As part of the NFL’s ongoing effort to provide football student athletes with tools to succeed in life, the NFL Player Engagement group has trained over twenty former NFL players to faciliate interactive discussions on campus.
For the past few months, NFL Player Engagement has been reaching out to college athletic departments across the country to arrange for these NFL Ambassadors to visit, interact, and present to the nation’s premier football programs.
NFL Ambassadors delve into topics including the value of earning a degree, the importance of life skills for future employment, monitoring social media, and balancing academics with top-level athletics. The program’s approach and content is designed to encourage student-athletes to not only understand the tremendous resources and assets within a univiersity, but also to help set expectations for development and transition into the professional arena—whether that be football or another profession.
Feedback from the NFL College Outreach Program has been overwhelingly positive. Matt Stover, an NFL Ambassador who presented to the University of Maryland football team earlier this month, reflected on the content by stating “I think the presentation material is excellent and I wish I would have heard it when I was in college.” Matt McMillen, Head of Football Operations at the University of Oklahoma, observed Class of 2014 Hall of Famer Aeneas Wiliams present to the Sooners. McMillen believed that “Aeneas did a great job of reaching our players… he covered the things we try to touch on and hope will eventually sink in with every player… it always helps when the presenter is a future Hall of Famer”.
To date, the NFL has partnered with seven universities across the nation to coordinate NFL Ambassador visits. The appearances are as follows: The Univeristy of Florida (EVP of Football Operations Troy Vincent), Fresno State University (Tony Stewart), University of Maryland (Matt Stover), University of Oklahoma (Aeneas Williams), Penn State University (Dave Szott), University of Tennessee (Terry Cousin), and the University of Virginia (Patrick Kerney).