Lindsey and Steve Hauschka were seniors at Middlebury College when their paths first crossed. Lindsey was just back from a year abroad in Madrid and Buenos Aires. Steve was on his way to teach English in Nosara, Costa Rica. Lindsey was soon to be on her way to law school.  Steve was knee deep in his neuroscience textbooks.

Although their educational and career paths once diverged, you’re not likely to see this Super Bowl Champion kicker without his wife by his side these days.

Lindsey recently shared a bit of their star-crossed love story with me.

How did the two of you meet? Was it love at first sight?

The first time I saw Steve at school I thought he was really cute. The first time we talked, we discovered that he was going to Costa Rica between semesters to teach English – something I had done the year before.  We bonded over our love for travel and spent the rest of the year falling in love. I know it sounds incredibly cheesy, but I just had a feeling about him from the moment I saw him – he always says he felt the same – so, in a way, it was love at first sight.

As I got to know Steve more, I was drawn to his intelligence.  Not a lot of people know this, but he majored in neuroscience. He is incredibly creative and good at problem solving. I also love his thoughtfulness. Before I took the LSAT to prepare for law school, he made a little treasure hunt in my room. Our relationship was always easy and fun – something I needed then and that I appreciate even now.

After we graduated, he went to NC State for a post-graduate year to play football (at this point we had no idea he would play in the NFL!) and I went to New York to work at a law firm as a paralegal.  From there, he got signed to the Minnesota Vikings and I started law school at Boston College. He was traded to the Baltimore Ravens after his first training camp in Minnesota and spent about two years there. 

Steve proposed on Christmas Eve in 2009 at my parent’s house in Minnesota and we got married about three weeks after I graduated from law school in 2011.  After we were married, we moved in together. That was the first time since college that we lived in the same state.

Now, we live in Kirkland, Washington during the NFL season and we just bought a home in Southern California where we spend the offseason.  We have two dogs that we are obsessed with (it feels wrong to leave them out of our love story), Jack (a 6 year old high-maintenance pug Chihuahua mix) and Bee (a 1 1/2 year old perfect-angel mini Aussie Doodle). 

What types of charitable events are you involved with in Seattle? 

Steve and I love being involved in any charitable work we can. We are fortunate in this stage of our life that we have so much time to help others.  I am on the leadership board of the Seahawks Women’s Association and I co-chaired Football 101 for the past few years. Steve and I are also involved with Medical Teams International and are co-chairing their Field of Dreams Auction this June with two other couples. 

I also work with Mary’s Place to help them open a new shelter this winter as part of the No Child Sleeps Outside Campaign.  Steve is involved with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and loves meeting Make-a-Wish kids who come into the team’s facility. Steve and I have both been very lucky and have wonderful families and have never had to worry about many serious issues in life – we try not to take that for granted.  Helping others is a huge priority for us and is a great reminder that we should appreciate everything that we have been blessed with.

What types of things do you and other Seahawks wives do together in Seattle?

We have a great group of ladies with the Seahawks and I am so lucky to have made some amazing friends here.  We go to dinner when the guys are out of town or in training camp, watch the away games together, take fitness classes together, and go hiking.  We also have some more formal events that we do as a team that are fun such as serving at the local women’s shelter or at the local Ronald McDonald House. We recently did some holiday themed crafts with the kids and families there.

Our lives are all a little crazy and sometimes it’s hard for friends outside of football to understand everything that comes along with the NFL life, so it’s great having friends on the team who totally get it and can share advice, etc.  One thing you learn pretty quickly in the NFL is that it’s not all glamorous!  The only hard thing with having friends on the team is that we can all be in a different city at a moment’s notice.  Having friends leave the city we’re in is always hard, but it’s fun to have friends all over the league now.

Tell me about your decision to attend law school.

It seemed like a normal progression for me. Almost all of my friends from college are either lawyers or earned an MBA within a few years of graduation.  Also, my parents say I have always been good at arguing, so law school seemed like a good fit.

Most of the courses were very challenging and I was also juggling a long-distance relationship with Steve at the time – so adding that to the mix made it a bit stressful sometimes. I carted my huge books on the airplane to Baltimore and back with me on the weekends when Steve played for the Ravens. 

At the same time, I made some amazing friends and was able to get involved in some really cool stuff, like representing clients in Immigration Court as a student. There was such a shortage of qualified immigration attorneys that students could represent clients in court if the client agreed to it and they had a lawyer overseeing them.  I represented two young men who came to the US from Liberia as refugees when they were very young and had gotten into some minor trouble here as teenagers.  We won both of the cases and they were able to stay with their families in the US instead of being deported to a country they did not even remember.  That really made law school worth it for me even though I don’t currently practice law.

What type of law interests you?

I was really drawn to immigration law while I was in school.  The immigration system in our country is confusing and bureaucratic. I loved working on asylum and refugee cases and helping individuals and families stay in the US.  A lot of times people wind up in deportation proceedings and they don’t understand the charges being brought against them or that they even have an opportunity to fight the charges.  It takes a lot of time, effort and money to make a case and, in my view, it’s important for lawyers to help these people as much as they can on a pro bono or low-cost basis.

It can be a taboo topic to discuss life after football while still a part of the game. But, have the two of you thought at all about what might come next for you?

We have given it some thought, especially recently since some of our friends are ending their careers and transitioning to “normal” life now that we’re all approaching thirty. Depending on how long Steve plays, I think he would be interested in getting his MBA – he’s so smart and he definitely wants to work after football and do something in the business world.  He did a program through the NFL at Harvard Business School back when I was in law school and he really enjoyed it. 

We love Seattle and also have our home in Southern California where we live in the offseason, so I could see us splitting our time between both places.  But, like I said, a lot depends on how long he plays and where football takes us for the rest of his playing career.