On TV, he’s known as Spencer James, a stud high school football player from the wrong side of the tracks who is whisked away to a glamorous (and drama-filled) life in Beverly Hills.
In real life, he’s Spencer Paysinger, a 31-year-old former NFL linebacker who gets to relive a version of his teens every Monday night on The CW’s “All American.”
Paysinger was signed as an undrafted free agent by the New York Giants in 2011 and spent time with the Miami Dolphins, the New York Jets and the Carolina Panthers before retiring in 2017.
So, did you ever think you would have a TV show?
A lot of people ask me that. I always say that I never thought I would have it because I was too busy living it. [Laughs] I mean, it’s weird. These past two years have been sort of a walk down memory lane for me. ‘Cause I’ve had to dive back into my past for examples with the show and just for my own development. Just getting away from football in its entirety, probably, for the majority of my life. Well, for the first time in my life, I should say.
One thing I noticed in the show is that Spencer is kind of the Chosen One for Crenshaw, the one who’s going to get out and make it. Was that your experience in South Central?
No, that wasn’t necessarily my experience. The writers and producers, they take liberties. You have to make a compelling show at the end of the day.
Growing up, we were a sports family. My older brother played sports and my dad and my uncles all coached and played sports. My older brother, he’s not written into the show, but he was the big man on campus at Beverly Hills. Once I got to Beverly, I was sort of trying to live up to his legacy but also make my own.
And in South Central, I had friends that fell by the wayside because they thought it was my decision to go to Beverly. When in actuality, I wanted to go to Crenshaw because that was my home school.
Spencer being the Chosen One, that’s a theme we often see within black culture and the black community. Young black athletes are almost programmed into believing that sports are the only way to ‘get out’ [of a bad financial/living situation] or to be successful in life.
But I noticed, in an article I read, that you had a totally different mindset. You had dreams of being an entrepreneur. When did that start?
I can’t really pinpoint when it started, but it’s just always been something that’s with me. My grandfather, you can say it started with him. He’s from the south, moved to Detroit, Michigan, ended up meeting my grandmother and had their first child out there. But as a sign of the times, he actually moved out west, and then saved up enough money to send for my grandmother and my oldest uncle.
Since then, he’s bought real estate, he’s bought land around Los Angeles, and now he lives in one of the most affluent black neighborhoods in, essentially, the country, which is Ladera Heights, California.
So, I’ve always known that there was more to life besides sports – just seeing my uncles and my dad all pursuing things. Yes, they were football coaches. But they all have things outside of sports that they’ve aspired to be. My uncle, at one time, was a prominent real estate agent. My dad works for the LAUSD [Los Angeles Unified School District].
I think it kind of hit home for me my second year at [the] University of Oregon where I had a mentor named James Harris. I was becoming an econ major at that time, and he just kind of took me under his wing and said, ‘You’re not one of the guys that’s doing some of the other degrees, the easier degrees, that keep kids eligible. You’re actually challenging yourself. I’m gonna get you internships around the city. It’s up to you to see them through.’
All the way up from my sophomore year of college, I was able to do internships almost year-round, by quarter. Just getting a little bit of that life outside of sports in me.
So you had a lot of examples in your life of people who could play sports and do other things?
Absolutely! And even growing up in sports, I always gravitated toward drawing. I was in art competitions when I was younger. I haven’t done much of that since. But I always knew if I liked this, maybe I can do something like that in the future. To me, growing up, sports was just what it was. It was something to do because my older brother was doing it.
What advice do you have for young athletes who are looking at these NFL players and NBA players and all they see is bling and women and nice cars? That lifestyle doesn’t last.
That’s something that I definitely want to tackle now that I’m retired, having it be sort of a focal point around the show. I wanna see an area of Spencer’s story where he does take to something else besides football or reevaluates his dreams of playing professionally.
When it comes to that message for these high-schoolers and these young kids looking to these athletes, the numbers are there. Less than 0.001% are able to play on a professional level. But for some reason our neighborhoods and our culture kind of puts it on a pedestal, whether they wanna admit it or not.
You look at the Super Bowl, where you have maybe 80-100 million watching it. If you’re a kid, you look at your dad, you look at your mom, and they’re excited watching these two teams play. Or you look at your dad and he’s talking about how monstrous that linebacker is.
You’re looking at that screen like, ‘OK. If I want my dad to talk about me how he’s talking about these great athletes, that almost means I have to play sports. Because what other industry will my dad talk about me with such joy and passion than sports?’
My message to the guys playing is that it’s not wrong to play football. It’s not wrong to play sports and aspire to be great if that’s something you want to be great at. But understand the numbers behind it. The percentages are not in our favor.
So, even if you’re playing it, look to other things that bring you joy. For me, it was drawing. For me, when I got to college, it was my marketing and branding classes.
I just wish more kids looked at sports for what it was. Yes, it’s a great avenue for you to play and be great in. But if you can use sports as a leappad to something else, that’s when I think we’ll have some change within our community.