My Story: From The NFL To An MBA

At the same time, my personal life was changing. My fiancé (Chris) and I had our first child in October 2007. It was an awesome blessing. Her name is Kayden and she keeps me super busy. I’m always running somewhere with her like gymnastics [and other sports]…We took a little break after I started to wind down my career and was figuring out what my next steps were. Then, we had Kendal in October 2012. (Chris and I are marrying next month).

[After the 2011 season],I took a year off for myself to mentally and physically recharge. In the back end of my career, I was teaching snowboarding at Vail in the offseason. So I decided to use that year to get all my certifications for snowboarding. I also used it to visit business schools, to see the campuses and talk to recruiters and students so I could figure out where I wanted to land. I visited 13 business schools that year, including Rice, Columbia, the University of Washington, and Booth.

Ultimately, I went to Rice [which offered me a scholarship]. When I accepted the Rice offer, I was actually in the middle of my final snowboarding exam…[The decision] was really about the people, the connection I had with staff, professors, and students there. Everyone was so willing to lend a hand, giving me all the information to make the best decision for me.

I also wanted to have an intimate class experience where I could actually get to know all the students versus going to one of these mega schools where there are 1,000 students and you only get to know a handful of them. I came from a private school that graduated 63 in our class. Northwestern had something like 8,000 students, including grad school. So I was comfortable with the smaller campuses, the intimate settings. Actually, Rice felt a lot like Northwestern from that standpoint, smaller school with a beautiful campus. I knew that I could accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish by going to Rice.

I also went to Rice to do marketing and finance. Rice is known as a finance school. But for me and some of the other marketers, we wanted to put Rice on the map for marketing and know we could actually create change.

[My experience at Rice] was crazy. I was 10 years removed from school – and I wasn’t doing anything from a corporate function in terms of finance and marketing or writing papers [during that time]. The first three months for me were brutal hell. I was a bit rusty…studying 12-13 hours a day just to catch up on the material and get back into those study habits. It’s also tough because you’re interviewing for internships and trying to network as you’re getting your school work done. There was a lot going on and it was like drinking from a fire hose actually.

The good thing is, they put us on teams. Everyone had different types of experiences and weaknesses so we could actually bond and help each other. Our team was phenomenal. We had a lawyer and two finance guys. They really helped me, from a finance standpoint, understand the numbers at a deeper level.

Moving into the second semester, I had a few internship offers and I was mainly focusing on networking to meet people as opposed to networking because I needed a job. In second term, it really slowed down for me in terms of grasping the material and doing the things that were expected of me. I made great friends that first year. You really get to know what people are made of and what you can overcome because we were all challenged in some capacity. People had given up their jobs to become full-time students and they were putting all their eggs in this basket. We had some tough times, but we were all able to help each other do it.

[Last summer], I interned at Johnson & Johnson, doing brand management for the baby team. It was interesting because I had limited corporate experience. The first year, I took more classes than needed to because I wanted to be exposed to the material that would be pertinent to the work I’d be doing with my internship – marketing finance, and strategy classes. I had great internship, made some good friends, and learned how corporate operates (and the level of work involved). I realized that I really enjoyed marketing – and a lot of my skills were transferrable. While I hadn’t done traditional work, a lot of the things I’d been applying – character, hard work, discipline – were soft skills that transferred over to the corporate world. In the end, I learned that I could do the work and my project came out really well.

Going into the second year, I went through the interview process again, trying to figure out where I wanted to be. I had a few offers. School was pretty much finance-based as I was finishing up my concentration in finance…I was in a groove. I knew how to study and where I needed to place my time. So I had a chance to hang out with my classmates more and enjoy being in school. In December, I realized that I had enough credits to graduate. It came down to me putting my head down and grinding. I wanted to be exposed to as much as possible. I finished school a semester early. My family and I went to Vail, where I got 107 days on the hill and taught snowboarding all winter.

In my family, I am the first to graduate from high school and the first to graduate from college. Now, I am the first to get my Master’s. It’s a huge accomplishment. I had 15 family members fly in from out-of-state. We had a great weekend. Seeing the tears coming off my family’s face, my mom’s face, and my kids cheering like crazy – It was just an overwhelming experience. It was important for me to have my children see me walk across the stage. Now, the foundation is set. The expectation is that they cannot come in without anything less than their Master’s. I also had a chance to catch up with classmates. At that point, I realized how much I was going to miss being in school – and the relationships I’d built and the people who were so phenomenal and influential.

Right now, I’m enjoying the summer. I don’t start at Infosys until August 31st. I’m coming in as a senior consultant on the change management side. Basically, I’ll have a team and work with the IT team. We’ll go in and build SAP services and technology to help companies run more efficiently by implementing certain technology capabilities. My job will be to get upper management onboard and put together training for the new technology to make the transition as seamless as possible for the company. I’m currently enrolled in six sigma to help with that.

Ten years from now, I would like to be either a CEO or a c-level-type executive, leading teams and helping a company grow. I have not let go of my childhood dream of a three piece suit and a corner office. That’s been my driving force this entire time. Over my career, I’ve developed leadership capabilities that companies covet. At Johnson & Johnson, for example, many interns would come to me for advice on their projects during the summer. I learned that developing talent was one of my biggest strengths. That, along with my ability implement the strategic vision, will really help me make a difference in the future.

DON’T MISS: 2015 BEST MBAs: KEVIN BENTLEY

BEST ADVICE GRADUATING MBAs HAVE FOR NEW B-SCHOOL APPLICANTS

2015 WORLD’S BEST-AND-BRIGHTEST MBAS

THE TOP MBAs NAME THEIR FAVORITE B-SCHOOL PROFESSORS

MBAs TO WATCH IN THE CLASS OF 2015