Michael Irvin was famous for being an animal on the football field and a party animal off of the field. The guy was legendary for his incredible work ethic as a player. He applied the same passion to his partying, and talked about it during a recent interview.
“The Playmaker” was a guest on “Pardon My Take” last week and talked about some of his partying and training habits. He also talked about how and why his partying became a problem.
“You’re having fun and the fun overtakes you. It’s OK to have a problem, but it’s a problem when the problem has you,” Irvin told the hosts.
Irvin says he was able to keep things under control during his playing career because he was able to draw a clear line between partying and training.
“For all of my life, I could do all of these things — partying, having fun, catching women, out drinking, doing all of that stuff. But I did it up til March. My birthday is March 5th. The second weekend in March is when we started back training. So I would always have a blast, have one big-time party. Wild out girls, getting high, everything. And then after that, I started training. And I never did anything while I was training.”
Irvin says during the season, his Dallas Cowboys would only party once a week. But he considered it more of brotherhood bonding than partying.
“Now, during the week of practice, all we would do is Thursday night, we would go out. That was our night out, because Friday is a light day (for practice). Thursday night would be the day the night we go out. We’d go to Cowboy Cafe, have drinks, mess around, chase girls, do whatever, have a good time. But it was really team-bonding moments.”
Irvin had a cocaine arrest after retiring. He says the partying became an issue after his retirement, because he didn’t have football anymore to offset his focus.
“Where I got lost in the partying is when I retired. When I retired and I go through February, I’m getting high and having a great time, and then March comes around, and I’m still having a good time. And then April comes around, and I said, ‘OK, enough of this. I gotta get focused on what I’m gonna do next. I’m no longer playing football.’ In all the years prior to that, I was always able to stop. But now, I could not stop. I had to get some counseling on it and find out what it was. I was switching addictions from playing football.”
Irvin was able to clean things up, but it wasn’t an easy road. He has faced some other allegations since then. Also, one former player even had some tough advice for Irvin’s wife.
Irvin made five Pro Bowls and won three Super Bowls during his career. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2007. He was also inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.
