Category Archives: ITL

The Fine Line

20 Friday May 2016

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This time of year is tough because I spend a lot of time consoling agents and parents of players. It’s a pretty desperate time.

Most often, the question is, ‘why didn’t my client (or my son) get signed or drafted? He got so much attention from teams and we thought there was genuine interest. Now, nothing.’ Though I’ve been hearing this for about 10 years now, I don’t have an answer. The best I can do is shake my fist (figuratively) at the teams and their scouts and do my best to reassure them. It rarely works.

This week, however, I got to play scout. In a sense.

As I’ve discussed in this space before, I’m one of six partners in a search firm based here in Texas. We work pretty much exclusively with high schools (we’ve done one college), filling mainly head coach and athletic director vacancies. This week we conducted interviews for a highly successful and rather storied school district. We sat down to evaluate 13 men and women for an hour each over two days.

Sometimes when we conduct interviews it’s pretty simple to figure out who the best candidates are, but not this time. The way the schedule was set up, we thought the ones we’d like best would be the ones we’d meet on Wednesday, but it didn’t work out that way. In fact, at the end of Day 1, we felt like we already had five candidates we could take to the superintendent. I felt a little unsettled when we finished up on Tuesday. Who would we cut? I half-hoped the candidates on Wednesday would be busts, disappointments. I was so upset by things that I woke up at 3 a.m. that morning. I was reluctant to ‘root against’ anyone, but I also didn’t know what we’d do if all our candidates measured up Wednesday.

Naturally, the folks we brought in Wednesday were very good. Each was qualified and knowledgeable, with no surprises or disappointments. The ones we expected to like, we did like, only we liked others, too. As I drove home last night, for the first time in the six or seven years I’ve worked with Champions, I didn’t call the preferred candidates on the way home. I still had no idea who we’d choose.

It was during those four hours on the road that I called Jim Hess, one of my partners with Champions and a former NFL scout with the Cowboys. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s almost like we could throw darts at the wall. They’re all pretty good.”

It was at that point that I realized I was experiencing what scouts experience, just on a much smaller scale.

Once you get past maybe the fourth round, the difference between players gets a little tricky. Once you get past the seventh round, the difference is almost indistinguishable. Once you get past the undrafted free agent signees and start to look at who should be brought in for tryouts, it’s almost impossible.

We know that there is a difference between these players, of course. Every season, undrafted free agents make a significant impact on the game. But those players made it all the way through the draft with 32 teams’ scouts passing on them. Figuring out what separates the impact players from the others is something few, or no, teams can do consistently.

And that’s the dilemma. Though I get frustrated when my clients’ people get passed over by teams, I can’t say I don’t understand why it happens. But that’s little comfort, to them or to me.

How The Draft Works: My Take

15 Friday Apr 2016

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On Wednesday, I had lunch with an old friend. Actually, he’s more than an old friend; he’s a former business partner. In fact, if it weren’t for this friend, Troy, there’s no way I’d be in the football business. We started a small print draft publication, Lone Star Football, in the late 90s, and to show you how long-ago-and-far-away it was, we didn’t even have a website. Anyway, though it never took off, from its ashes sprung Inside the League. I wouldn’t have had the guts to start ITL if it weren’t for Lone Star Football, so for that, I’ll always tip my cap to Troy.

Anyway, we try to have lunch once a year at a Houston-area restaurant, and conversation always turns to the draft. In the course of Wednesday’s conversation, I told him that I had started ITL with the intention of learning exactly how and why teams drafted the way they do. Fourteen years later, I’m far from accomplishing that goal. However, there are three things I’ve learned. Or at least think I’ve learned. Here they are:

  • Most teams see the first four rounds as the time they have to take players they love and reasonably expect to start in their first year-and-a-half of play. These guys have to make the team and excel. The first four rounds are, for the most part, a very risk-averse time for most teams, so of the 120-150 players they rate as draftable, the first four picks will most certainly come from this group.
  • After the first four rounds, it’s lottery time. That’s when teams are mostly going to do one of two things. They’re either going to take a guy they thought was a sure Top-120 guy (even though they may wonder why he’s fallen so far) or they’re going to take a guy whose athleticism they’ve fallen in love with despite his lack of football experience, or acumen, or both. This is especially true of rounds 6 and 7. This tends to be where you see some real workout warriors picked. The last three picks are seen as expendable, for the most part. Why? Simple. It’s because no GM ever got fired because of the guy he picked, or didn’t pick, in the fifth round.
  • Teams are very, very, very sensitive to what other teams think. By now, you’ve probably seen the text Texans scout Rob Kisiel accidentally sent. Though it’s gotten way more play than it deserves – hasn’t everyone sent a misplaced text by now? – the substance of the text is similar to what most scouts send, i.e., brief, polite conversation followed by inquiries into who else has expressed interest. If you read Thursday’s post on our blog, you know several teams reached out to Texas Tech speed demon Jakeem Grant over the last month, wanting to know who else was reaching out to him. Before I got into this business, I thought all NFL teams intuitively knew the players inside and out, regardless of what others thought, and didn’t really care about other teams’ favorites. Having been doing this for almost two decades now, I know that isn’t the case.

 

A Taste of Tonight’s ITL Seminar

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

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This morning, I had breakfast with former Browns GM Ray Farmer, who’ll be speaking at our seventh annual ITL Seminar tonight. What I expected to be a 30-minute meeting turned into about two hours. It’s always fascinating to talk to someone who’s (a) been on the inside of the NFL and (b) is articulate, intelligent and insightful, as Ray is.

In the course of our conversation, we got to talking about how teams gauge character during the evaluation process. He said some things that I thought were very interesting, and that give you a good preview on the kind of things he’ll be talking about tonight (Room 144, Indiana Convention Center, and free for ITL clients).

Ray said that if you’re dealing with a player who’s a major character risk, there are two things you must do. No. 1, you must have someone who can be his confidante/manager. You have to find someone, either on the team or from his family or from his hometown or already on the team, who takes responsibility for him getting to meetings on time, or keeping him out of the headlines, or otherwise keeping his nose clean. The model for this is Randy Moss and his brother, Eric, whom the Vikings kept on the roster during Moss’ early days just to make sure he stayed on course.

No. 2, if you’re going to take a character risk, you have to do it with a player from another ‘strata’ of the team. In other words, if he’s a cornerback, you only take him if your other DBs are good citizens. If he’s a QB, you make sure your other passers are strait-laced. If he’s a rookie, make sure he’s the only rookie in that situation. If he’s from Ohio State, make sure your other Buckeyes are good guys. In other words, don’t take a chance on making waves that could rock the team.

He closed with this thought. If you’re an NFL team, you’ve got dozens of players on the team who are questionable, character-wise. Every single team is standing on the edge, blindfolded, hoping they don’t take a false step. One false move, and the could be headed into the abyss. It’s just the reality of the game. No team is safe.

Anyway, I thought this was good stuff, and a good indication of what to expect tonight. Are you in town? Interested in hearing info you won’t hear anywhere else? Come on down. But make sure you’re an ITL client first.

Thoughts Approaching A Symposium

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

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On Friday, I’ll be part of a panel at the Fowler School of Law Sports & Entertainment Symposium at Chapman University in Southern California. It’s a big deal, and if you’re in town, I hope you can make it out (and if you do, I hope you grab me and say hi). Here are a few thoughts as I approach this week’s event.

  • It’s a little intimidating to be sharing the dais with five agents from four major firms. I don’t mean to sound immodest when I say I study the player-agent recruiting game probably more closely than any non-agent in the business. However, I’ll admit that’s a little different from being in the room with a draft prospect plus his parents, or his girlfriend, or his ‘business manager,’ or his former coach, or anyone else who has influence over him. It’s also different from going toe to toe with an NFL GM.
  • I’m always a little out of sorts when it comes to addressing sport management students and/or law students with a sports interest. On one hand, I want to be insightful and genuine, and want to stimulate learning and interest in the business, but I also don’t want to get too focused on the finer points of the agent industry and lose them entirely. I also have a habit of, at times, focusing on the challenges rather than the rewards. If our credo at ITL is really going to be ‘succeeding in football,’ I have to give young people the ammo to do that, or at least not extinguish the flame before it’s even lit.
  • I’m kind of on the fence about how I curry favor with the NFL Network’s Rand Getlin, who’s moderating the event. I mean, we’re buddies, but he’s gotta be provocative to stir interest, right? How do I know he’s not going to ask me a question that I respond to with ‘um’ or ‘huh’ or ‘may I be excused?’ Maybe a bribe is in order. But how much? I know Rand is a car guy. Perhaps I dangle the keys to some fancy wheels. Maybe that’s too over the top.
  • With every trip I’m taking this year, I’ve set a goal of trying to solidify one relationship and create (at least) one relationship. I want to do this in very intentional ways. For example, I’m having dinner with a relatively new client, Tim Johnson of the accounting firm JLK Rosenberger. Ironically, I met him at the last event where I spoke, the 2015 Sports Financial Advisors Association’s Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., last November. Hopefully, this trip will be equally as productive.

If you’re in Southern California and you’re interested in the business, try to make it out for the symposium. I promise you won’t be sorry.

 

Here’s Why I Don’t Do All-Star ‘Stock Reports’

20 Wednesday Jan 2016

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This time of year, I do a lot of traveling to all-star games, and I try to make every practice. After all, that’s the beauty of all-star games. The workouts are the show, and they’re open to everyone, so why not go? But this creates a predicament. I’m often asked who looked good, and I have to say, ‘I don’t know.’ I know that sounds ridiculous, but there are several reasons for this.

 

No. 1, I guess I’m not really good at it. In the early days of ITL in the ‘00s, I used to take a hand-held cassette recorder, show up a half hour before practice, and studiously watch every play. Afterwards, I would retreat to my hotel room and spend hours transcribing the tape. At the end of the month, I would publish my winners and losers from the all-star slate. Almost always, they wouldn’t match up with the ‘winners’ (or losers) the national media types had picked out. You can argue about why that was – I distinctly remember in ’04 or ’05 when ESPN’s top draft guru published a glowing report on a player who had no-showed the week (it was promptly taken down; unfortunately this was pre-screen shot) – but the bottom line is that it was embarrassing when the players I had liked were nowhere to be found on the various websites. I recall one year when Louisville DT Amobi Okoye earned plaudits from various media sources for his Senior Bowl work, and it even vaulted him to the top 10 in the following draft. But I didn’t see it, which earned me some friendly jabs from his agent, a longtime friend. It’s odd, though, because I remember the performances of Oregon St. WO Chad Johnson (2001) and North Carolina DT Ryan Sims (2003), two players widely regarded as having had superb Senior Bowls that paid off on draft day. Those guys both killed it in Mobile, and I saw that with my own eyes. But apparently, other times, I’ve missed out.

 

No. 2, picking winners and losers is the best way to lose relationships. If you’re in any business for two decades, you make a lot of friends. In my case, most of my friends are also clients. So it behooves me to avoid providing a lot of controversial opinions, ones that I might add could be wrong. Criticizing an agent’s client is a lot like criticizing his kids, and it goes over just about as well. I can think of two contract advisors, right off the top of my head, that are not ITL clients because of things I said about their players on the site once upon a time.

 

No. 3, all-star workouts are where the league comes out to network and socialize. Just today, I’ve had two aspiring football professionals reach out to me about when I would be at practices this week and next. The whole week it’s been tough managing conversations with people and renewing acquaintances while also seeing friends coming my way to say hi, and trying to balance multiple conversations while simultaneously fielding texts and emails. It’s a very delicate thing. I want to give people my time and attention, and they deserve it. It’s just hard.

