Editor’s Note: Trent Cole has been playing outside linebacker and defensive end for the Philadelphia Eagles NFL football team for the past 9 years, after attending the University of Cincinnati. In 2014, Cole starts his tenth season with the Eagles. Cole also has a TV show called “Blitz TV.” When the defensive coach calls for a blitz, and the linebackers charge the offensive line of the opposing team, they have only one thought in their minds to, “Sack the quarterback.” When Cole is producing a show for “Blitz TV,” he’s on the same type of mission and has the same enthusiasm and determination as he has when he’s trying to blitz a quarterback. But instead of wearing his Philadelphia Eagles uniform on “Blitz TV,” he’s wearing his outdoor uniform – Mossy Oak camouflage.
I am often asked, “Why did you decide to go into the outdoor TV business?” The name of our TV show is “Blitz TV,” because blitz describes everything about me. I really enjoy the football game when the defensive coach calls a blitz, because that means I can go all-out, wide-open, run as fast and hard as I can to try and tackle the quarterback. Blitz is what I do for a living, and I try to bring that same enthusiasm and that same determination to our hunting and outdoors television show, “Blitz TV.”
I have a team of young, strong, good ole boys who help me with “Blitz TV.” Just like the team at Mossy Oak, we all have the same values, the same goals and the same determination to be the best we can be. Not only does our TV show focus on how to take animals, we also show how to manage the land for the betterment of wildlife. We teach conservation practices that enable us to have wildlife to hunt year after year and to make sure there is wildlife on the land for future generations. Our goal for “Blitz TV” is to help our viewers and our fans to be more successful when they go outdoors. This will be my fifth year to air “Blitz TV.” Our company started out producing DVDs, and then we grew into a television show.
As a youngster, I loved to watch outdoor television shows. Back then, I lived in southern Ohio. As boys, the hosts of the outdoor TV shows we watched were the people we looked up to and wanted to be like. We watched Tom Miranda and Dick Butkus. When I watched the Dick Butkus show, he was a football player, and I was a kid playing football. He loved to hunt, and I loved to hunt. I hardly ever missed his TV show. Even when I started playing high school football and then college football, and was drafted into professional football, I never lost my love of hunting and fishing. I always thought maybe someday I could have a TV show.
Many of my friends say, “How do you manage being a professional football player and being a professional hunter since both sports have extreme time demands?” First of all, I play with a great football team, and I have a great TV team. In both endeavors, the teams play for the best outcome for everyone on the team. On the football team, we all play for each other. So, the team as a whole has a chance to win, and we have that same philosophy with our TV crew.
Another big advantage I have – and possibly the biggest advantage – is I love to play football, I love to hunt, and I love to produce great TV. When you’re doing the things you love, I have learned you don’t feel the same stress, and you don’t get nearly as tired, as when you’re doing things you don’t really like, or don’t have a passion for them. When you have a passion, you will find the time to pursue that passion. Both these jobs are very demanding of my time, and I have to be extremely disciplined to accomplish both. But I like to be time disciplined, and I like to be in control of when I do what.
Through football and hunting, I have learned that you get out of any sport what you put into it. The more effort you put out, the more you get what you are looking for in that activity. Like me, if you have a passion for both football and the outdoors, you can find a way to make each work together to produce what you want the outcome to be. Because I grew up in the sports of football and hunting, I totally believe that practice makes perfect. If you love to practice as much if not more than playing on game day, then practice isn’t a negative part of any sport.
To play at the highest level of football, which is the NFL, I have to practice every day. To shoot accurately and proficiently with my bow, I have to practice every day. There are 24 hours in a day. Each of these practice sessions has a time and place, so there isn’t really a conflict. When I’m practicing football, I am practicing for that one moment that I have the opportunity to sack the quarterback, to stop the running back or to break-up a game winning pass. When you’re hunting, many times, you have only one moment to get off the shot and take the game you’re hunting. So, I practice over and over again for what I should do, when that moment occurs. I am practicing everyday for that moment when I have the biggest buck I ever have seen in my sights, or when I have a quarterback in my sights, and I know I can get a sack.
For more information on Trent Cole and “Blitz TV,” go to www.coleoutdoors.com.
Trent Cole of the Philadelphia Eagles Has a Passion for His Future in Football and the Outdoors
