In this Voices in the Field episode, APU Sports Management faculty, Dr. James Reese and Dr. Brittany Jacobs, sit down with Chris Canty, Super Bowl XLVI champion, ESPN radio host, and former University of Virginia standout. Canty reflects on his transition from the NFL to sports media, sharing how building “mouth memory,” staying coachable, and putting in the reps helped him succeed beyond the field. 

Canty discusses the challenges athletes face when careers end, the importance of finding new communities, and how team chemistry extends to broadcast studios. Chris also explores player empowerment, NIL’s impact on collegiate sports, and the expanding career paths available in today’s industry. For students and aspiring professionals, he offers practical advice on seizing opportunities, investing in personal growth, and leading with resilience. 

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Jim Reese: Hi everyone. Welcome to our Voices in the Field podcast series, brought to you by the APUS Sports Management Program. My name is Jim Reese and along with my phenomenal colleague, Dr. Brittany Jacobs, we’ll be your co-host for today’s program. Good morning, Britt. 

Brittany Jacobs: Good morning everybody. How are you, Jim? 

Jim Reese: Doing great. And also, our Dean of the School of Health Sciences at STEM, Brian Freeland, will join us in a few seconds. Now, Britt and I are excited to introduce our special guest, Mr. Chris Canty, former University of Virginia standout, Super Bowl XLVI champion with the Giants, and current co-host of ESPN’s Unsportsmanlike. Chris, that’s one heck of a resume. Welcome. 

Chris Canty: Yeah, listen, I wish I was as impressive as the resume was. I can tell you it’s just right place, right time. 

Jim Reese: So, thank you for taking time from your busy schedule. As I mentioned previously before we jumped on, this is for our students and so all the questions are going to be designed with them in mind. So first one, was your goal always to end up in sports media or is that something that just happened along the way? 

Chris Canty: No. I think I got into sports media as a way to stay connected to high level sports. I never imagined that I would have a long career at it, but I just couldn’t imagine myself doing anything outside of sport.  

I had been a high-level athlete for the better part of two decades across college and pro football, and so I just didn’t want to get detached from those roots from that foundation. And so, I looked at media as a conduit to be able to stay connected to high level sports, and I’ve been very fortunate enough to have opportunities to be able to build that career. 

Jim Reese: That’s wonderful. Sometimes those doors will open that you don’t expect, and then you get to take that career path. Looks like Brian has joined us. Brian, would you like to give us a welcome for Chris? 

Brian Freeland: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just very excited to have you here with us, Chris. Welcome. Appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to be with us. And of course, I’m a huge Wahoo fan. Grew up born and raised loving the Cavaliers, so it’s a special privilege just to get to speak with you. Thank you. 

Chris Canty: Absolutely. Wahoowa, let’s go, ‘Hoos. 

Jim Reese: Chris, usually I turn this over to Britt, but there’s a follow-up question because you mentioned something there that I’d like to follow up on. Your transition, one of the things that I hear from students, we have some students in our program that have played division one sports and some professional as well, and one of the things interacting on the discussion boards and those kinds of things was the transition from when you’re done with your professional career or your college career and you’ve been doing something for your whole life and now you have to make that transition.  

Some of them mentioned depression and different kind of things. Did you go through any of that, or do you know anyone that went through any of that and how was that transition? 

Chris Canty: Well, I certainly know teammates that have gone through it, and it’s never an easy thing transitioning away from being able to play high level sports. A big part of the reason why is because you’re so used to a team environment, you’re so used to being in a locker room, you’re so used to having that camaraderie. It’s not only people that you compete with, these are people that are friends, and in a lot of instances, folks that you grew up with.  

And so when you can no longer play high level sports, you’re not just talking about dying to being able to compete at that level, but it’s also a lot of those relationships being transformed and some of those relationships not necessarily being ones that you have a chance to continue throughout your life.  

So, I think that’s the tough part when it comes to athletes transitioning away from sport, it’s dealing with the realities of no longer having the structure in place that you’ve known your entire life. 

Brittany Jacobs: Absolutely. That community is so important and when you transition away from that community, it can feel like you’re a little bit lost. I remember feeling that after the end of my playing career as well. 