 

No. 4, it’s weird, but I’ve observed that often even scouts don’t watch the practices with their full, undivided attention. Many sit in the stands (you could always count on Texans GM Charley Casserly to be planted in the stands during his time in Houston, and I’ve noticed that normally his protégé, Jets GM Mike Maccagnan, does the same), but many roam the edges of the field with the agents, financial planners, marketing pros, parents, fans and other general hangers-on. I often wonder what their assignments are; are they there to watch specific players, or positions, or to just gather off-field information? No two teams do it the same way, so I can’t fault them for how they spend their time, but it just doesn’t seem like what’s happening on the field is as critical and urgent as some of the ‘stock reports’ make it seem. Hey, maybe I’m wrong.

 

Anyway, this is why you won’t get reports on who’s hot and who’s not though I’m at virtually every all-star game this time of year. I hope that doesn’t disappoint you.

Previewing An ITL Presentation

27 Tuesday Oct 2015

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Next week, I’ll be part of a conference for sports financial advisors and athletes in Scottsdale, Ariz. I’m giving a preview of what I’ll be addressing this weekend in my hometown outside Houston. Today, I’m going to organize my thoughts a bit in this space. I hope you don’t mind.

I’ll be talking about how to build or expand a practice with NFL clients. There are really three rules you have to go by, four if you count ‘you have to be a good financial advisor.’

Here’s an overview.

  • You have to be able to make contact: Lots of well-meaning financial professionals register with the NFLPA’s program, thinking it will give them secret passage to a thriving NFL practice. They find out that the NFLPA only wants to vet them (and not always that well), license them, and cash their checks. Another common misconception is that financial planners can knock on a few agents’ doors, shake their hands, impress them with how earnest and honest they are, and expect agents to hand over their clients’ phone numbers. That’s another misconception. Most times, agents don’t want any part of their clients’ financial hires. Too many bad things can happen.
  • You have to know when to make contact: Veteran financial professionals know that players want to save their offseason for non-football ventures. Most of them don’t want to deal with boring things they don’t understand, like investments and saving, on their own time. That’s why they tend to focus on these things during the season. Of course, that’s veterans. To get veterans, often it’s best to set the table before they become veterans. To do that, it’s best to go where draft prospects are, which is all-star games. Most years, there are five to six of them. This year, there are only three. It’s important to know when they are, where they are, and when, specifically, to go to these games.
  • You have to know what to say: I talk to a lot of financial advisors that want to get into the game, and when I ask them why, they start off with how much money they have under management. I get it – that’s important. Point is, most players will presume that you have lots of big clients and know exactly what you’re doing, money-wise. You’ll be hired based on your ability to connect with the player and his family. And by the way, a player’s family plays a much bigger role in his financial planner decision than in his agent decision (which he often makes on his own).

This is the 30-second version of the 60-minute presentation I’ll be giving this weekend. Want more? Interested in hearing the souped-up version, either this weekend or next week? Email me here.

 

WSW: When, Why and Where Do Teams Gamble in the Draft?

07 Wednesday Oct 2015

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Some years ago, I had a conversation with former 49ers scout Oscar Lofton that we filmed for ITL. It was pretty wide-ranging, and I had the time of my life as we discussed a number of topics related to scouting. Here’s an interesting story about Deion Sanders that Oscar shared that day.

One thing we talked about was a team’s philosophy toward the last rounds of the draft. My contention was that teams see them as throwaway picks, and I know the 49ers did specifically because, in 1996, they drafted identical twins Sean and Sam Manuel out of tiny New Mexico State as a sort of lighthearted public relations move.

Here are some excerpts from our conversation with my analysis and conclusions after each passage.

Lofton: “From late-fifth round all the way through the seventh, sometimes you have — because of a trade . . . or because of some kind of deal that’s happened, or some compensatory trades that have been made, or people that left your club — you get some of those picks, and you try to kind of stack up with some sixth-, seventh-round people.”

