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7 Things Overheard In Jake Plummer's Golf Cart

BROOMFIELD, Colo. (CBS4) - This weekend's episode of The 19th Hole features another special guest who will be very familiar to Denver sports fans.

Former Bronco Jake Plummer recently joined CBS4's Vic Lombardi at the Omni Interlocken Resort Golf Club in Broomfield for some golfing and plenty of conversation.

Jake Plummer
Jake Plummer in 2004 (credit: Brian Bahr/Getty Images)

As has been the case with other episodes of the CBS4 Sports show, the quarterback shared plenty of interesting facts about himself and his career during his trips around the course in the golf cart.

See Plummer on The 19th Hole on Saturday following the CBS PGA Tour broadcast of the third round of the Travelers Championship and find out seven things that were said in the golf cart between Plummer and Lombardi below.

Handball is still his thing.
After abruptly retiring from the National Football League in 2007 and turning down millions of dollars that were on the table if he'd have kept playing, Plummer did something of a disappearing act. He moved up to his home state of Idaho, and it wasn't until quite a while later that fans got word Plummer was quite busy in retirement with a sport other than football. Handball was his new passion, and it remains so. Plummer is now back living in Colorado the majority of the year, and he can sometimes be found out on the East Boulder Rec Center's outdoor courts on Saturday mornings. "If anyone out there wants to come out to play come out to East Boulder on Saturday at 9, come out there ready to have fun," he said. Plummer said the competition includes "everyone from top open-level players all the way down to 75-year-old men who would still whup you."

Jake Plummer
Jake Plummer and CBS4's Vic Lombardi (credit: CBS)

It took Plummer a while to recognize what a special thing his days as a pro were.
Plummer attended a Broncos game about three years ago as a guest of owner Pat Bowlen. "That's when it finally dawned on me, kind of like 'Wow. I used to do that! That was me running out of the tunnel and the crowd going crazy.'" Plummer says that experience came at a good time. "It was a time when I had a bunch of surgeries and was kind of bumming and wondering 'Why did I play? I'm all beat up. I can't even play handball or basketball.' And then I watched that and I was like 'Wow. What I did was awesome!' " Plummer said he shed some tears of pride as he watched the game from the seats behind the Broncos bench.

He walked around a packed Broncos stadium without anyone noticing him.
At that game Plummer, who was wearing a name tag, left Bowlen's suite and decided to walk amongst the fans. "I walked out and I'm walking around and right then the parachuters started way up top." The aerial team started descending towards the stadium from high in the sky and all the fans were grabbing their cellphones to take pictures. "They're all looking up in the sky and I thought 'This is sweet!' I'm walking around the stadium and no one sees me." Eventually a security guard stopped him and looked at his chest and said 'Are you Jake?' And I thought 'This guy recognizes me, cool! That feels good.' " Then Plummer realized he had simply forgotten to take his name tag off.

Jake Plummer
Jake Plummer in 2005 (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)

He never played for the money.
"Football wasn't about money. It was about playing and competing and doing something that I'll never get to do something quite the same in my life." He says his decision to leave the game happened because his will to play started to fade. "You can't play football if you're not in it 100 percent."

He's not so sure he'd want his child playing football.
Plummer has two children, and when asked about them playing football he said "My son's going to be skinny and smaller and I don't know if I want him playing in junior high and high school when you've got kids that have been training for six years to be an NFL linebacker. By plain physics alone he's going to get hit harder and get hurt. The only thing would be if he's real quick and mental then maybe that'd be his saving grace."

Jake Plummer
(credit: CBS)

He's not a fan of kids playing only one sport.
After he declared himself done with football, Plummer underwent hip surgeries that were necessary in part because of the repetitive motions he had to keep doing throughout his years as being a quarterback (for him, dropping back was a major cause). He said kids who relentlessly go through the same bodily motions in a singular sport "are setting themselves up for what I had to do in my late 30s." "They're going to have (those health problems) in their early 20s."

RELATED: Why You Don't Want Your Young Pitcher To Know Tommy John

Plummer recently celebrated a special birthday.
Plummer just recently turned 40 and he's excited for the decade to come. "When I turned 30 I was excited and it was the best decade so far of my life. Got married, had two kids, I retired."

See episodes of The 19th Hole on a special section of CBSDenver.com.

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