Brandon Magee isn’t claiming to be a fortune-teller. Nor is he claiming to be Babe Ruth. He’s just telling you what’s going to happen, where he’s going to be in five or 10 years and, if you don’t want to believe him, so be it.

“I not only speak things into existence, I legit call my shot,” Magee said. “Everything I do, I called my shot right in the very beginning.”

OK, so is he just another supreme optimist?

Well, yes, he’s an optimist. But he possesses uncanny commitment, the kind you probably wish you had right before you go skydiving. Magee would run out of the open plane and do a backflip. Brash decisions take little hesitation because he looks past the fear, to the spot where he’s standing on the ground ready to go up again.

It’s how he was able to just pack up on a whim and move out to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. But, we’ll get there in a second. First, we need to discuss Magee’s decorating taste, the bold art that probably would have been vetoed by a girlfriend or interior decorator.

Post-football, post-baseball, post-sports, Magee’s mind would wander. Maybe from the concussions. Maybe because after years and years of playing sports every day, he needed something else to focus on. Regardless, one day he wrote out his favorite cartoon characters. There were the obvious choices -- Bugs Bunny, Underdog, Mickey Mouse -- and then a hodgepodge of other faces that would make any 90’s kid giddy with nostalgia.

Magee sketched the potpourri of cartoon characters straight on the biggest white wall in the living room of his Southern California pad. One by one, he filled each in with paint.

“It was like a stress relief,” Magee said.

Magee’s artistic acumen resembles his entire life. How he balanced a simultaneous professional baseball and football career. How he did television stand-ups with no experience. How, post-retirement, he devoted himself to a career in acting.

People thought he would fail. They thought he was driving outside his lane. That he was crazy. And when he was merely drawing wild figures on his living room wall with a pencil, they figured he really lost his way.

Then the paint went on. The vision appeared in full color as it had in Magee’s head. Everyone else could step back, scan the masterpiece, and think to themselves in awe: “Who is this guy?”

“I work extremely hard,” Magee said. “If I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. Now you guys just have to wait and see it happen. Because I guarantee it’s going to happen.”

****

Brandon Magee is a rarity for so much, the least bit of which is athletics. There are plenty of great football players. Seemingly a million guys are drafted to play baseball. Heck, everyone has an uncle who appeared in some commercial. But there are few great talkers. Only a minuscule helping of the population can spew verbal harmony about any topic at any time.

Magee could go on for hours about dairy farming in Iowa if you so pleased. He would listen. He would insert quips. And he would be thoughtful. And you would hang up the phone and think: Either that guy really knows what he’s talking about or, boy, does he sure believe it.

During his days in Tempe, Magee was a media favorite. In every locker room at every college in America, there are a handful of great quotes who, inadvertently, become the pick of the litter for reporters to scrum around and seek a comment regarding any semblance of a story idea they have. If nothing else, a real, honest answer will follow.

But, somehow, Magee vaulted the premise of a media darling into his own Cinderella. And while he juggled sports and school, news outlets and journalists dangled glass slippers in front of his face as a glimpse into the next chapter, a rare opportunity for a trial run.

Imagine during your senior year of college, you were allowed to spend a day or two doing every possible career your major could even trust someone into. That’s what Magee had.

He was featured in articles by the Arizona Republic and ESPN. He co-hosted a four-hour afternoon radio show on the Phoenix ESPN 620 radio station during his senior year, an undertaking that forced him to verse himself on every Valley team and answer questions about his own team that most would deflect. And he went behind the camera as a reporter for KPNX 12 News, Phoenix’s NBC affiliate.

Chris Peterson, a sports producer and a multimedia journalist for 12 News, used to film different stories around ASU while using former Sun Devil punter Josh Hubner as the host to ask his teammates questions and joke with them. Whenever Huber was around Brandon Magee, Peterson had gold.

Magee enjoyed it, too.

He loved the aspect of the media. Speaking with them. Sharing opinions. Helping tell stories. In a post-retirement world, Magee figured he would go back to the root of his talent. He phoned Peterson in 2017 and merely asked for the opportunity to learn the business and maybe do a few broadcast spots.

A few weeks later, Peterson called Magee. There was an unusual fun run happening in Tempe, he told Magee. Half the people dressed in white shirts and red bandanas and ran down the street while a collective on rollerblades smacked them with bats. They were trying to recreate the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona and Magee was going to do a story on it.

For the three-minute package, Magee was energetic. He was funny. But he wasn’t close to polished, a combination of nerves and inexperience taking over.

Peterson told him there would be other opportunities but, in the meantime, he needed to study. Go watch other hosts on YouTube, Peterson said. Read the newspaper out loud every day to become a better speaker.

“Most of the guys I’ve told to do that would never do it. But Magee went home and he did it,” Peterson said. “From day one, that kid worked harder than anyone I’ve worked with and he loved it.

