Chad Hedrick knows he's a former Olympian and he's fine with that. You will not find the 34-year-old gold medalist going out of his way to relive his speed skating glory days. Hedrick long promised himself that he wouldn't fixate on the past.

"A lot of athletes enter the real world very anxious," Hedrick tells CultureMap. "They're very gun shy about life beyond sports and how they're going to compete in a new arena. I was very conscious of that and tried to look at it as a chance to find a new passion. To compete on a different stage.

"It's been a blessing for me."

Hedrick is competing now as an account manager at Houston-based Valerus. He's in the oil and gas industry now, which makes for one interesting LinkedIn page — Olympic athlete (seven years, three months), Oil & Gas Industry (five months). The Spring native's been pretty quiet in athletic retirement as well, except for a recent appearance on Houston Texans right tackle Eric Winston's new online sports TV network.

The speed skater first met the pro football player at a golf tournament and when Winston's team went looking for guests for the debut show of Not Your Ordinary Sports Show, Hedrick didn't hesitate to accept. Not Your Ordinary Sports Show is designed to be companion viewing to Monday Night Football with Winston and an eclectic mix of guests talking about the game and anything else that comes up. It's part Mystery Science Theater 3000, part Real Time with Bill Maher, part Best Damn Sports Show Period.

The second episode airs Monday night, starting at 7:30 p.m. (it will be shown live in the video module on the front page of CultureMap). The guests for this show (which airs at the same time as the New York Giants/St. Louis Rams game) are Mack Machowicz, the former Navy SEAL who hosts Deadliest Warrior on Spike TV; Texas Southern University athletic director Charles McClelland; and celebrity trial lawyer Mark Lanier.

"They actually approached me in the summer about being a guest, before anyone had any real idea what the show would be like," McClelland says. "I think it was based on what our football team did last year (winning the SWAC championship) and the publicity we received. And anytime you have an opportunity to get the message of what Texas Southern University has to offer out, we have to own that."

Having an athletic director on the same day that Oklahoma and Texas officials meet to discuss bolting the Big 12 for a new, supersized Pac-16 is fortuitous timing.

"At the end of the day, it's all about generating revenue for the university and the programs," McClelland says of the conference musical chairs. "Clearly, Texas A&M came to the realization that it felt, it could do better to start this latest round. I think the super conferences are inevitable now."

Anything Goes

Super conferences or super tangent? Based on last week's debut show, McClelland, Machowicz and Lanier should be ready for a wild night that touches on almost anything.

For Hedrick found himself telling PGA Tour veteran Steve Elkington that he wasn't in on all that crazy Olympic Village sex that Elkington heard went on at the games. ("I was there to win," Hedrick laughed.) And astronaut Scott Kelly found himself gingerly explaining how one goes to the bathroom in space where things float in the Zero Gravity ("Very carefully," Kelly deadpanned.)

Then, there was Winston getting into a discussion he had with the referee on where his head was positioned when he lined up during the Colts game.

That's the mix of Not Your Ordinary Sports Show. It's off-the-wall stories from guests that you don't normally get to see so unplugged (being on TV for three hours straight has a way of loosening everyone up) combined with inside football talk you will not get anywhere else.

For Hedrick, Winston's show provided a chance for him to sharpen his skills (he'd like to be an Olympic broadcaster). And, maybe just as important, a chance to hang with the guys. In Houston, the town he had to leave for a while to pursue his Olympic mission.

"I'm the guy crazy enough to be a Winter Olympian from Texas," Hedrick says.

Hedrick moved to Salt Lake City to train, only really settled back into Houston after the 2010 Winter Olympics were memories for his medal stand. "For myself, it meant that my social life had to be tranquil," Hedrick says. "I'd watch all my friends living a normal high school life, knowing I had to do something different."

Hedrick is married now with a daughter, who took her first steps in Vancouver. His job isn't to be an athlete anymore. But he's determined to make sure that background is a help rather than a mental block.

"Athletes at a high level have the ability to focus and the attitude of not settling for second place," Hedrick says. "That will take you very far in anything. As long as you're not thinking about what you used to do all the time."

For more on Not Your Ordinary Sports Show, you can go to website of Winston's new network dubbed THEBUS (it's pronounced Thee-bis). And remember, you can watch the show live on CultureMap Monday nights at 7:30 p.m. Read CultureMap's exclusive story on what drove Winston to start the network here.

​Watch a clip from last week's Not Your Ordinary Sports Show: