- Whoever we face,
the Bengals or the Kansas City Chiefs.
Must come on on top this year and win the Super Bowl.
Go Rams.
Hey GQ, this is Eric Dickerson.
And these are my essentials.
[upbeat music]
This is something I keep close to my bedside.
I was brought up in a Bible home.
This particular Bible was sent to me by a fan in 1987.
I've kept it ever since I have more than one Bible
but this is the one that I seem to always go back to.
I went through something, you know, in my life.
And every time I look into my Bible,
it always reminds me of, you know,
my God, he really did help me.
So this is one of my essentials that I cherish very much.
Los Angeles Rams Mask.
This is the logo I like not that one we got now,
that's just horrible.
I bought this not long ago at the stadium
and I know for sure
if the NFL know them guys out there selling these masks
they'd be all over them.
'Cause they ain't got no license for this.
But I do like my mask.
The funny thing is that, you know, you don't get a chance
really pick your team that you play for.
But I was fortunate to go
to the team that I wanted to go to.
And the thing I loved about the Rams, I loved the uniforms.
I mean, when I saw the horn on the helmet, you know,
being a young player
even going back to when I was in high school and college
when you look good, you play good.
And I thought that Ram uniform looked very good.
My days with the Los Angeles Rams, I had style.
I had swag.
My gear killer was not greasy.
I had the goggles, I had my towel on my side.
I wore elbow pads.
I wore thigh pads.
I was even wear the shin guards.
I mean, I wore every pad that you could possibly wear.
And people always ask me about it,
man, how'd you wear so many pads.
They didn't slow you down?
I said, no, they don't slow me down
and believe it or not, even still all those pads
I would get hidden places where there were no pads
but you know, like I said, you look at me in my uniform.
I can't lie.
I know I look good in that uniform.
I love playing golf.
This is the thing that has really relaxed me
after I, you know, finished playing football.
When you play a sport, like a physical sport, like football
you need something to relax you.
You know, you still wanna stay in the game.
You know, you still like talking noise
with the guys and playing golf is that sport.
And you don't have to get tackled and hit.
So playing golf.
I love it very much.
I play a lot of golf.
I have my own golf tournament
and this is one of my favorite clubs in my bag.
It's my night,
they've helped me improve my game quite a bit.
I've shot even before.
I'm happy with that.
If I could shoot even every day, man, it'd be a good day
every day for me.
I always thought it was kind of a soft sport,
not a real manly sport
but I'm telling you, I changed my view on that very quickly.
Golf is one sport that you can go out one day
and play extremely well.
And the next day you're like, what the hell?
Who the hell am I?
And I'm telling you, if you are a golfer,
every golfer knows that I'm talking about.
The guy that I play with it,
that when I go out of town, it talks the most noise.
It is LT Lawrence Taylor, my God.
He talks a lot of noise.
I can't even say it here on camera.
Some of the stuff he says, but he's a good golfer.
I gotta say.
And he does cheat some.
He knows he cheats.
And my friend Richard Did is another one
who also is a cheater.
Those two guys LT and then they will move the ball.
And sometimes I don't know how they could get their scores.
You'll see, I had a par I'm like you had no par
you had a six.
What are you talking about?
Or all of a sudden I had a white ball.
No, you went in the bushes with a yellow ball.
So like I say, golf is that kind of sport
when it comes to football players.
I have very dry skin.
I don't use lotion.
I have to have Vaseline.
If I use lotion, I drive automatically.
People say, man, why you have Vaseline,
Big Joe Vaseline.
Well, like I say, I'm pretty dry.
So I use Vaseline.
We should put our feet in bags and put Vaseline
on tape up around the top of your feet.
Can put it on your hands
and your feet wouldn't freeze as much.
I forgot about that.
That's one thing we used to use Vaseline for.
I'm from Texas.
I'm a Texas, a hundred percent.
These are pork grinds.
If you don't know what pork grinds are,
[paper rustles]
this is what pork grinds look like, pretty much.
I've been eating since I was a kid.
They're not real feeling, but I don't know,
you know how you eat something, you eat one, you can't stop.
So most of the times I eat a whole bag of pork grind.
So usually I have hot sauce I don't have any right now.
[man smacks]
Delicious. You know before every game I never ate.
I know it sounds odd.
Most people have a, some kind of meal before game.
Most of the time I would have a candy bar.
Believe it or not.
And I would eat after the game.
Sometimes it was very late when I ate
but I couldn't eat before a game.
This is my favorite, animal crackers.
Look, you see all the animals on them.
Everything you see in there, you got a elephants
you got a line, a giraffe, a zebra, a gorilla.
I mean, I don't have a favorite when I eat.
I just love them man.
I mean, in my favorite animal
if I was an animal and it'd be one of these animals
it would have to be the lion.
Cause he what?
He the king of the jungle.
This is a CBD cream.
It's not real pretty.
It's almost like a paste but I can tell you this works.
When you get to be my age
and you played the sport that I played and you beat up.
Trust me, man this works phenomenal,
for back pains, leg pains.
I have a lot of sometimes arthritis in my hands.
We used to use bomb.
That stuff stink.
I mean, it would get hot.
You know, this is, I gotta say a lot better
because it doesn't have a smell to it.
Bomb was like greasy and thing about it,
it heated up on you got a real hot.
Sometimes you put too much on,
this doesn't do that.
This is a Louis Vuitton bag.
First of all, I would never spend $2,000 on a bag
but my wife bought this for my birthday two years ago.
So I pack it.
I carry it.
I keep a lot of stuff in it.
I can put my iPad in it.
Sometimes I have my Bible.
I have my cell phone.
I keep a lot of stuff in this bag.
I do love the bag
but still I just can't get over $2,000 for a bag.
And it's a good looking bag.
I mean it is.
I mean, it carries a lot of stuff.
Good looking bag,
gets a lot of compliments on it.
But me personally, when I go spend 2000 on a bag,
I'm sorry, I couldn't, but I do love my bag.
My blinders.
I have to have these on.
You can see I put them over and not over my glasses.
I take my glasses off and sleep with this one.
Even at night, every single night I cannot have
this or this pair or something that looks like it.
It helps me to sleep.
When I sleep, I don't sleep much.
When it comes to sleep during playing days,
it was hard to sleep before a game for me, very nervous.
I mean, you know, the first play
you line up in the back field, they call the play.
If it's to you or not to you,
must practice if you gonna run football.
I mean, I can remember times I'm in my stands and my hands
on my knees,
but my hands would be literally shaking.
You know, then after like couple plays three, four plays.
I think every football player knows this feeling.
After a couple plays,
you in the game, now you, the nerves are gone.
The next thing I have here is essential is my iPad.
I love watching movies on it.
I mean, they got a new stand, makes it a lot easier
you know, to stand about, have to hold it in your lap.
You know, to me, an iPad is something that I think I like,
my iPad even better than I like my cell phone.
I like my cell phone a lot, but the iPad has become
almost an extension of me.
I love watching movies and this is something
I can sit next to the bed when I turn the television off.
And I watch my iPads.
A matter of fact, speaking of my iPad,
I have a digital version to my new book,
Watch My Smoke.
I mean, matter of fact, I had to do an audio read,
man, can I tell you that is tough for you people.
[man shouts]
That's a tough deal.
I have to get my iPad, make it in big letters,
but man thank God I had my iPad.
because without it,
man I might still be over there reading that audio book.
My book comes a lot.
It talks about my career.
It talks about getting a young black man back in Texas,
you know, in high school,
think about my high school coach
because he didn't treat us right.
And then he came back later.
After many years later, this was about three years ago.
He called me and I was shocked.
And I said, yeah, who is it?
I didn't say put him on the phone.
I heard his voice.
Now think about this as you're a high school kid.
You got a coach that you did or didn't like
and all of a sudden you hear his voice some 40 years later.
For me, it brought back all those memories.
You know, my heart started beating fast all over again.
I'm a grown man and I heard his voice.
I said, how's it going, Ralph?
He says, good Eric.
I said, what's up man?
He said, I just wanna talk to you.
I wanna tell you, you had a great career.
All the things you did.
Great, I'm proud of you.
I said, thanks man.
He said, I wanna say one more thing.
I'm sorry for the way I treated you guys.
That meant a lot to me.
This damn thing here.
Thank God they didn't have these things when I was playing.
I mean, 'cause let me tell you something.
It would've been a lot of suspended players.
Back in the day,
all you could say was,
man, you should have been there,
man, you should have saw it.
This has got a lot of us, men and women in trouble.
But I do love my cell phone.
It's like a, I hate to say it's almost extension in my hand.
I have to have my ear pods 'cause I cannot stand doing this.
I refuse to do this hold the phone in my hand.
I can't do it anymore.
It helps multitasking.
I can tell you for sure.
When you got your ear pods in,
your phone is over here,
all of a sudden you get up and you walk over there.
When you walk like what,
I can't hear you.
Okay, oh my phone.
I left my phone.
I've done that so many times.
Matter of fact , I was in the grocery store,
three times in a row.
And when I go to check out three times
I have left my phone sitting right there on the counter
walked outside,
all of a sudden I can't hear him anymore.
I'm like, oh, I left my phone inside.
So yeah, these things are a good thing, but also a curse.
[soft music]
Thank you GQ for having me here.
Check out my book, Watch My Smoke.
This is Eric Dickerson for GQ.
[funky music]