J.J. Lasley: “Keepin’ It
Real (Estate)”
Former Stanford running back J.J.
Lasley spent four years in Cardinal (1989-92). Over the course of his
Stanford career he saw the Cardinal team improve from a 3-8 record in 1989 to a
Blockbuster Bowl-winning 10-3 team in 1992, only the second 10-win season in
school history.
The “Best in the West” running
back had his ups and downs along the path. He had a breakout game his freshman
season rushing for 101 yards and a touchdown in a season- ending 24-14 win over
Cal. His senior season of 1992 saw him gather nine catches for 125 yards and a
touchdown in a dominating win over USC.
After leaving
the Farm, Lasley had a quick look in the NFL. He played on the USA Rugby
national team. And now he makes his home in Southern California working in real
estate development and finance.
Lasley was nice enough to take time
to talk about what he is doing today, and of course #26 relives some stories
from his playing days down on the Farm.
Q: Tell me what you are doing these
days?
A: Well, I have been involved
in real estate the last four years. I started off in loans, and then got into
land-brokering. I was doing loans out in
Irvine
for Wells Fargo and then got into
land-brokering. That took me up to
Fresno
. Then I got into the commercial side of
it and was doing commercial deals in downtown South Central (
Los Angeles ) and
Koreatown . Now I am striking out on my own. I have put a partnership together and we just
had our first meeting of the minds. Basically, I am putting together an investment
partnership to do "hard-money" lending. We are reinvesting into problem communities like
South Central LA and the south side of
Chicago
. We will start off with single-family homes, and as we get a bunch of deals done, we will reinvest and basically
become our own bank and we will start doing “hard-money” loans. We will turn it
into a “one-stop shop”. After we do enough deals in the single-family area, then
we will start branching out and doing commercial as well.
Q: So you will be doing redevelopment of "down"
locations?
We are starting off now doing single-family homes that are
banked-owned REO (“Real Estate Owned”), dwellings that are non-livable. Many are
either boarded-up or have specific alterations that were done on
the property that would make it hard for a first-time homeowner
to qualify to buy. We are primarily concerned with helping would-be homebuyers get into
those properties. A small percentage the REO homes, we will able just to buy them
and slap some paint on and that is it. But on a lot of them we will have to go
in and add a wall, or take a wall out, or add a bathroom, or add a bedroom, make it
a three-bedroom – “rehab-type” of stuff.
Q: Seems like a tough time to be doing real
estate, are you finding good opportunities and why now?
Yeah, very good opportunities.
The thing about the real estate market, we all know about location, location,
location, but things are primarily determined by the capital market. This is a
really rough time in the capital market. In fact it is so bad that I didn’t get
one deal done in 2007 on the commercial side because you could not get a loan
for over three million dollars. You can’t buy a high-rise commercial building
for less than three million dollars. What is funny about the real estate market
is there is always a “hot button” in real estate. You just have to know where to
go.
Back when I got into this, they
were just giving houses away so you could get a loan easily. Then there was a
lot of development going on from ‘04 to ’06, then it just stopped. So that is
the land-brokering part of it. Then the commercial market was still going
strong, but it has been hit somewhat now, and I think it will get hit some more.
The commercial market is still searching for a bottom. Because of the
challenging capital market environment, you can’t find the funding to go buy a
40-story building. Not even Trump has the cash to go out buy buildings in cash.
One interesting thing right now is the availability of tax credits for first-time home buyers.
We backed into this model, we are basically saying a person can buy, can
qualify, for a first-time home buyer with just 3% down.
