah, a Charlotte business asked for 600 copies for their employees for giveaways or whatever. If you like the Panthers, it's obviously something of interest, and I feel like Ryan, Geoff and I have good enough reputations of entertaining. It helps when you do something like this cause you feel like if people are maybe on the fence, they'll give it a shot. They'll pick it up and read it."
BV: OK, I need to ask a couple questions for those wondering what you're up to. First off, you’re above 150 pounds, right?
JG: "I weigh 225. I weigh between 220 and 225 every day of the week. I've been vegetarian now for about nine months. I'm experimenting with it, see what it feels like. I feel good, by the way."
BV: Are you bouncing back and forth between Charlotte and Idaho?
JG: “We're still in Charlotte. Our kids go to school out here. We just had a baby in April, so he's our third, and I'm loving the opportunity to be all-in as a stay-at-home dad. That's really awesome because I was a full-time football player for the first two. I'm taking online organic agriculture classes through Washington State University in my drive to someday have an organic farm. I'm starting next month, alongside Hangartner, actually, courses for my financial planning certification. I'm coaching middle school cross-country, youth soccer and flag football. I'm on my kids' school board, and I'm on my neighborhood HOA board."
BV: Sounds like you have a lot of free time.
JG: "I'm also taking piano lessons and doing the ukulele."
BV: That's not true.
JG: "Listen, ready? Here you go: (plays music). Ukulele right there. I'm a meta-learner."
BV: How are you doing all this?
JG: "I don't have a job, so ... I don't really watch TV. I don't really go to movies. I read, exercise, be with my family and try to learn new stuff all the time. I'm obsessed with learning. I was just reading about soil fertility. I almost forgot to call you because I was learning about composting and organic matter in soil."
BV: Want to learn how to run a website?
JG: "No."