Big East Rewind Episode 153: Featuring Carl Banks New York Giants Legend

Hello everybody and welcome to yet another edition of the Big East Rewind. I'm Chuck Everson from Villanova University and my partner as always is my main man Sunny Sparrow. How are you, Sunny?

I'm great, Chuck. I'm great, Chuck. We are talking to a legend. We are a true legend. And he did ruin my only attendance at the Super Bowl.

Well, listen. I'm just going to right now publicly ruined my trip. I got to see my uncle who lived down in Tampa. Went to the game with three of my buddies here from Binghamton. Ruined my experience.

Well, it was a good game though. I mean, that was one of the all-time great Super Bowls. That was one of the best Super Bowl games we've had in a long time.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Wide right. Norwood right. Shut up. So, I'm just saying. Move on with the show. Well, listen. This is the second guest we've had from that team and from that tremendous defense of that team. So, we're talking about the Ring of Honor recipient for the New York Giants. We're talking about one of the top 50 players of all time for the New York Giants. We're talking about number 58, the great Carl Banks joins us today on the Big East Rewind. And Carl's got a company called G3. I mean, I call Carl and I know each other through a mutual friend, Wayne Smallwood, for gosh, probably 30 years. And in fact, his daughter, and we mentioned this, his daughter went to school at Villanova. So, and Carl's a big St. John's guy. You've seen him at many of the games. He goes there with all his gear on. So, thank go ahead.

I got there ahead of you and I had only talked to Carl or met Carl once on one phone call with you and Carl and Tony. Yep. Yep. And I'm walking in in Macy's. And if anybody's never been in this particular Macy's, it's a full city block long. It's huge. And I'm walking down and I'm like, 'All right, where is it? Where is it? It's got to be here.' And then I turn and I see this guy in all starter gear, hat and everything. I go, 'That looks like Carl Banks.' I walk over to him, introduce, 'Hey, Carl.' He was like knew who I was right away. Like we'd known each other for years.

Yeah. That's how he is. Literally, we had one conversation. That's how great a guy he is. Yeah. So, he was great enough to call me and say, 'Hey, look, Chuck, we're doing this thing with Starter. We want to celebrate the Big East Conference.' Yeah. And we're going to do that by dropping Starter Jacket. Carl's company G3 got the rights all the licenses on all the everything and he said who better to help us celebrate the Big East than the Big East Rewind. You and Sunny got to come down and we'll set you up with a studio and we'll make it really nice. And he did exactly what he said he was going to do. Yeah.

God and it was great. And you know what? I never thought that I would interview a NFL superstar and not mention the word football one time. So we talked about St. John's, the Garden, you know. And you know what's funny? There's a crowd of people around us, but Carl, in that release, there were a couple little wrinkles that didn't go as smoothly as he would have liked, and people were hitting him up on Twitter, and he answered. He personally answered every single one. He's a man of his words. I mean, there's no doubt about that. I mean, he's Yeah. People are like, 'You don't need to do this.' And he's like, 'No, no, I don't shy or hide away from anything. If there's something and I'm in it, I'm going to speak for it and I'm going to speak for myself.' How refreshing is that?

Oh, it's awesome. You know, unbelievable. And he was such a pleasure to work with because he had his own thoughts about things and you know hey what if we did this and I'll say well I was thinking maybe we do that he goes no that won't work because of this and that and we talked through a lot of stuff but he listened and a great businessman I mean yeah it really is we could learn a lot from him huh yeah really yeah absolutely so that being said you know he did promise us he would come back on the show and talk football, which that's not our forte, but you know, in the summertime when things slow down, we like to switch gears a little bit and get some other kind of folks in you know, when we're not good conversation, especially with the direction the Giants trying to get going in, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot to go over there with him. I mean, you know, so without any further ado, hold on. Hold on. Go ahead. I loved his starter jacket story. Oh, yeah. That was awesome. Loved it. That was him and Pepper Johnson, right? The best. Yeah. And you know, New York nightlife like he's New York nightlife. Yeah. We got you. Yeah. Daryl from Run DMC. So the DMC was he gets out of the limo and you know there's some interaction with Carl Banks and Pepper Johnson and we'll let you we'll tease that. That's called a tease in this business, Sunny. Oh yeah. Well, you know, we're professional journalists, so That's right. You guys will start doing some TV. That's right. You're right. So, I don't want to give it all away, but it is a good story. So, without any further ado, the great Carl Banks with Sunny and Chuck on the Big East Rewind. Check it out. Pleasure. Thanks, Carl.

Okay, so we're back at Macy's Herald Square and again we're celebrating Starter and the Big East and dropping the Big East jackets, the beasts of the East starter collection here at Macy's Herald Square and the guy that started it all now. The guy that put this all together, two-time Super Bowl champ. One time broke my heart. Go ahead.

Yep. Yep. And listen, these jackets have been iconic since when we played back in the early 80s, mid 80s, you know. I mean, we talked about it earlier, the Georgetown jacket was the jacket to have. If you were anybody who was anybody had to have a Georgetown jacket except if you played against them then it didn't count. Yeah. Right. It is Georgetown was kind of the staple in pop culture for whatever reason. And I think and you guys can tell us more about that. As a team they resonated with pop culture. Right. Right. Coach Thompson and some of the players that he had, they just kind of resonated with pop culture and that jacket became kind of a status symbol. It did. It sure did. It sure did. Anybody who was anybody who was anybody wanted one of those jackets and again I mentioned Run DMC, one of the guys, Daryl, went to St. John's. St. Yeah. and was wearing the Georgetown jacket as he famously stated in the piece that we did for HBO called Perfect Upset. So yeah, so how did this thing all come together, Carl? Talk about how this all drive together because I got a call from you and we were having trouble getting a particular university on board, right? And it begins with a V. We don't have to say the name. Ends with an A. So talk about that situation.