There is always money to be made
in the real estate market. You just have to be in the right place at the right
time. It is kind of funny, I was at the right place at the right time with
loans, but I jumped in a little late with the land-brokering and a little late
on the commercial, no one would have known the capital market would take the hit
it did, but now when you look at cycles, this is a new cycle for single-family
home buyers. The good thing is that we have created this niche. We have gone out
and are looking at what is going on. Basically we are going out after the
household income from people that earn between $30K-80K per year and that is
combined income. We are targeting only that market. We are looking at homes
ranging from $100K-$300K. In that market, we target the Latino community. They
are our biggest buyers, certainly in South Central. If they qualify and can put
the 3% down, it works. That market is good and open. Despite the economic
downturn, many of those folks still have their jobs. Those are people who often
are making $12-$14 an hour. They have been hit, but they are still out there and
looking to buy. If they can push their rent up by $200-300 a month, but can
actually own instead of rent…. those are the ones we are going after, with good
credit and what not. So we have found a niche and that is the thing about real
estate, there are certain niches that are always going.
Q: Have you always been so entrepreneurial?
A: Yeah, I haven’t pushed a pen
behind a desk for a corporation since I left Montgomery Securities in 1997. I
have been out on my own since then, literally, just on my own. I was a
professional trainer, I had my own business development company during the 12
years I lived in
San Francisco
. I am somewhat a risk-taker in the sense that I
found out a long time ago that I am not a “suit & tie” guy, although I will
put one on if necessary. I am just not a “9-to-5” guy and I won’t punch a clock.
I like having the freedom to do what I need to do. I don’t mind risk. I take a
lot of risk, but with the risk comes the reward.
Q:
Do you still keep in touch with any old Stanford
buddies?
I am a networker. I was “Mister
Facebook” before there was Facebook. I have 3,500 names and numbers in my phone
book and this was before there was social networking. That is just something I
have done throughout my life. Travel the world, make friends, just being a
pleasant person I guess to be around. Making people smile, laugh, providing
positive energy, never negative, I just try to keep it that way.
Charles Young was kind of my
mentor, my “big brother” at Stanford and a fellow running back. He is going to
be a partner in the fund. He works for a commercial firm in
Chicago
. I stay in touch
with so many people. Eliel Swinton, I just talked to him. I knew him growing up
playing Pop Warner football. He is obviously a lot younger than I am. Chris Berg, T.J. Gaynor, Glyn Milburn, Tommy Vardell, I am still in touch with them. It
is a brotherhood. I tell people at Stanford, the football team and the rugby
team, they were my fraternities. I did not join a traditional fraternity.
Q: As part of that athletic fraternity, do
you still find a lot of kinship with those outside of your class?
A: When I was leaving in San
Francisco - I did not leave until 2004 - I was still going to Stanford games
regularly, and getting to know younger players. Some of my best friends are guys
who went to school five or six years after me. It is a brotherhood of just
Stanford
University
so I never felt
the need to join a particular fraternity. One of my best friends is Marcus
Lollie who was a starting point guard on the basketball team while I was playing
football. We lived together for two years. We did not play the same sports but
yet he became one of my best friends. He works for DLJ, although now they have
been bought out by someone else (Credit Suisse). But he lives in
Beverly Hills
and I have
seen his daughter growing up and the whole thing.
I would say
Crespi (Crespi-Carmelite in Encino, CA, where Lasley earned six letters while
carrying a 4.2 GPA!), my high
school, saved my life. Stanford offered me opportunity that I would have never
have gotten in my life. It has been a Godsend that I was able to go to both
schools.
Q: How did Crespi "save your
life"?
A: Long story short, I grew up in
South Central (Los Angeles), my mom and I. We were on welfare, the whole thing,
gangs, people were getting shot. I am the only one that made it out of my crew
of about 15 friends. I am the only one that is still alive and functioning. My
mother was smart enough to get me to understand how important school and grades
were. I was getting straight A’s and we literally barnstormed Crespi. During my
eighth grade summer, she made me put in a collared shirt and tucked it in and we
went over there. We did not know anybody, but we went and met with the
principal. After three hours of meeting with the principal and academic
advisors, they were so impressed with her and I guess my transcript that they
offered me the scholarship to go to their high school. They did not even know at
that point that I played any sports. I think they could tell from my build.
Q: And this was just all on the good work of
your mom?
