141: Matt Millen: Former NFL great, NFL executive & longtime broadcaster who overcame a near death experience!

Matt Millen

Matt Millen is a past teammate of Mark Pattison with the Los Angeles Raiders NFL team as a line-backer. After being diagnosed with the rare disease amyloidosis that impacted his heart to the point of needing a heart transplant, Matt was happily surprised by the well-wishes he received from past teammates. “When I got sick with this disease, it was shocking to me how many guys from our Raider team, it was an outpouring. It was overwhelming. They just came out of the woodwork,  heard from guys that I hadn’t heard from in years. But it’s weird, because everyone is trying to keep up with one another. They are trying to keep tabs on you or they talk to someone who has talked to you. It was really amazing. It was really phenomenal. And that’s really the power of the team.”

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Matt Millen, 4-Time Super Bowl Winner with three different teams, the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders, the San Francisco 49ers and the Washington Redskins as well as the previous President and CEO of the Detroit Lions. Matt Millen speaks about the competitive nature of the NFL. “Here is the hard truth about making it in the National Football League. So, Mark you had more than enough talent to be able to play for a long time and have a longer career than you did in the NFL. There are a lot of different things that come into it. So, you had requisite speed, you ran great routes, you loved to play, you weren’t afraid to go across the middle. So, you had all of those things and the problem is, you can have a great skill-set and if you get there at a time when there is no other skill-set like that, you are in great shape. You can take off with your career and show exactly what you have. Or, you can show up on a team like the Raiders when you did, when there were a bunch of guys who have the same skill-sets. Some have already established themselves and you are trying to scratch your way into that place and it is tough to do.”

Listen to “Matt Millen: Former NFL great, NFL executive & longtime broadcaster who overcame a near death experience!” on Spreaker.

What You Will Learn:

Matt Millen shares some wise words of wisdom that he has learned along the way while overcoming his adversities. “The bottomline is always this, in the end, we’re all are just people living, trying to get by in this life and there are a lot of things that help. But the main thing that helps people is people. It is not money. It is not fame. It is not anything other than a person taking time to take time.”

When Matt Millen was diagnosed with amyloidosis disease, he was understandable shocked and concerned, especially after it had not been recognized by previous physicians that he had visited. “The disease is called amyloidosis. It is a disease that there is no cure for. They don’t really know what causes it. It is an autoimmune disease and so it is one of those that I never heard or ever knew existed.”

What was the process like for Matt Millen to finally have the disease determined? “I went on a 7-year hike so-to-speak, from doctor to doctor all across the country. From Los Angeles to New Jersey, to you name it I was there. The Mayo Clinic up in Rochester, Minnesota, down in Florida, out in Arizona. I was all over the place. I saw lots of different people and finally at the Mayo Clinic after 7 years of seeing doctors and getting to the point where I could walk maybe 25 feet and then I had to stop, they finally determined what it was. I was down in the Mayo in Jacksonville. I walked into a guy who that was what he specialized in and they finally found it and then it was a matter of time before I had a heart transplant. But I had to go on chemo. I was on chemo for 10 ½ months.”

How did being faced with his own mortality strip things down in his life and did it create an awakening in his life? “I’ve had faith for a long time. I became a Christian, and I mean a bible-believing conversion Christian. I grew up Catholic. I always had knowledge and a kind of thirst for it. But then when I went to Penn State and I got into the bible, then I made a profession of faith, that was in 1976. From ‘76 until ‘the heart’ things were simple. Then when that happened, thankfully, I was actually pretty good. I was like, ok, this is the way I go, this is the way I go. At least I know it.”

Matt Millen shares a story of his experience in the hospital regaining his strength. “They put these drugs, they put them right in your jugular. So you are walking around with this pole and the medicine being dumped right into your heart and all they said to me was, they said look, the better shape you are in going in, the further along you will be coming out. So I was like, look, how much do you want me to walk? Because I will walk all day if you need me to.”

Penn State and Notre Dame

As a Penn State University alumni, was Penn State always the college that Matt Millen wanted to attend and the college team that he wanted to play for? “It was a town that was dominated by two teams, the Penn State Nittany Lions and Notre Dame. And because you’re inundated with hearing about Penn State and Notre Dame growing up, I could not stand either of those teams. It used to drive me nuts. It was all I ever heard. It was Notre Dame and Penn State and I was like forget it.”

Super Bowl Success

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Matt Millen also talks about making the conversion from the Raiders to the 49ers team, and recognizing the internal player dynamics that he was entering into. “I walked into the 49er locker room and I immediately saw one thing, this is Ronnie Lott’s team. I knew the Raiders were my team. I knew I ran everything down there. But I walked into San Francisco, it would have been a huge mistake for me to try to do anything there. So, I just blended in, let Ronnie do his thing because it’s his show and that’s fine.”

Links to Additional Resources:

• Matt Millen
• Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
• Emilia’s Everest for the Epilepsy Foundation