Analysis: I think this is interesting because even though Oscar left the Niners in the early ’00s, he’s admitting that even then, the team looked at any picks after the late fifth round as strictly a gamble, and therefore they rolled the dice on players that were boom-or-bust types. My observation is that teams are doubling down on this now, taking guys that fit all the metrics but that might not have the Football IQ they need. I think a great example of this is the Saints, a team that hit big on some boom-or-bust types (TE Jimmy Graham) as well as late-rounders (WO Marques Colston) and undrafted free agents (DE Junior Galette), then got lulled into a pattern of gambling earlier in the draft, which came home to roost in 2014 with several picks (second-rounder Stanley Jean-Baptiste and fourth-rounder Khairi Fortt) that, one year later, are no longer on the team.

Lofton: “Generally like from the fifth round on, sometimes . . . you take some phenom, you know, some guy that can jump out of the gym and everything, but he’s a football player, not just somebody that can run fast, but can catch, or can cover, or whatever you need him to do, but some kind of athlete sticks out at that level. What does he bring that makes us a better team? Well, he brings speed as a receiver, or he brings deep coverage ability as a defensive back, or he brings the ability to pass rush off of stunts, you know, as a secondary member or something, or a great special teams presence, or . . . the ability to return a punt, or to run after catch.”

Analysis: Maybe this is the key. Though scouts I talk to agree that good teams take the best athlete available early in the draft, maybe the best strategy late in the draft is to draft for need. Take an athletic ex-basketball player if you have a need at tight end or defensive end, or an ex-wrestler if you need a good interior lineman, or a track guy if your secondary is too slow.

Lofton: “You say, ‘those aren’t that important to the team,’ but you look at how many of the seventh-round people and the free agent people that have made (the Niners), and made us better, and they become crucial to you. Usually the ones that flop big are the first rounds, the . . . early picks, you know? Because you put so much into them, and then because you’ve got so much into them, you have to hang with them for so long. So while you’re hanging with them you’ve got to have somebody playing. So some of those seventh-round picks and free agents are doing the playing, and they’re getting all the money until you can figure out a way to unload (the struggling first-rounders), or until they develop.”

Analysis: Oscar’s take here is what makes me scratch my head. It seems counter-intuitive to gamble with the last three picks of the draft when there are so many players out there that excel despite being late picks or not drafted at all. More and more, teams are taking players who come from the lower levels of college football, or who played other sports primarily or otherwise excelled in workouts despite meager on-field credentials. There’s a fine line between taking a player with upside and taking a player who’s got as much chance of winning the lottery as he does of making the team.

WSW: Why Character Matters

29 Wednesday Jul 2015

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The last seven days have been very eventful for a now-former Saints player, Junior Galette. The DE/OLB was released by New Orleans two days ago in the wake of a series of events (some reported, some not so much) that were too much to bear for head coach Sean Payton.

It’s easy to look at the Saints as victims here. After all, they had signed Galette to a hefty contract about a year ago on the heels of a big 2014 season (his ‘arrival’ was even saluted with a locker full of basketballs, courtesy of his teammates). They believed in him. They gave him his shot as an undrafted free agent, patiently coached him up and watched him flourish, then rewarded him.

The truth is that they took a calculated risk, and it’s one of the reasons they self-destructed last season. The Saints moved a lot of very talented players since last season, and the only explanation could be that they made the locker room a dysfunctional place. Galette has to have been part of that problem, but it’s not like Payton and Co. shouldn’t have expected this. His domestic violence incident just added fuel to the fire.

Galette got run out of Temple for a number of reasons, but there were whispers that one of them was that he punched a fan on the way off the field. Of course, everyone makes mistakes, but the point is that Galette didn’t seem to learn from them.

Leading up to the 2010 NFL draft, I heard stories about his behavior. Mind you, the one time you have to stay clean and sober-minded is during the 4-5 months before the draft, when every eye is on you. He couldn’t pull it off. I’m told he required daily 24-hour supervision during his pre-combine training, almost as if he were a toddler. In fact, one day when he was left unsupervised that winter, the hotel staff had to call his advisors, alarmed because he had disappeared, leaving his room strewn with drug paraphernalia.

Before his release, the Saints were a team with an unhealthy cap situation. Because they had to cut Galette so early in his deal, the team is in serious peril. Here’s how J.I. Halsell of NFLContractMetrics.com described what the team faces.

“When the Saints extended Galette’s contract in 2014, they guaranteed the 2015 12.5M roster bonus, meaning there was no way for them to get out of the 12.5M obligation. The only thing they could do to soften the cap blow was to convert it to a signing bonus in March of this year (which they did). From a cash payment standpoint, their hands were tied. The takeaway is that things obviously drastically changed from September 2014 to now. In Sept 2014, they felt comfortable committing to Galette through at least the 2015 season, but as we head towards the 2015 season, he’s now no longer a part of the team.”

At our 2015 ITL Seminar at the combine, former Bears GM Phil Emery said that every scout who wants to disallow a potential draft pick must ask himself the question, would you rather play with him or against him? That may be true, but there’s a major risk associated with adding players that have so thoroughly shown that they are a character risk.

 

NFLPA Exam Reaction

27 Monday Jul 2015

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I spent most of Friday afternoon and Saturday gathering feedback from several ITL clients who took the NFLPA certification exam last week in Washington, D.C. Here are several of the reactions I got to the test, provided with minimal editing:

  • I thought I did great. I just could see the tricks in the questions . . . and understood how to answer.
  • The test questions . . . were totally different and brutal. Some of the wording on the questions on the test was ridiculous.  In fact question 60 about a player leaving the squad, I don’t believe the answer was even one of the 4 on the test.
  • No clue how it went. Had to rush on 3 to 5. And was stumped on a couple. Probably gave up a few easy ones due to time. But I’m talking with (a fellow test-taker), and seems like I did well on the tricky language ones. First hour was really good. Hour 2 was where I fell behind, but mostly the hour-and-a-half to 2 hour slot is where I fell (behind) a little. Then hour 3 was pretty good on being able to get to the end and answer the rest. Ones where I screwed up is where I left a few blank, then guessed, then a couple where I left it at one or the other. I feel like I really screwed up on giving some questions away. There really only was a few where I wasn’t sure. The rest that I missed was just time.  I guess no one was walking out of there confident. Eight weeks is just too long. One minute I do feel fine, ‘cause I remember it can be around 18 questions you can get wrong, and I felt good about the ones I actually spent the time to answer. Thanks though, definitely helped to have guidance from (the ITL practice exam).
  • It was really hard but I think I did fine. It was difficult, not gonna lie. But I was prepared.
  • It was tough. I think I passed but wish I was more confident. . . I didn’t study much. Hope that doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass. . . also some questions were poorly worded, in my opinion. Two of them in particular that I can argue back and forth between two answers. I’m sure I did fine, given the (70-75 percent) pass rate.
  • Thought it wasn’t bad. Didn’t know a few questions though, probably 4-5.
  • I think it went well. Then again, it’s hard to know. The exam was long so not much time to waste on questions. Since it’s a scaled passing grade, hard to know how it went. Happy it’s over, though. The (ITL practice exam) was helpful. I think the best thing would be more questions to practice managing the time. I finished the 60 questions with 20 minutes left in the exam, so I had time to review my answers a bit. Not all, but two-thirds, I would say.
  • It was challenging. You definitely had to pay close attention to the wording to find out exactly what the question was asking, especially since some questions had full sentences that weren’t needed in finding the answer. Would love to know how everyone scored. So many different opinions (on how the test went for everyone). The practice exam was definitely helpful. Saw similar questions on the exam. Not all the exact final questions but the concepts and thought process to the answer was the same. I feel pretty confident overall.
  • Tricky, but I think I did well. Looking around the room, I’d expect (a variety of opinions on the test). Wide range of personalities.
  • I feel OK about it but it wasn’t easy. Finished with 12 minutes left to spare. Hopefully the curve is low.
  • Test was challenging. Thought I did pretty well though. Had answers that made sense on all questions. I either aced it or bombed without knowing. I’d say 80-90 % of people stayed the whole three hours. Heard more than a couple say they ran out of time and had to guess on the last 5-10 questions. It was about what I expected. They still gave clear indication on some questions that would be asked in the lectures. But not all.
  • It was (hard), but (the ITL) practice test helped a lot. I’d say a solid 10 of your questions in different fact patterns were on there.
  • Extremely (hard). Lots of questions on what advisors would do in certain situations. I was blown away.
  • Harder than the practice test for sure, but I (felt) pretty good walking out. . . . Hopefully the results come back like that but I feel like they went over just about everything so as long as you were diligent in the seminar almost everything was covered. There might have been three that they didn’t cover to see if you could find it yourself, but no more than that.
  • The exam went well. Some tricky questions but I felt prepared because of the (ITL practice) exam questions. It was tricky, but there were parts where I just breezed.
  • Test was challenging but fair. Your practice test is very helpful and puts one in the right state of mind.
  • Test was way harder than I anticipated. They did a terrible job of going over benefits this morning – had a really young guy who went really fast. There was a workman’s comp question that really stumped me. They went so fast this morning that we were able to start the test an hour and a half earlier than planned.
  • Bro, I killed that test. Thanks for everything, man.
  • It was pretty easy (I say that knowing I could fail). Was done with about 45 minutes (left) and spent the next 30 rechecking answers. Either way, thanks for all the help.

How J.I. Got His Start

21 Tuesday Jul 2015

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Before we go further with J.I. Halsell’s place in the football business and his new website, NFL Contract Metrics, I wanted to let him tell the story of how he got his foot in the football door. I’ll let him tell it, then have a few comments to follow:

“When I was in my first semester at Seton Hall (where I was pursuing my MBA), I worked in the sports information office, and the assistant SID there, his good friend from his time as an undergrad worked with the NFL’s Management Council. I’m a stats guy, so working in sports information was great because I worked with the basketball team the entire semester.

“So the assistant SID noticed my work ethic, and his buddy (with the Management Council) was looking for an intern. I reached out on a Friday, interviewed on Monday, and got the offer to intern on Tuesday. I turned a three-month internship over the summer into two years with the league.

“It was a paid internship, but it’s New York City, which is super-expensive. But it was a paid internship. Harold Henderson was head of the Management Council at the time, and it was important to him that the interns on the Management Council and the legal clerks on the labor law side, the internships were paid. It didn’t pay a lot, but it was better than nothing.

“I lived in North Jersey, right across from Manhattan, me and one of the other interns. We all kind of lived in a house, and I paid a ton of money to live in a room that ‘s about the size of a walk-in closet, but it was great. My son’s godfather, I met him there, and it was a good time in my life. You’re in your mid-20s, you’re in New York City, you’re working in sports, and it was a fun time in life and transformational in the information I was acquiring.”

Here are a few thoughts on J.I.’s climb:

  • J.I. was working on his post-graduate degree, but still willing to work for free on a job that had long hours and not a lot of glory. Not everyone is willing to do that.
  • What’s more, he was working in basketball, but he was still able to parlay it into football. Get your foot in the door with one sport, and sometimes it takes you into another one.
  • Seton Hall isn’t exactly known as a football factory, but because he put himself in position to succeed, he happened to find a guy who knew another guy. He made his own breaks.
  • J.I. probably wondered how he’d make his situation work, given the low pay and the fact that he most likely already had a life plan mapped out. But he took a risk and it paid off big.
  • There were probably friends J.I. had from high school, and even from college, who were already out in the world, starting to make real money when he was working for peanuts at the Management Council with no guarantees and no promises. But because he went for it, it paid off. It’s hard not to root for a person like that.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about his experiences with the ‘Skins for WSW.