A: Literally on the word of my
mom and my transcript, and I spoke pretty well. They said “okay. let’s give this
kid a chance”. I was one of three black kids at the school, so that probably had
a little something to do with it as well.
But they saved my life. It got me to the point where we won the CIF
championship. It got me to the point where people were looking at me for what I
was doing on the football field. I got offers from everywhere from Notre Dame to
Harvard to USC and everything. Once Stanford called, my mom said “you are going
to Stanford.” I had a choice - if I wanted to push it and go to Notre Dame or
USC, she would have let me. I pretty much decided to go to Stanford because of
the opportunity it would give me.
Q: I would guess when getting recruited that
is a mighty big phone call to get. An opportunity from a Pac-10 program and if
you don’t make it to the NFL, you have a Stanford degree. That has to be tough
to say “no” to?
A: Absolutely. That is why I
wanted to go to Stanford. One twist of an ankle in preseason and you could never
play football again. Then what? USC is a great school if you want to stay on the
west coast. Harvard is a great school obviously, but it probably is not going to
get me into the NFL. Stanford has both. I can travel the world, I can get a job
anywhere in the world, but I can also be in the Pac-10 and get a real look (from
the NFL). In fact when I got there they were 0-9-1 if I remember right with Jack Elway (actually they were 3-6-2 but winless in the last five games). So I had a
feeling that I might be able to get on the field sooner. People would say “why
do you want to go there when they are losing?” I would say, “yeah, but I might
be able to play as a freshman.” It does not matter how good the team is, I will
make it better. As a young kid, you think as soon “as I get there I’ll make it
better”.
Q: And you did make it better, and as I
recall you had a pretty great game against Cal your freshman
year?
A: I did actually. I was lucky
enough to play well. You look back at times and wish you would have done more. A
lot of things went down that I wish would have gone down differently. Still, you
thank your lucky stars that you were even there to have that chance.
Q: So give me a couple of memories from your
playing days, what do you recall?
A: I have
one story I laugh about. Spring of 1990. I saw Glyn Milburn had just
transferred, this, that and the other, and I go from starting tailback to
third-string fullback. I am thinking, okay, this isn’t working. John Lynch was
fourth-string quarterback. At one practice, both our starting strong safety and
free safety got injured. So John and I were talking after practice. I said,
“dude, I’ll go play safety.” He said “me too.” I said, “so let’s go in there
together.” So John Lynch and I together walked into Denny Green’s office and
said we wanted to play safety. He said that sounds great, go talk to your
position coaches.
So
I go talk to Coach (Tyrone) Willingham and he says “no”. Lynch goes and talks to
the quarterback coach, who I believe at that time was Guy Benjamin [Ed.
Actually, it was Ron Turner - Benjamin joined the Walsh staff in 1992], and he says “okay”. So to
make a long story short, they keep me at fullback and I get my short look in the
NFL and Lynch goes to safety and he plays forever. (laughter) (Lynch retired
this year and is now broadcasting for FOX). Hey, it is all timing. I am not saying
it could have been me. But if they had put me at strong safety, I could still be
in the league and be Troy Polamalu. One small little turn of events could have
changed everything.
Q: Does that make you angry?
A: I was mad at Coach Willingham
for that. But he made it up to me later. My first year, I got a look in
Green Bay
. I
ended up not making the team and got cut. And that was fine. I jumped on the
U.S. National Rugby team. I was not getting paid much, but got free stuff, got
to go to Hong Kong and
Japan
. And then Coach Willingham
called me the next year, their first year in
Minnesota . Not that he owed me but he knew the kind of person
that I was and he wanted to at least give me a shot of bringing me into camp.
And it just so happened that I was in incredible shape from playing rugby, a
whole different shape.
So I showed up in
Minnesota
early and I was
running after practice every day. I was there with Terry Allen and Robert Smith
and some of those guys and because I was a rookie there, they did not want to
get out-worked. So by the end of the first week of practice all the running
backs were running gassers after practice just because that is what I was doing.
