We recently got to chat up Tampa Bay Buccaneer Jonathan Casillas. Here’s what the NFL linebacker had to share:
TSB: What’s your go-to style for days off?
Jonathan Casillas: Basketball shorts or sweat pants, a t-shirt and some sneakers and a fitted hat. Always got to have a fitted hat on and a g-shock watch.
TSB: Who has been the biggest influence on your life?
JC: My mother, because she is the person who I’m closest with. Throughout my life she has been a constant person since I was born who told me the right things at the right time. She went through a lot when she was younger. She got her family out of a poverty stricken environment and bought a house. That’s a tremendous accomplishment on it’s own and it helps me whenever I get to a certain point. When something comes up in life that challenges me and I haven’t been through something like it before, I look back at what my mom went through and look at it like, if she did it I can definitely do it.
TSB: What is the strangest thing you believed as a child?
JC: The strangest thing I believed, as a child was Yams were disgusting and the reason behind it was that I hate coconut with a passion. It doesn’t taste good to me, I like everything but coconut, I can’t stand anything but coconut. When my mom made yams she always put coconut on the top and every time I ate yams I thought that they were the most disgusting things in my life, I still thought yams were disgusting. One day in my life in my 20’s I was like, let me try some yams and I loved it and I missed out for so long. It was just my mom’s yams because they had coconut in them. Thanksgiving comes around I tell my mom to hold off on the coconut and they were so delicious!
TSB: What’s one thing you’d rather pay someone to do than do yourself? Why?
JC: The dishes, because I hate doing the dishes. I would volunteer for every other chore in the house but I would hate to do dishes.
TSB: What position do you sleep in?
JC: I sleep on my stomach with my hands above on the side by my head.
TSB: What’s your all-time favorite town or city? Why?
JC: New York City, ever since I was a child growing up in Jersey City. I would always see the skyline all time every day and always wondered what it would be like to be in New York City. Now that I’m older, I spend a lot of time in the city, and you can do anything you want in the city!
TSB: What music do you listen to before a game?
JC: Rap music, 2 Chainz, Future, some real “Turn up” music. Depends on what time our game is, if we have a night game where I can have all day to relax I listen to the “Sade” station on Pandora. I can’t turn up all day long, I have to mellow it out, harmonize a little bit and then turn it up for the night game.
TSB: If you had to change your first name, what would you change it to?
JC: Denzel
TSB: What is the best advice you’ve received?
JC: Just be yourself, I don’t think anyone could ever receive any better advice than that.
TSB: What can always cheer you up?
JC: My daughter Jade, her smile.