Alright Gents-
I pulled questions from your comments and sent them off for Jake to answer. I can tell you this, from working with him during this interview process he has been nothing but first class.
We will be up live today at 5pm Eastern 2pm Pacific for a live Q&A with Jake. We will have our chat software up and running thanks to Charlie my badass right hand IT guy...This will allow you guys to log in with a username and ask questions directly in real time. I'll moderate so keep it fairly clean!
See below, some of the questions posted were redundant so I went with the original question (usually). Anyway, not a perfect system but here you go.....Brandon
1. From Dave
Jake, Do you believe your behavior on Top Shot was what was expected of a former officer in the U.S. military?
The bottom line is it was a total TV show....I did what I had to do to stay on the show. In combat, as a Navy SEAL officer behind enemy lines it would have been 1000x times worse. People fail to realize that the show is a GAME, not WAR. If you would have seen all the raw footage, you would have seen more of my leadership and teamwork skills in action. However, because it’s edited, they only include the footage that shows me as an aggressive Type A dude, because that’s what makes for good television.
2. Meeeee
As the first Navy Seal on top shot you represent every frogman out there. Navy Seals are known to be extremely team orientated why were you unable to build that relationship with your teammates? Did you feel overqualified?
The team functioned well....you have to see beyond the TEAM because it made no sense for me to take my whole team of winners to Green team. This is an individual show...the team part is purely for the sake of television. All of the elimination style shows are like that…Survivor, The Contender, etc. At the end of the day it’s every man for himself. Overqualified yes...but it does not have anything to do with the team work part.... Mike Hughes led right next to me but you never saw any of that.
3. Farmboy 7.62Why did you quit?
I left the show because it wasn’t the competition I expected it to be when I started. Period. Had nothing to do with my performance in the last challenge.
4. JamesviniQuestion @ Jake,
Looking back on your whole military career, is there anything significant that you would go back and change or do differently?
I would have hunted for a great minority Mentor in the SEAL teams enlisted or officer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. BuckarooMedic
My question would be; "Sir, why did you demean yourself by agreeing to be on a show such as this?"
I wouldn’t say that it was a demeaning experience...I thought it was a shooting show that would be fun...just not the case. I wanted to up my exposure for college coaching.
6. DGR
I guess if I had to ask this man a question, I’d like to know what would possess a person to ever want to be part of a show like this and be subject to pure stupidity and public humiliation?
Good question, because you do not get paid. If I had to do it again I would because of the exposure but I would have had a different take on it. Live and Learn.
7. Roger WildermuthMy question for Mr. Zweig would be based upon a statement he made in another interview (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/867730-untitled); “When the Commandant wanted to see it (his custom BLACK class ring) I told him I had lost it because as soon as I got it I sent it home to Washington because I knew there would be hell to pay for it, so no one ever saw until after I was out of the academy “.
Were you Lying to your commanding officer, while a midshipman (a violation of the Honor Code) in order to avoid the consequences of your actions then, or were you lying to the interviewer. In either case, why should we believe anything you are saying now?
Great question!!!! I can neither confirm nor deny the comments above.
