A former NFL player found purpose in… woodworking? Millions of viewers follow

In some ways, John Malecki can thank a cheap coffee table for his 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube.

If he had a sturdier table, he might not have thought twice about his enthusiasm for HGTV’s home improvement show “Fixer Upper,” which he watched repeatedly as an offensive lineman in the NFL.

However, it turns out that Malecki’s table broke just before his final preseason with his hometown Pittsburgh Steelers in 2013. And being the ‘Fixer Upper’ fan that he was, building a new one sounded much better than just buying a replacement.

At the time, Malecki was on his fifth team in four years. An undrafted free agent out of Pitt, Football had always been his north star, guiding his every decision since elementary school.

Now in his mid-twenties, his North Star was dimming.

In between training camp practices, Malecki, with the help of a pair of Home Depot two-by-fours, built a homemade coffee table for his South Side Pittsburgh apartment. As he reflected on his appreciation for the work Chip and Joanna Gaines did on “Fixer Upper,” he thought, “I kind of want to build my own cool s….”

In the weeks that followed — and especially after his NFL career ended when he was fired in September of that year — he bought new woodworking tools. The beginning of what would become a large collection – and a whole new passion.

Today, Malecki’s 1.2 million YouTube subscribers tune into his woodworking channel to watch him build everything from cutting boards and side tables to a hidden whiskey cabinet and a door inspired by “The Lord of the Rings.”

Like others who immerse themselves in their work, Malecki did not consider himself as having many interests outside of football. When he started building his coffee table, he had no formal training and didn’t know what he was doing; he was just curious and allowed himself to follow it.

So what happens when we pay a little more attention to those mundane side issues and give ourselves the freedom to explore new areas of growth?

Passions can emerge from us at odd times, but usually when we feel an underlying need for change in our lives. For Malecki, this meant creating opportunities after football to experiment, fail and develop.

If you watch any of his videos now, you might notice a tattoo on Malecki’s arm. He got it after one of his college coaches preached the importance of perseverance.

It says: Keep chopping wood.

Two years earlier, Malecki was holed up in an extended-stay hotel on Christmas Day, alone except for a bottle of Jack Daniels and a moose puzzle. Malecki was on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers practice squad at the time and was already on his third team that season. The Bucs played the next day, and the bottle and puzzle filled his time away from home.

Back in Pennsylvania, Malecki’s family was preparing their annual lavish spread: roast filet paired with pasta made from scratch, his grandmother’s homemade gnocchi, his mother’s pumpkin pie.

His mother had sent him a care package that week, in an attempt to recreate the experience.

Still, he said, “I was extremely disappointed.”

And yet he also lived everything he had always wanted. When he was 10 years old and growing up in Murrysville, 30 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh, he had put a piece of paper in a time capsule with his dream written on it: “I’m going to the NFL.”

If that meant a Christmas alone in a hotel room, away from his family, then that was part of the deal.

“At that time I firmly believed that you have to suffer to get what you want in life,” he said.

After that season with the Bucs, he had two more stints with the Steelers, sandwiched around a shortstop in Washington. When Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin called him into his office in 2013, Malecki’s intuition told him this could be permanent.

“Appreciate your work, John,” Tomlin told him.

His football career was over.

The following spring, Malecki applied for a sales job at a metal byproducts company. He hadn’t played in the NFL in months, and what he wanted more than a sales job was another shot in the NFL.

But when the company owner said to him during the interview, “This is great, John, but you have no experience,” it was like a slap in the face.

“I was useless,” Malecki said. “I had no skills. … All my childhood hopes and dreams are crumbling. I was just sad. Just lost in multiple facets of life.

The one thing Malecki continued to do during that time of uncertainty was build new things out of wood.

John Malecki (No. 74) plays against Syracuse in college. (George Gojkovich/Getty Images)

One day, Malecki was hanging out with former teammate Baron Batch, who had just bought a new house. The lack of furniture in the house was distressing. No table or chairs, only sofas.

They sat in the new, empty garage and looked at the workbench in the corner, where all kinds of things were lying on it.

“What if we built things?” Malecki asked Batch.

The same excitement Malecki had before building his apartment’s coffee table crept in. Shortly afterwards, Batch’s home was furnished with homemade tables, cabinets and shelves.

Buying tools off Craigslist, more Home Depot two-by-fours and an old jointer his father had given him as a gift, Malecki began spending most of his time trying out new contraptions.

“I was just drinking and hanging out with my friends,” Malecki laughed. “We were very curious and I was trying to figure out the next thing in life.”

He started posting on Facebook and Instagram showing off what he and Batch were doing. He had no expectations of where this could lead. But the comments started pouring in:

I would like one.

Can you make that for me?

Batch and Malecki decided to open a studio together full-time, called Studio AM, where they combined Batch’s artistic visions with Malecki’s woodworking skills. As time went on and his followers on Instagram and Facebook grew, he decided that a YouTube presence might help, so he started posting a few videos.

“They’re so bad,” Malecki said. “Just terrible.”

Then in 2016, he posted a video of a cross-cut sled, a common woodworking tool. It was a simple YouTube post and he expected the usual mild response. Only it got a few hundred thousand views.

‘Holy s—’ he thought, ‘I don’t know how to take advantage of this, but this feels good.’

As he found his way, he kept telling himself the same mantra he used throughout his football career: “Just do the reps, John. You go to the gym, you hate it, just do the reps. You don’t like this exercise, you don’t like this exercise, the coach said do it, do it.”

Malecki allowed himself the freedom to explore an area he was curious about, gradually letting go of the idea that his only purpose in life was football. But he kept his sense of purpose, the things he believed in that translated across the fields.

“Effort and attitude,” Malecki said. “Those are two of the controllable things you have. I took that from football and applied it dramatically to the next phase of my life. You can’t lose if you don’t give up.”

In 2018, Malecki signed a one-year sponsorship with a company for $65,000, his big financial break. It was the first time he realized he could actually make a living doing woodworking. Now he’s almost making in one month what he did in his best year in the NFL.

“We were just amazed at how creative he was,” said Max Starks, a former Steelers teammate. “We knew he was creative, we knew he was funny, but to combine both of those things and do it so seamlessly and be genuine about it is something that’s kind of fascinating.”

Former teammate Ramon Foster first met Malecki as a Steeler, and it quickly became clear what kind of person he was.

“He came to work every day, he took a lot of crap, and he stayed and persevered,” Foster said.

So when Malecki started selling his creations, Foster wanted to be one of his first big sales. He now owns a custom cutting board from the University of Tennessee, along with a coffee table, corn cob boards and cutting boards made by Malecki.

In return, Foster only asks for one thing.

“I just want to get it out there,” Foster said. “If he ever goes to meet Chip and Joanna Gaines and he doesn’t invite me and my wife, we’re in real trouble!”

(Photo: Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)