“After (our second piece), I didn’t even look back. I used him all the time. We did probably 10 or 15 stories together and he was better every time he did it.”

****

Brandon Magee isn’t a natural at a lot of things.

He can’t pick up a guitar and play it like Jimi Hendrix. He can’t jump in a pool and swim like Michael Phelps. But, give him a week. He’ll become addicted, borderline obsessive on being the greatest guitarist or swimmer on the planet. Now he won’t get there in a week. But, boy, if he only knew a few chords to begin, he’d have Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced” album down pat in seven days. If he could only swim freestyle on a Monday, he’d be able to swim his own individual medley by Sunday.

Every morning before her son could head out the door for school, Tia Magee would utter the same phrase for him to finish.

“You are,” she’d say.

“Special,” Brandon Magee replied.

And, so, eventually, Brandon Magee believed he was special. Nothing could heed his dreams. He was special and, thus, he was different. He could do things no one thought to even attempt. To him, no task was too daunting, nothing was out of the realm of possibility.

After all, special people do special things.

“I just feel like I can do anything,” Magee said. “And I can.”

One Monday during an Arizona spring day in 2012, Magee was driving when his phone rang. It was an unknown number but, for some reason, he answered.

“This is Bo.”

“Bo who?”

“Bo Jackson”

Magee may have swerved, he may have cut through seven lanes of traffic, but he pulled over. He had to. It was one of the only people who understood what he was about to embark on. That’s like if you suddenly became a household-name-level celebrity after taking the witness stand and Kato Kaelin called you to discuss how to handle everything.

“I’m very fortunate for those mentors,” Magee said of his 30-minute call with Jackson. “Like that’s Bo Jackson, he doesn’t have to talk to me. But he took time out of his day -- and I could legit send him a text and he would reply or call me back.”

Tia Magee had reached out to Jackson’s assistant and mentioned her son’s endeavor. That he was at Arizona State playing baseball and football and was good enough at both professionally. Other than Jackson and Deion Sanders, the list of others who have successfully pulled that off is beyond slim.

And there was a point when Magee nearly ruled it out.

****

Even if you were the biggest ASU baseball fan on the planet, there's a chance you almost solely remember Magee’s football career. His stellar 113-tackle, 6.5-sack senior season. The unstoppable tandem he and Vontaze Burfict made up at the linebacker position. The leader he became at the beginning of the Todd Graham era.

“Brandon was a dope person,” Cameron Marshall, Magee’s former teammate at ASU said. “He was always intense. He said what was on his mind. But he was a great athlete. He had a dry sense of humor but I enjoyed playing with him.”

It’s doubtful you can picture the three hits he collected in 27 games at Packard Stadium.

But baseball scouts didn't care that he stuck out as a pinch hitter in the ninth-inning of some game in February, ten hours removed from football practice and cold after three hours on the bench. They saw his skill during the Sun Devils’ practices.

“And they would come out to the scrimmage games, the ones the fans weren’t at, and I was hitting home runs,” Magee said.

Fast-forward to the night before the 2012 MLB Draft. The Boston Red Sox called this prospect from Tempe who hadn’t come close to cracking the Mendoza line and asked about a future in baseball.

“Would you sign if we allow you to play two sports?”

“Yeah, like two sports in college?” A befuddled Magee responded.

“No, two sports professionally.”

“Wait, what!? Yes. Yes!”

The next day, the Red Sox drafted Magee in the 23rd round and the two sides successfully negotiated a two-sport contract.

“It was going to have to be just football unless someone took a chance on me. But, eventually, if I was done with football, I would have gone to baseball,” Magee said. “In the 21st century, no one has (played two sports at the same time.)”

The terms were this: Magee didn’t have to report to Boston after his first NFL season. He could play baseball from spring training until, “in funny terms, usually until they kept blowing up my phone to come back and football,” which was usually late in the summer. Then, right after football season, he’d report back to minor-league camp.

Injuries didn’t help his cause, but Magee’s football career was largely uneventful. He was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Dallas Cowboys in 2013, bounced around to the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers while playing in 17 total games. And, on the diamond, he played Single-A and rookie ball for a year in the Red Sox organization but attended numerous spring training camps with Boston.

But, for a short time, he was a two-sport professional athlete. And, with that, there are stories aplenty.

“The first year after I played with the Browns, I tore my right pec,” Magee said. “So when I went to spring training, I couldn’t throw.”

“When I was playing with the Red Sox, I would have to do my football workouts with Boston, like on their outfield and then do the baseball workouts and then do the practice.”

“During the minor league season (in 2015), I was in Single-A and I had a call for an (NFL) workout. So I had a minor-league baseball game at night. I went 3-for-4 with two stolen bases and a home run. Woke up the next morning and had to drive (to a different state) and have a workout with an (NFL) team. The team wanted me to stop playing baseball and I said no.”

This wasn’t Tim Tebow or Michael Jordan just switching sports out of the blue. This wasn’t Jackson at peak stardom in MLB and the NFL. This was Magee, grinding it out in Cleveland and Lowell, Massachusetts, chasing a dream that was a logistical and contractual nightmare, that had little precedent and that, by doing both, made succeeding at one so much tougher.

So, of course, Magee relished the opportunity.

“It was a lot of fun. I was doing something at a level a lot of people can’t do. At the time, I was the only one in the world doing it,” Magee said. “I will never complain about how hard it was because it was that fun.”

****

Magee might be a rewards-member at 10 different movie theaters by now. When he was in the NFL, he used to go to the movies on every off day. If that's not a bit obsessive, he would go see a flick after every game. Home or away.

“After a game, say we play the Bears, I’d fly home and land at like 10 p.m. I’d either call a girl or call my mom to go to the movies that same night,” Magee said. “It would take my mind off of everything that just happened in the game and fully escape to what I saw on the screen.”

“I wanted to be that person that provides that happiness.”

During one of his movie-going trips in the Valley, while still working with Peterson, Magee went to the theater and saw a movie starring Dwayne Johnson.

Something clicked.

“I literally sat there and said, ‘F it. If Dwayne Johnson can do this. I’m going to do this,’” Magee said. “So I literally packed up and moved to Hollywood.”

Within the month, he was in Southern California.

Magee was still Magee. But his introductions were different. He wasn’t some football star. He wasn’t a Red Sox player. He was Brandon Magee, the aspiring actor. And in Hollywood, you can throw a rock and hit one of those.

So Magee went onto Yelp and looked up every acting class that looked “legit” and was producing credible actors and actresses. Then he began showing up to classes like he had a “Buy 19, get the 20th one free” coupon. He went to one acting school Tuesdays and Thursdays and another on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Each went for four hours.

People speak of athletes paying their dues, it’s the same in acting. Magee studied a craft he didn’t understand. He loved learning about a foreign challenge. Expressing emotion, crying on cue, learning lines, coming off as genuine -- none of that is easy. It took time.

“That stuff was hard,” Magee quipped. “(At the beginning), I wasn’t good and I didn’t care because I knew eventually I would be.”

But Magee had the backing of working with Peterson at 12 News. Magee was funny and quick-witted and, with a little backing of a TV vet, he went from a bunch of bricks to a real foundation.

“The first time it took him 35 tries to do a stand-up, which is normal. But by the third time, it was just a one-take thing because he was comfortable,” Peterson said. “Once he got comfortable and was confident he was asking the right questions because he did his homework, it was over.”

Once in Hollywood, Peterson helped from afar. Another 12 News producer, Jeff Snyder, knew someone in New York who was running the NFL Broadcast Bootcamp and told them Magee was a must-have. He ran through the television gauntlet for days and “he killed all week long,” Peterson said.

Magee’s showing led to numerous appearances on NFL Network’s morning show, “Good Morning Football” and further grew the brand that this former athlete is taking this whole acting and broadcast thing pretty seriously.

“It’s all in the mind. That’s where people get confused. If I say, ‘I’m going to be an actor,’ but it looks so far down the road, I don’t look down the road. I look at the simple things to get better every day. And I legit enjoy the journey along the way. And I attack it like a monster.”

He even turned down a leading role in ABC’s Bachelor spin-off, “The Proposal” because it “wasn’t the image that I wanted in my career,” Magee said. Smart move. As one critic wrote, “ABC’s new show The Proposal might be the worst thing I’ve ever willingly watched on TV.”

In the meantime, Magee has appeared in a movie -- a 2019 indie film, Man in a hoodie -- a failed pilot and a number of commercials. Asked what commercials, Magee said he can be best seen in a 2018 Pepsi commercial where he’s the one and only no. 48.

“Yeah, the last guy on the edge there,” Magee said with a chuckle.

Since then, Magee has vaulted himself from aspiring actor to one of the few who have become successful in Tempe. He hinted at a recent gig he landed -- and while opting to not divulge the specifics until it becomes official in Peterson’s words it’s, “gonna be huge.”

Added Magee: “What I’m doing right now is literally my calling in life. But I cannot even say what it is. Y’all are just going to have to wait and see.”

When that day comes, it’ll be another piece of evidence to not doubt Brandon Magee, to not question his foresight.

So maybe he wants to simultaneously play professional baseball and football. Sure, he wants to move out to Hollywood on a whim to become an actor. Yeah, why not paint Daffy Duck on the living room wall? It’s probably going to turn out better than anyone expected -- well anyone not named Brandon Magee.

Because, after all, Brandon Magee is special.

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