Most of us only know Snoop Dogg as a platinum rap artist, but Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver John Ross is lucky enough to what it’s like to have the famous rapper as his youth football coach.

Ross played in Snoop Dogg’s All-Star league as a youngster in Long Beach, California, in the early 2000s. He recalled the experience in a sit-down interview with Jon Beason of CBS Sports.

“Snoop was really just like a mentor to all of us,” Ross said.

By Ross’ memory, Snoop’s wild success in the entertainment industry never stopped him from fully committing himself to coaching youth football.

“It was more of how well he coached us, how well he got along with everyone in the community and stuff like that,” Season recalled. “So that was big for us to know that he was so famous, but that didn’t matter to him. What mattered to him was coaching, really. He came to every practice. He was there coaching us like a coach should.”

Snoop Dogg coached Bengals wide receiver John Ross when he was growing up in Long Beach.

Ross and his childhood teammates had a unique relationship with Snoop and even attended sleepovers at his mansion, according to a Sports Illustrated story from last February. Snoop’s youth league helped foster a love for football among kids in the Long Beach community, and Ross rode it to the University of Washington.

Ross, a star since his earliest days on the football field, broke an NFL Combine record by running the 40-yard dash in 4.22 seconds last February. That led the Cincinnati Bengals to select him with the ninth-overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.

The Bengals are still waiting for Ross to make an impact, as injuries have sidelined him for much of his rookie campaign. He is still looking for his first reception of the season.

Despite the slow start to his NFL career, Ross hopes to be around the game of football for a long time. The 22-year-old wideout suggested in his conversation with Beason — which covered a wide range of topics — that he could follow in Snoop’s footsteps one day and venture into the world of coaching.

“I always want to be around football. I know that for sure,” Ross said. “I know this is not forever, so there’s always stuff to think about. But I feel like as I get older, there’s also other things

I can get interested in.”

A future in coaching is still far off in the distance for Ross, but the up-and-coming playmaker is already doing something else he learned from Snoop: giving back to his community.

Ross told Beason about what he did during Cincinnati’s bye week, when he returned to his high school and asked the principal about starting a community designed to benefit kids in the area.

“When I was growing up, we didn’t have that,” Ross said. “We were outside, kicking rocks around, picking up sticks and acting like we had baseball. We didn’t have a team that close from the side of Long Beach that I’m from. So, you know, start something there, give some of the guys I grew up with opportunities to get some experience coaching kidsand give the kids what they deserve. ‘Cause I feel like a lot of people don’t wanna do that.

“No matter who you are, how much money you got, what you can do, it doesn’t hurt to give back. So I want to continue giving back.”

In the case of John Ross, Snoop Dogg not only developed a talented football player — he helped groom a stand-up guy.