EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW! DUCK DYNASTY KINGPIN: I BLEW OFF THE NFL TO GO FOWL!

NationalEnquirer.com
Shaggy laddie PHIL ROBERTSON on DUCK DYNASTY tain’t no hillbilly hairy – he’s filthy rich and turned down the NFL to hunt  duck!

DON’T let those shaggy beards fool you! The stars of A&E’s hit new reality series “Duck Dynasty” are a far cry from the country bumpkins they appear to be!

In fact, not only does fam­ily patriarch Phil Robertson have a master’s degree in engineering, he played first-string quarterback ahead of football legend Terry Bradshaw at Louisiana Tech University in the 1960s!

WHILE Bradshaw went on to fame and fortune as the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Phil turned down his chance to play in the pros because it interfered with his duck hunting!

In an exclusive ENQUIRER inter­view, Phil said: “After we gradu­ated, Terry went after the bucks, and I went after the ducks!

“Everybody told me to try out for the NFL because I was better than Terry.

“But, I was thinking, do I want a bunch of violent guys running after me and repeat­edly slamming me to the ground? NO!”

Phil, 66, started whittling duck calls by hand out of ce­dar trees in his native Monroe, La., in 1972. He incorporated his business, Duck Com­mander, in 1973, and in his first year says he sold a paltry $8,000 worth of prod­uct.

But Phil knew he was on to something big, and just six years later, he reached $64,000 in sales. At the time, the median household income was just over $15,000.

Today, Duck Com­mander has sales in the millions, with contracts in outdoor stores across the United States. And being featured on a reality show sure hasn’t hurt its bot­tom line!

AFTER BEING FEATURED on the Outdoor Channel, the eccen­tric family was approached by A&E to star in their own series – and it’s turned out to be a win-win for both the Robert­sons and the network.