Jim Reese: And you know, Chris, even though I didn’t play professional level, I can tell you that the number of hours that we spent with each other in Denver with those back-to-back Super Bowls, it was crazy, 70, 80 hours a week.  

I don’t miss the hours, but I do miss the people, and so I can definitely relate to that part of it because, yeah, we’ve got a thirty year reunion coming up in a few years, and so we’re looking forward to… Unreal that it’s been 30 years almost. Britt, over to you. 

Brittany Jacobs: I was going to follow up on that, Chris. When you started working in the media sector, did you find that community once again? Did you find that team? 

Chris Canty: Yeah. So, I was fortunate enough to be a part of several shows, several different platforms at ESPN, being a part of a radio show, both local and national, being a part of television shows, more linear and digital.  

And so I’ve had a chance to be a part of a lot of different teams, and the most successful shows that I’ve been a part of, it’s had that locker room type of feel, so we’ve had an opportunity to build those bonds, not just show up at work and that’s the only time we spend together, but we actually get to know each other away from work, get to know each other’s families.  

And I think that investment in being able to learn what motivates people, being able to learn who individuals are, I think it just makes for a better chemistry. And certainly when you’re putting together a show in the media, chemistry is a huge part of success. So, in a lot of ways, you build a successful show, you build a successful team. I mean, I’ve been very fortunate to have really good people around me here at ESPN in that effort. 

Brittany Jacobs: So, when you’re talking about building this skill set to work in the media sector, you said radio, you’re on linear, you’re on digital platforms, how did you get that skill set? Did you learn it in college? Did you learn it along the way? What did that look like for you? 

Chris Canty: It’s reps. It’s just reps. It’s like anything else. You have to do it a lot. What is it, 10,000 hours to be an expert at something? So if you add up all of the interviews, if you add up all of the opportunities that I took advantage of, talking to beat writers, going into local television stations, doing those hits on the nightly news, doing stuff with ESPN, going to the car wash, going to NBC Sports in the off season and working with Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk, there are just so many different entities, so many different outlets that afforded me an opportunity to get those repetitions both in college and in the NFL, and I took advantage of as many of them as I possibly could.  

Even working at the NFL Network as a correspondent during the regular season from the team bureau cams, after a long workday getting ready to compete in a game on Sunday, I would do those things, I would take advantage of those opportunities because I knew that if I got good enough that I would have an opportunity once I got done playing.  

And so I think that was a little bit of the intentionality behind how I got to where I got to, it was making sure that I took advantage of all of those opportunities to get better in terms of being comfortable speaking in front of a microphone, speaking in front of a camera. 

Brittany Jacobs: That’s incredible. Putting in that work, putting in those reps really does make a difference. We try to highlight that to our students all the time, but coming from you, they’re going to hear it, they’re really going to hear it. So that’s great.  

Taking advantage of those opportunities, I’m just going to echo what Chris said because you have those opportunities to volunteer, to be an intern, to get out there into the sport industry, and that’s what’s really going to make the difference in the long run. 

Chris Canty: Yeah, it’s an investment, right? It’s not necessarily doing things for money. Sometimes you’re going to have to extend yourself and there is no obvious payoff in the immediate aftermath, but eventually, if you keep making those deposits in your overall success and the career path that you’re choosing, eventually you’re going to be able to get those withdrawals, you’re going to be able to get it to pay off.  

And so, I think that’s the thing that you have to keep focus is that you have to continue to invest in self and investing in self means sometimes being able to do things just so you get the experience just so you get the opportunity. 

Brittany Jacobs: Incredible. Thank you. 

Jim Reese: Chris, I think I’m going to coin a new phrase here instead of muscle memory, it’s mouth memory. How about that? 

Chris Canty: I like that. I like that. That works. 

Jim Reese: We have a coaching program, and so we’ve got many, many coaches. Most of them are at the high school level and small college level, but just out of curiosity, what coaching style did you respond to? Because I can remember coaches in my life, so many different types of styles. Is there a certain one that you enjoyed the most or responded to the most? 

Chris Canty: It’s interesting that you asked me that question, Jim, because I’m somebody that prided themselves on being coachable. That’s the thing. No matter what my coach’s style was, I wanted to make sure that I would respond in the way that he was looking for to whatever coaching point, whatever information that he was trying to get me to process. 

