By John Ingoldsby, Player Engagement Insider
FOXBOROUGH, MA – When someone asks New England Patriots safety Nate Ebner what he did this summer, his answer may be about the best ever.
He played in the Olympics and the NFL.
And that was just in the month of August, and in two separate sports to boot.
“It’s been a crazy summer for sure and was a cool experience, especially seeing the crowd while walking in the Opening Ceremonies for Team USA with Michael Phelps leading the way carrying the flag, which was pretty awesome and a night to remember for sure,” said the USA Rugby team member who returned right from Rio de Janeiro to Foxborough to rejoin the New England Patriots.
But that was just the latest in his 2016 globetrotting schedule, since he played rugby matches in such far-flung locations as Hong Kong and Singapore while qualifying to make the U.S. squad.
“I worked so hard and traveled all over the world the past five months, and now I’m here like it never happened, which is certainly an adjustment,” said the Ohio State product.
But before he got back from Brazil, he got a compressed crash course in the Olympics.
“We had two matches each day during week one of the Olympics, which totaled six in three days, and we didn’t get to stay and watch other events, so we left the day after and just like that it was over,” said the six-foot 220-pound bruiser, who also scored for the U.S. team, which he termed “pretty cool.”
“We went there and you have a job to do so you do your job, which means training, keeping your head down and focusing,” he stated while speaking in the locker room, echoing the Patriot Way he knows so well.
But the process actually began well before his world travels began.
“It was a long journey that started in March with us figuring out how my contact situation could work, and then I voiced my desire to try out for the Olympic team, since you don’t just walk out there when I needed to get back into rugby training first,” Ebner said.
“Then once we decided to move forward, as soon as I could I packed my stuff up, went on a four-stop tour just a few weeks after being out there, then returned for a six-week high performance training camp with 26 guys that was narrowed down to 12 for the Olympic team, and I was lucky enough to be one of them,” he said.
An achievement that did not go unnoticed back at One Patriot Place, as the organization rallied around their Olympian with some in the organization wearing his rugby jersey replica and also assembling as a team to watch one of his Olympic matches.
Next thing they and he knew, he was home.
“I first needed to get acclimated and back in the swing of things, but football feels very natural paying attention to so many small details as I get my game back one day at a time, one practice at a time, and one rep at a time,” said the affable Ebner, still in the afterglow of an all-time summer to remember.
John Ingoldsby is the President and Founder of IIR Sports, Inc. a sports media firm based in Boston. He has covered the NFL throughout his career that began as a newspaper reporter/editor, which includes articles in Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine (NFL Player Engagement), London-based Financial Times newspaper (NFL's international strategy), the Philadelphia Daily News (annual NFC Coaches Breakfast) and the Boston Globe (Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll).