Q&A: Former Bruin Jeff Locke talks about Minnesota Vikings, athlete finances

It’s been well-documented that a pair of ex-Bruins – Anthony Barr and Eric Kendricks – have worked together to help anchor the Minnesota Vikings’ defense throughout the team’s playoff run. But the same can be said of Minnesota’s special teams unit, which features former UCLA roommates Jeff Locke and Kevin McDermott.

Locke, an economics major whose contributions to a scientific study and a popular documentary have helped advance the discussion about paying college athletes, has been the Vikings punter since being drafted in the fifth round of the 2013 draft.

McDermott did not join him until this offseason, when he was brought in to compete with veteran Cullen Loeffler after previous one-year stints with the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens.

Daily Bruin Sports spoke to both of them about the Vikings’ success, their careers and their thoughts on the state of the UCLA football program.

Daily Bruin: What’s the atmosphere like around the team, as you guys head towards the playoffs?
Jeff Locke: It’s been a lot different than my first two years here because I don’t think we had many wins so it’s just not as good an atmosphere. You know what I mean, you’re just kind of going through the season. But I think winning all those games really helps the team and it helps you go week to week.

DB: What’s it been like working with Kevin McDermott, who you roomed with in college?
JL: It’s been great, I think people kind of thought we were joking when that ended up happening this offseason, him getting a chance to compete for the job here. But it’s been awesome, he and I got along really well in college and we’ve stayed in touch ever since college, seen each other in the offseasons, and to have him here is just a really cool experience.

DB: Were you involved at all with him being brought into the Vikings?
JL: No, coach (Mike) Priefer, our special teams coach, talked to me about it and he just pretty much asked me about his character – if he was a good person – and I said yes.

Everything else, other than that, in terms of how good of a snapper he is and stuff like that, that’s all coach Priefer and the personnel guys, the GM’s decision. So they definitely didn’t want me involved in that process – it was just mainly if he was a good guy or not.

DB: Because you would have been biased in terms of bringing him in?
JL: Yeah, it just puts me in a weird spot and puts him in a weird spot if he’s in here competing with someone else. We want to make sure we judge them on how they snap and everything, not anything else.

DB: I saw you contributed to a study called “The Price of Poverty in Big-Time College Sport.” What types of things did you learn in that process and what are your thoughts on college players being paid?
JL: Pretty loaded question there.

DB: Fair.
JL: Yeah, that and also “Schooled” – (a) documentary I did when I was (at UCLA) – was a big component in helping out players to get more benefits and more rights.

I do think that in the big-time conferences that there is the money to help players get a little bit more, to obviously cover the cost of attendance and then even be able to send some money home to the families of some of these players that don’t have as much as others.

DB: I read that you spoke to the rest of the (UCLA) team about how to manage money. Can you talk a bit more about that?
JL: Yeah, that was an interesting process because one of the ways that we get paid is through paychecks every month that help us pay our rent and stuff.

But each of those paychecks comes in different amounts. Especially during the summers, you get a lot less money in the paycheck. So a lot of that talk I had with the players was just showing them how to budget how much they’re going to get each month.

It kind of turned into a “red light, yellow light, green light” presentation in terms of when you get the most amount of money, when you’re going to get the least amount of money and which months you need to be saving extra to get by in the lesser months. So I think it was kind of an eye-opening experience for some of our players to actually see the numbers and be able to budget for the future.

DB: How do you think it’s different having that message come from another fellow player, rather than maybe a financial adviser coming in and talking to the team?
JL: I think it’s huge because it removes the bias. You never know when you bring someone else in from the outside what their other motives might be.

But when I’m doing it, all I care about is my teammates getting the information that they can use. I’m just trying to look out for them and make sure they have the tools they need and the information they need to get by and do their thing. So I think it’s huge when it comes from a source within the group rather than outside the group.

DB: There was an article in The New York Times about (California quarterback) Jared Goff taking a class on finances for athletes. Is that something that you could see should maybe be mandated for football players?
JL: I think at the college level, yes. All these major-conference college teams should have mandatory financial education for their players – especially, some of these players have never gotten a paycheck before in their life.

And when I say paycheck, I mean the stipend they’re getting from the college – they need to understand what this money is to be used for. The Department of Education defines exactly how much of that check should go towards each specific line item expense in that month and those are adjusted for each school.

So you need to sit players down and tell them, ‘This is what the money is supposed to go towards,’ so players aren’t out there buying things they shouldn’t be buying with money that’s meant for other things.

DB: What’s been the most surprising thing about your time in the NFL so far?
JL: Most surprising … I think the hardest adjustment to the NFL has been the length of the season because we start training camp and stuff before college does and then we’ve got an additional five, six games – if you count preseason, we’re playing up to 20, 21 games in the year and each game’s very important. So I think it’s really just the length of time.

DB: At this point in the season – I hate to say ‘even for a punter,’ but even for a punter – is your body feeling it, feeling the effects of the full season?
JL: You start to feel it a little bit. I think definitely talking to my other teammates, their bodies are completely feeling it at this point. … But I think by the third season, you kind of get how to prepare each week and get your body right. I’m very fortunate to be a punter and not have to go through what the other guys go through in terms of how my body feels.

DB: What did you think of the UCLA football season?
JL: I thought we did a pretty good job. Obviously, a couple games where we’d want them back but I am Ka’imi Fairbairn’s biggest fan. I think I get more nervous for his kicks than he does. So it was pretty cool to watch him have all that success this year and then (win the Lou Groza Award). I think overall the team played pretty well, pretty excited to see (Josh) Rosen develop the next couple of years.

DB: You stay in touch with Ka’imi?
JL: Yeah, we text pretty much the day before every game, or the day of every game. Especially, him going into this next process in his life, trying out for the NFL, we’ve been talking and bouncing ideas off each other to get him ready for that.

DB: What advice have you given him?
JL: A lot of it’s just the things that I did wrong coming out but a lot of it’s how to deal with the agent process, how to deal with training, what events are coming up – Combine, the Senior Bowl, stuff like that. So a lot of it’s just that kind of thing, the small details.