So, I’ve had the fire and brimstone coaches like Bill Parcells, like Al Groh, like John Harbaugh, and I’ve had the coaches that love you up. And I know a lot of people might not think about him in this way, but Tom Coughlin when he was with the New York Giants was a lot more player development individual rather than my way or the highway type of mentality. George Welsh, my first year at Virginia, he’d love you up. 

And I would say that the thing that separates George Welsh and Tom Coughlin from the other coaches that I had was that even though they weren’t hardline type of coaches, you never wanted to disappoint them. You didn’t want to let them down, and that would be the way that they motivated.  

Tom Coughlin used to say all the time that he was our mirror. It was his job to tell us what he saw, it was our responsibility to determine what kind of team we wanted to have. So, the players had much more ownership, much more accountability to the end product. 

Now, Bill Parcells, I loved playing for him, he was the type of coach that you never had to question where you stood with him. You knew that off the top. John Harbaugh, same way, shouldn’t be a surprise, because Harbs is a coach’s son.  

And so, I prided myself on being a player that can respond to a lot of different ways to coach a lot of different ways of being able to convey the message. And I think that’s an important aspect to have as an employee, as a team member, being able to understand the different communication styles and being able to find a way to respond in a constructive manner. 

Jim Reese: What a great example of how sports relates to life and how students can do the same thing in the workplace as far as thinking like an administrator, like an owner to develop themselves and move forward. Great example, Chris, I can’t thank you enough for sharing that. So Britt, over to you. 

Brittany Jacobs: I’m writing down over here, be coachable, put in the reps, be adaptable, all of these kind of key phrases and key ideas that you’re bringing out. As you kind of think about the sporting landscape, where do you think that it’s going next? What do you think the next big thing is? What should our students be prepared for? 

Chris Canty: Well, I think there is an emphasis on player empowerment. That’s what we’ve seen across all major professional team sports. And so I think the understanding of what that partnership looks like between players and team, between players and media is going to be critical in terms of navigating sports as we move forward in the 21st century, it’s never been more critical to have a positive partnership in that regard with players.  

And so while I think a lot of that responsibility still lies with the players, I think with the emergence of podcasting, with the emergence of social media, there’s now more onus on media members to make sure that they are covering this sport fairly, that they’re covering this sport with integrity, with honesty, because the players don’t necessarily need them at all times in order to convey whatever message they want to send to a fan base. 

So again, I think it’s now gotten to a place where you’re talking about media and players being in true partnership with the money that we’re starting to see in professional sports. We’ve now gotten to a place where owners and teams are closer to a true partnership with players.  

So, I think that becomes, for lack of a better term, the new white space. When we start talking about what sports looks like over the next 25 years, how do we strengthen that partnership between players, media, and team? 

Brittany Jacobs: Building it together, I think that that’s something that’s so important, and we’re seeing that in some of the emerging leagues as well, that the players have a lot more power through collective bargaining and other pieces than they’ve previously had. And I think that that empowerment is so important moving forward to the success, particularly of these newer leagues. 

Chris Canty: Yeah, Britt, and I think a fascinating test case is the Savannah Bananas and what they’ve been able to do with show baseball and just the partnership that you see between the players and their goals, their aspirations, the team and media coverage.  

It has created a spectacle and it’s a sensation unlike any other. I mean, they’ve had their world tour, their road show, and it’s sold out at every single major league ballpark. They were just in Philadelphia this past weekend at Citizens Bank Park, 45,000, packed, all the way up to the upper deck.  

I mean, you’d be hard pressed to see a Phillies regular season game have that many fans in the stands. That’s how the strength of a true partnership between players, between team, between media can create a spectacle, can create urgency in a product that fans are clamoring over. So, I think that’s going to be critical in terms of being able to maintain sports as the only true appointment television, or must watch television, or must watch product in the entertainment space that we have. 

Jim Reese: You know, Chris, you just made me think of something, talking about the business side of sports. I remember and I heard Coach Shanahan say this numerous times, he used to say the best players play, and he used to say, including John Elway, which we know is not true, but he would say that anyway.  

