Collective Soul's Ed Roland on music, sports and Super Bowl pain

Georgia native Ed Roland, the long-time lead vocalist and songwriter for Collective Soul and the Sweat Tea Project, suffers with you.

Roland, our most recent guest on the, "We Never Played The Game" podcast , is a former high school baseball player, avid Atlanta sports fan and obsessed golfer. He recently played in the pro-am for the Waste Management Phoenix Open and wore his Falcons' Matt Ryan jersey because it was the week of the Super Bowl.

Roland did not attend the Super Bowl because he was traveling with the "Sweat Tea Project" but he rented a house and watched it on television with his bandmates and friends.

"We're all screaming, 'Run the clock!'" Roland said, referencing the final few minutes of the game.

"I lived through the whole Braves thing when Kirby Puckett broke your heart. But this one hurt more than anything. ... It exhausts you as a fan."

When asked about former offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, Roland said, "San Francisco, have fun."

WSB's Zach Klein and I spoke with Roland for 45 minutes in his music nirvana man cave -- the

basement of his Atlanta home, where he keeps a number of his 174 guitars (that's not a typo). It was a fun conversation about music and sports.

Roland will be singing the National Anthem before the NASCAR race at Atlanta Motor Speedway next week and also will be performing Masters week in Augusta.

I asked Roland about the crossover between the two, given a number of rock stars also are big sports fans.

"I remember sitting back (with baseball players) and they were like, ‘Man, I wish I could do what you did.' And I was like, ‘I wish I could be a baseball player,'" Roland said. "And then we’d go, 'Ah, we all wish we could be golfers.’ There is competition (in both). There's competition in everything we do as a band."

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