Late-Round Perspectives: Greg Brainos

JJ Zachariason (0:00)

Greg brainos is the founder and creator of the Coachspeak Index. He's an award-winning comedy screenwriter, he loves everything about gambling, he's got a crazy story about his upbringing, and he's definitely watched more Coach Press conferences than you have. These are his Late-Round perspectives.

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Greg Brainos (1:23)

You're looking great. You're looking very smart.

JJ Zachariason (1:26)

Yeah, thank you.

Greg Brainos (1:27)

Double smart now. We're double counting, like we often do with fantasy football.

JJ Zachariason (1:34)

With literally anything fantasy football. Yeah, it's been a change, man. I don't know if you have relatively bad eyesight or bad eyesight or if you have a prescription, but I put these glasses on. I got them yesterday. My eyesight's not bad enough where I have to necessarily wear them all the time, but I'm one of those people that when I see an enhancement or when I just feel so much better, like I changed my diet three, four years ago and I just felt so good that I just, I don't want to ever not do what I do now because I just feel so much better, right? And I feel that way while wearing these glasses, man. Like I feel like I can see through walls at this point. My eyes are just so much better. So I think I might just wear them often.

Greg Brainos (2:17)

This is someone who is going to win best ball mania. And in place 1 through 10 this year.

JJ Zachariason (2:24)

Yeah.

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves because I might have a little bit too much Zach Charbonne with all of the Kenneth Walker stuff going on. But we'll talk about that in a second. The thing that I really want to kick things off with is Coachspeak Index. It's been something that has really, really done. I mean, you've done an amazing job with it over the last year or so. And I know you sent that like montage video out. Was that the one-year anniversary? One-year anniversary, yeah. Yeah. So you sent that montage out. I was very honored to be part of that in some form whenever we had that big ship-chasing live stream. But it's still a relatively new thing to the fantasy football space, but you've done a great job growing it and getting it out there. Before we get into Coachspeak Index, what that's all about, I want you to just let the listeners know what you're about, who you are, where you come from, all that good stuff.

Greg Brainos (3:17)

Oh my God, it's much too long for just one show. I had a really crazy upbringing. I was raised in a cult in North Carolina and got out of that at 20 years old, starting to get out of it.

Yeah, and it's kind of, I mean, of course it's shaped who I am, right? And there are a lot of things that I would have liked to have enjoyed a normal childhood where I could have played sports. And I loved NBA and I wasn't allowed to watch NBA. I had to follow it in the newspaper because we weren't allowed to watch television. Yeah, so that just like made me want to watch it even more.

JJ Zachariason (4:11)

Yeah, exactly.

Greg Brainos (4:12)

Yeah. And then as an adult, I really got into NFL. And all these experiences just kind of shaped me. My father wasn't part of this cult, everyone else in my family wasn't like a commune thing. It was going to church like four or five times a week. And the pastor had to make all of the decisions for you. You had a life decision. You had to bring it to the pastor and just like very oppressive. None of the God is love stuff. Just God can come back at any moment. And, you know, you're going to hell if you don't do exactly every single thing that I say. Yeah, so if I was able to get out of that because my dad, the one thing that he put his foot down on, right? He let my mom control everything else, which I blamed her for a long time. I don't anymore. She was just doing what she thought was right. It wasn't malicious. But the one thing he put his foot down on was Greg is going to college. You know, that was something that the church didn't want because it opens you up to new experiences.