1) DD: Let's rank the Burkes/Birks: You. E! Entertainment Television's Brooke Burke. Delta Burke of TV fame. Longtime O-lineman Matt Birk. And Birkenstocks. Where do they rank?
MB: Oh, my good Lord. Brooke Burke is first. No explanation needed. The other Matt Birk spells his name wrong, so I got to drop him a little bit. I played against him in college, so he was a great player.Then Birkenstocks. I'll go fourth for me and Delta Burke fifth. I hope she doesn't come at me on that one.
2) DD: You're a humble guy because a lot of guys rank themselves first, no matter what.
MB: I probably should have gone three. Dead in the middle.
3) DD: You are a Dartmouth alum. Which of these Dartmouth alums is your favorite, and why? Robert Frost, the poet. Dr. Seuss. Mindy Kaling from "The Office". And Mister Rogers.
MB: Man, that's impossible. Come on. But I would have to go with Dr. Seuss right now. I have two young boys. My oldest, Finn, is into Dr. Seuss books right now. So I get plenty of "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" at night. But all are very distinguished alums right there.
4) DD: Pizza or cheeseburgers?
MB: Pizza.
5) DD: What's the perfect pizza?
MB: I'm all over the place with it. A meat and something else. I've been kind of a meatball and fresh tomatoes kick. My wife likes pepperoni and mushrooms, so we sometimes hit that. I'm also on the pro-Hawaiian pizza kick, too. So every now and then, I'll slip one out there.
*6) DD: Do your shoulders sag like mine whenever you see the only options are a Margherita pizza or a cheese pizza? *MB: Yeah. I like a little funk.
7) DD: How long have you had a beard?
MB: Shoot. I've had some form of facial hair since high school.
8) DD: Really?
MB: Yeah, back in the day, I thought it was cool. I could grow a decent beard. So I used to just have a goatee. Then for my senior picture, my mom didn't like it. So I shaved it off. Then I started growing it back right after that. The full beard has been in probably since like 2010 or so. I went to Russia on a trip and I just felt like it was a very Russian thing to do: grow a beard.Â
9) DD: Did you go to Russia in the winter or the summer?
MB: It was in the summer.
10) DD: How much did you know about Russia before you went?
MB: A decent amount. I'll never forget the border crossing. I was in Finland with a buddy and we took a train from Helsinki to Saint Petersburg. At the border crossing the Russian army or whatever, they board the train and they take your passport. You're sitting on the train and they leave a soldier with an AK-47 and a German Shepherd on the car for like 45 minutes. Then an hour later, they come back and they give you back your papers and you go on your way. So there were some unnerving moments there.
11) DD: Complete this sentence. My favorite thing about H-Town is __.
MB: It's such a big and diverse city that everything is available. You can get whatever you want here.
*12) DD: What's a country you have to go to next?
*MB: At the top of my list, it's probably a tie: I really want to go down to Patagonia. Argentina and Chile. Then I also really want to go scuba diving in the Galapagos.