And the industry for athletes has been described as a meat market, it’s described as having no loyalty. What are your thoughts on how that is now as compared to the way, because that was 25 years ago when I was hearing that stuff? So, what are your thoughts now about that? 

Chris Canty: Well, I think athletes are more educated than they’ve ever been. I think the contention, the adversarial nature of contract negotiations is always going to be an issue, but I think with more information, athletes can dial down the emotion in taking these scenarios personal. And I think that’s the important thing when you start talking about the business of sport, right? Everybody loves sports.  

When I was a kid, I loved it, when I played in the league, I loved it. I never stepped foot on a football field thinking about my contract, but we also always acknowledge that the business of football, the business of sport, has to be taken care of before you go out there and compete. So, I think there will always be a little bit of friction, it will always be a little bit of tension there, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  

And I think when we have more information, when everybody understands the nature of what you’re dealing with and the end goal in terms of creating the very best entertainment product, I think we all end up getting to a good place. In any working relationship, there needs to be a healthy amount of tension in order to bring out the best in all of the individuals. And so when it comes to contract negotiations, when it to collective bargaining agreement negotiations, I think that’s just a part of creating the best entertainment product for the fans. 

Jim Reese: Absolutely. I think another side to that, Chris, too is athletes playing hurt because the fear of losing their job, and that’s always been a problem as well. So, I think that having doctors that are not… Used to drive me crazy when the team doctor would report to the owner of the team. That’s like a bank doing an audit on itself. You need someone that’s independent in order to do that. And I believe they’re doing that with the concussion protocol now, which is great to see. 

Chris Canty: Yeah, we’ve got the UNCs now, the unaffiliated neurological consultant on the sidelines for all NFL games. You’re starting to see that trickle down into college now. And I think the college game is also interesting when we discuss its role in the ever-changing landscape of sports and the changing dynamic between player and team.  

Because we’re seeing athletes monetize their abilities at an earlier age, we’re now starting to experience a situation where athletes are empowered in a very different way. So, athletes have access to their own medical teams, athletes have access to their own doctors. And so when it comes to making the best decisions about their health, when it comes to making the best decisions about their welfare, it’s not from a position of desperation because they have resources.  

It’s now about best practices and doing what the science says they should do, going where the science leads them. And so I think that is a welcome change in what we’re seeing in high level sports. 

Brittany Jacobs: I couldn’t agree with you more. I think that moving towards this model where athletes do have the knowledge, do have the resources to make those decisions for themselves is so important in sport. As you’re talking about collegiate sport, we know that NIL is name, image, and likeness, of course is a big issue, that monetization that you’re talking about.  

But the great thing about it is that we’re seeing some additional roles emerging within that collegiate space. We’re seeing the GMs coming out, we’re seeing NIL directors, and these are the positions that our students are going to be taking in the future. They didn’t exist when we went to school, but they’re the next kind of positions that are coming up into that collegiate landscape.  

Is there any thoughts that you have about these positions and about the way that NIL is really impacting that collegiate landscape that our students should know? 

Chris Canty: The transparency element is critical, right? I just absolutely believe that now that we have these roles, there are more opportunities to be a part of sports, right? And so it’s just a matter of what you think your lane is, what you think the best fit for you is, and I think that’s the beauty of how it’s evolved. The demand for sports is higher than it’s ever been.  

Everybody wants sports. We can’t get enough of sports. I mean, a part of this goes back to basic human instincts, tribalism, so on and so forth. But you don’t also want to be the person that misses out on the great catch or the great throw or the great dunk or the buzzer beater. You don’t want to miss out on that. And so, with sports, there is this conditioning where it is appointment viewership for all of us, and we all want to be a part of it.  

And now because you have such a demand, you need more support staff to be able to handle all of the different facets of operating a team. And that’s where we see all of these different roles emerge, not just in professional sports, but in collegiate sports, in high school sports, so on and so forth. 

Brittany Jacobs: With all of those roles existing now, talk to us a little bit about your career path. How did you decide that media was the right spot for you, and what should students be thinking about as they’re making these decisions for themselves? 

Chris Canty: Well, between playing in college and playing pro ball, I gave 16 years of my life to being able to compete. And the sacrifice that it took, not only in terms of the work, not the lifting weights, the conditioning, the tough two-a-day practices, that stuff pales in comparison to the sacrifice that I had to make in terms of time away from my family not being there for birthdays, for holidays, special occasions.  

And so, I knew that when I got done playing, I wanted to give more of my time to my family and to my friends. I can say this, as a professional athlete, I wasn’t the best son, as a professional athlete, I wasn’t the best brother, I wasn’t the best cousin, I wasn’t the best nephew, I wasn’t the best friend. And so, I wanted to spend more of my personal time leaning into those things, pouring into those things that I love that matter to me more. 

And so the way that I felt fit best for the lifestyle that I wanted was being able to be a part of the media, because when you’re in high level sports, there is a huge sacrifice that not only you make, but everybody around you has to make in order for you to do what you do.  

Whether it’s being a general manager, whether it’s being a coach, an NIL director, a scout, a cap guy, those jobs take a tremendous amount of sacrifice, player development people, equipment managers, medical staff, those jobs take an incredible amount of sacrifice from everyone in that individual sphere. 

And so, I think for me, I wanted to find a job that kept me close to sports where I didn’t have to continue to make the sacrifice and time away from family and friends. 

Now, I will say this, those jobs, when you’re doing them the right way, it’s really, really hard on your family and your friends. And so, I think everybody that is interested in being in those spaces has to understand that. But in life, in order to get something, you got to be willing to give up something, and I think all of us on this pod right now could have admit working in sports is really freaking cool. 

Brittany Jacobs: It is. It’s definitely really freaking cool. And it can be really rewarding too. But you’re absolutely right that there’s long nights, all of those games are happening on nights and weekends, so everybody that’s involved with that sport is going to be working on nights and weekends. And it can be a grueling season. Absolutely. 

Chris Canty: Yeah. When your friends are going out and celebrating and doing all of these other things and having late nights, you can’t do that. I had a coach, and God bless him, Gary Kubiak, good man. And Kubs used to always say, “Give them more than what they paid for.” Give them more what they paid for. All right, so it’s not just a 40-hour work week, you give them more.  

You go above and beyond, you do more. You create… If you do that, you make yourself indisposable, and that’s how you have longevity. And that’s when you get to decide when you walk away, rather than having the decision made for you. You have to quite literally outwork people. It can be done. 

Here’s another thing that I’ve learned, whether it’s playing sports or whether it’s working in corporate America, it’s pretty freaking hard to fire the first person in the building every day. I’ve been working a really long time. I mean, if you want to include college, I’ve been working since I was 17, never seen the first person in the building everyday fired. 

Brittany Jacobs: Putting in that time and effort goes a long way in showing that you’re committed to the organization, committed to the plan, and really trying to make that impact. I think that oftentimes we see folks hoping to get to the top really quickly, but it really is all about the time and effort that you put in building that reputation, building that skill set like you were talking about, putting in the reps, so that you can really make it into those roles where you get to make the decisions, you make the schedules, all of those pieces. 

Chris Canty: Thousand percent. 

Jim Reese: Speaking of putting your time in, Britt, it looks like Brian’s still with us. So Chris, he’s really into obviously this discussion. Brian, do you have any questions for Chris? 

Brian Freeland: Yeah. As we continue to talk, I’d love your perspective on something. So, with APUS and what we offer, we have a sports management degree. We have degrees in sports and health sciences, which is very similar to exercise science.  

And then we started a couple of years ago an athlete development degree that we’re excited about because we’ve just noticed that it’s pretty obvious there’s so much more training individuals, small group training at the youth, middle, high school levels, you need that mixture of coaching, understanding exercise, physiology in the body, plus the business perspective.  

So, we try to morph all that together. And I would just love your perspective on where youth sports is in America, maybe advice to parents, young athletes. Yeah, just your general feelings on this. 

Chris Canty: Just to be able to enjoy the journey. I think so often we get to a place with youth sports where it can become unhealthy because of what the parents want to do in terms of putting the kid on the track to get a scholarship to college or to get an NIL. Just some of the things that I’m seeing student athletes reclassing in middle school because they want to be a part of a class where they feel like they set up more favorably to get a scholarship.  