I just brought all these intangible things to the team. I ended up making the
team but then got injured and got put on the injured reserve. So my whole NFL
career never really happened. I am not mad at anyone for that, but it is pretty
interesting how things go.
Q: It is very intertwined, once you know
someone they move on, opportunities come and go just based on knowing people.
Here is another good story.
During my recruiting trip, Larry Smith had just won the Rose Bowl with
Arizona and the next year
he was at USC. So he recruited me at USC. I was sitting at the desk across from
him on my recruiting trip to SC. I was going to be going to Stanford the next
weekend on my recruiting trip. So Larry Smith says, “I am going to be very
honest with you kid. If you come to USC we are going to change you to strong
safety, you probably won’t play your freshman year, but you will probably be
able to get in after that. You will start for at least two years and maybe three
and you are a strong safety in the NFL. You will probably win a Rose Bowl here
and you will probably play strong safety in the NFL.” I said, “Thank you very
much Coach Smith, but I want to be a running back, I am going to stay a running
back.”
I grew up walking distance from USC so I wanted to feel like I
was going away to college so I was going to go ahead and go to Stanford. And he
said thank you very much for being so candid. We shook hands and we let it go.
My freshman year I had that killer game against USC, scored a touchdown, a
hundred and something yards, Larry Smith comes up to me after the game. He finds
me on the field, he says J.J. Lasley, “I just wanted to say I was wrong. You are
an incredible running back and you can play running back in the NFL.” He
actually said he was wrong. Then two and a half years later, I was begging to play safety!
Q: Why did Willingham say “no” to the
position change?
A: We had Ellery Roberts, we
had Glyn Milburn, we had me and we had “Touchdown Tommy” Vardell. Of those four,
I was the only one with a defensive mentality, meaning I was the only who liked
to hit. Glyn does not like to hit and that was fine. Tommy, who outweighs me by
30 pounds, did not like to hit. Now, he hit when he had to hit. And everybody
knows how hard it is to bring him down, but he did not “like” to hit. I “liked”
to hit. I literally was a defensive player playing running back. So they all
knew that so they moved me to fullback in 1991. I thought this was a good
idea team-wise but just not for my career. But basically I was playing fullback
at 200 pounds and I was lead blocking for Tommy Vardell who is 235 and I am
faster than he is. So how does that work? Well, Lasley likes to hit a lot harder.
Guess what, Lasley will go through the hole and hit a linebacker at 235 pounds
and clear the hole for Tommy. Now, you have Tommy Vardell, who did run a
legit sub-4.6, coming through the hole with a 10-yard run-up and nothing but a DB
trying to make a tackle. I think he scored whatever it was 24 or 26 touchdowns
that year? (20, but it goes up as the years pass!) I think I lead-blocked for
almost every one of those. Again, lead-blocking did not do much for my career as
a running back, it did not really help me get to the NFL, but we won a bunch of
games and became Pac-10 co-champions and went to two bowl games.
Q: What are some other great memories you
have from your playing days?
A: The 1989 Cal game was a great
memory. That 1992 USC game was a great memory. I had a pretty killer game
against San Jose
State one year. I got a
game ball for that one. I think I may have scored a couple of touchdowns in that
one. The '91 Aloha Bowl was a great experience. Unfortunately, we lost the game
in the final 30-seconds of the game so a lot of people don’t like talking about
it, but it really was a great experience, it was a great game. Then beating
Penn
State (on New Year's Day in
1993), that was a great way to end my career. To go
out to Florida and to beat Penn State: “Bill Walsh vs. Joe Paterno”. I got to
score a touchdown in that game as well. It was on national TV andwe were
supposed to get crushed. It was billed as Penn State and “Linebacker U” vs. Stanford and
Bill Walsh’s "fluffy" west coast offense…and we beat them. That was a great
experience. Those two teams, the Aloha Bowl team and the Blockbuster Bowl team,
you could count the number of athletes that went on to the NFL. It was just
amazing. We had so many guys who went to the league and played. We just had an
influx of talent.