I’m not going to tell someone else how to parent, but I just feel like we’ve gotten to an unhealthy place when it comes to that. The reality is that not everybody’s kid is going to the league, right? Folks need to accept that. We’re talking about less than 2% of college football players having a chance to go to the NFL, right? So, the chances as a high school football player that you’re going to the league slim to none. 

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a successful football career, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get a scholarship to college, that doesn’t mean that you can’t potentially get an NIL at some point in your collegiate experience and set yourself up to have a really great start at life.  

So, I think that we’ve gotten to a place now where youth sports is more about the next thing rather than the actual development of the young man or the young woman. And it bothers me because I do think that in a lot of ways it’s a microcosm of our mentality in society. 

Brian Freeland: I appreciate that. Yeah, it’s definitely very interesting to say the least. And as I’m one of the coaches in it and lives in it, trying to help educate others and strike that balance has definitely been a challenge, so I appreciate your perspective. 

Chris Canty: Yeah. Brian, the other thing that I will say when it comes to player development is that one of the things I had to learn the hard way as an athlete is the power of positive thinking, the battlefield of the mind, being able to weaponize your mind in order to help you get to your goal and not letting your attitude, not letting your mind frame be something that you have to overcome yourself.  

And so I think that’s one of those things that young athletes could benefit from, not just in sport but in life, learning the power of positive thinking, learning a value of a positive attitude and how that can propel you and how in turn your body physically responds to that. Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. And if you keep feeding yourself positive thoughts, positive things will happen.  

Conversely, if you feed yourself negative thoughts and have this self-doubt, you become paralyzed, you become inundated with that. All of a sudden now you put a ceiling on yourself that was never there. And so, I think that’s a lesson that everyone could benefit from, but it’s one of those things that you learn through sports. 

Brian Freeland: Absolutely. You fail so many times in the various sports, you shoot 35% in three-point range, you’re a heck of a shooter, you hit .250, you’re actually a pretty good hitter in baseball, and I’m sure there’s stats like that in football as well. You have to learn to deal with failure and be able to succeed, absolutely. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate that. Back to you, Jim. 

Jim Reese: All right, thank you, Brian. I don’t remember who told me this, but I’ve thought about this for years as you go through life, because we all have challenges. You can’t always control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it. And that goes right to what you were saying,  

Chris, about staying positive. And it really does drive your mood, how you interact with people and staying positive is so… And I learned that in sales too early because I’ve been in sales a lot in my career, and you’ve got, for every one hundred calls, you may get two sales, and so you’ve got to stay positive all the time. So, Britt, I’ve got one more question for Chris. Do you have anything else before we wrap up? 

Brittany Jacobs: No, go for it. 

Jim Reese: Britt and I end every podcast with this question. What’s next for Chris Canty? What do you see in your near future or long term? Tough one, huh? 

Chris Canty: That is a tough one. I got to be honest with you, Jim, right now I see being a father, my wife and I are coming up on our third anniversary, and we’re excited about family planning. So that’s the next big thing on the horizon for me is having an opportunity to go on a parenthood journey for the first time with my wife. So that’s really exciting. Professionally, looking forward to this upcoming football season, it’s where our bread is buttered in sports media.  

But I got to be honest with you, I love football so much, high school football, college football, pro football, and having an opportunity to talk about it and share my perspective each and every day is always an honor and a privilege. So having a chance to do that on my show, Unsportsmanlike on ESPN Radio from 6 to 10 in the mornings, having a chance to do that on First Take, on Get Up, on ESPN network shows, it really is a privilege. And that’s what I’m looking forward to this upcoming fall. 

Jim Reese: Great answer. I think our students are going to really enjoy that. Well, Chris, thank you from all of us, and we know you’re busy and we appreciate you taking time out of your schedule. And our students are going to absolutely love this, so thank you so much for being with us today. 

Chris Canty: Jim, Britt, Brian, thank you all for having me on. 

Brittany Jacobs: Thanks again. 

Jim Reese: Truly a pleasure. And as always, we’d like to thank our listeners for their continued support of our podcast series. On behalf of myself, Britt, Brian, and all of our colleagues from the APUS Sports Management Program, this is Jim Reese saying so long.