We were not the most talented recruiting class, my
1988 class. The class that came in after us, with Bob Whitfield and those guys
(1989, which included Lynch, Garnett, Cassidy, Cavanaugh, etc.), and the
class after them (1990), probably pound for pound had more talent but we were
the class that turned it around. We are the ones that changed the game. Seeing
the last Jack Elway year, all of us watching and saying we are not going to
college like this. I don’t care what people have to say about Stanford. We are
not a losing team. We have more talent than that. Next year is going to be
different. It did not happen overnight, but we got it there until we were Pac-10
co-champions and had we not lost to
Washington
head-to-head, we would have gone to
the Rose Bowl. We really missed the Rose Bowl by about three points. We lost to
Arizona by three points (actually by 15, but
who’s counting!) and they chose
Washington
that year because we had lost to
them head-to-head.
Q: Do you see similarities from your class
to this current senior class? They were 1-11 their first year, benefitted from a
fiery new coach and started turning things around?
A: Absolutely! Hopefully they
will have some of the success we got to go through as well. Like I said, I was
thankful we had our two bowl games. But even if they don’t have that success
outwardly in the sense that the rest of the nation was aware of it, they can
realize it themselves. That they ARE the class that turned it around! There is a
lot to be said about that. You might not get the national recognition. But the
Stanford community knows, especially the Stanford Football community. All the
ex-players, all the alumni, all the crazy people that have been going to every
game since they were the Indians, all those people who line up during the walk
and cheer you on, they all know the intricacies of that turnaround and who was
responsible. It is just a good feeling. Okay we did not win a Rose Bowl, or we
did not go to a bowl game, but you can say, hey we were the class that turned it
around. Because, thanks to my class turning it around, we were able to go to the
Rose Bowl several years after that. I graduated seven years prior to the 2000
Rose Bowl, but it was my class that got us back in the Pac-10, back into bowl
games, to getting the program on track to go to the Rose Bowl. I am not taking
credit for getting Stanford to a Rose Bowl. But we got our bowl games. So these
guys, the similarities are there. If Stanford gets better and hopefully makes a
bowl game this year, then they are a part of that turnaround and we all know it
and can pat them on the back for it!
Q: Great stories, thank you. Any other final
thoughts?
A: I am focused 100% on real estate and charities now.
Each of these partnerships is going to be associated with a particular non-profit
charity, a “dot-org” if you will. Each single one of these communities we will
be giving back to the local YMCA or other non-profit and giving back to the
community, and keeping that pride of ownership. This is not a case of a bunch of
guys just trying to come in and make money in these neighborhoods. I was raised
in South Central. I moved there in 1972 and did not leave there until 1985. So I
know that place. I want to reinvest. One of the other partners is still living
there. He has been down there for 25 years doing real estate.
We are trying to make these investments back into the community. It
is “for profit”, that is for sure, but we are tying it to charities as well so
we can give back to the community. I think that is a little different than these
predatory “vulture funds” that go in and try to flip these houses and squeeze as
much as they can out of the communities. We are going to be giving back to the
city of Watts
(the scene of troubling social unrest in the mid-1960s).
They have bought up a bunch of land around the Watts Towers (a national
historical landmark consisting of 17 interconnected artistic structures made of steel, wire mesh and mortar) and they are making
it a city park. Well, we are going to contribute to that because we want to help
build Watts up. We want people to stay in
Watts.
Dave Fowkes is a longtime Stanford Cardinal fan. Born at Stanford hospital
and raised on the Peninsula, he has been a football season ticket holder since
1981. In that span he has only missed three home games, but of course never a
Big Game. Dave currently works in media both on the air and behind the scenes in
advertising sales. He has covered sports on and off since 1992. Currently he
works as a traffic, news and sports man on several Bay Area radio stations under
a few different on-air aliases. Dave blends the passion of being a fan with the
perspective of being a reporter in his stories. For more Stanford football
coverage by Dave Fowkes, you can read the "Stanford Football Examiner" at
www.stanfordfootballreport.com
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