By Troy Vincent
NFL Player Engagement
Many of you have been football players for most of your life, but now football is your profession and this career carries with it an expectation of professionalism.
“Establishing professionalism is incredibly crucial for these guys early on,” said former player Patrick Kerney. “They get the football side since they have played at a high level and have been productive, which is why they got drafted. What they now have to understand is that this is not showing up at the facility at three in the afternoon and leaving at six in the evening. This is a full-time job that requires you to carry yourself in a certain way at the facility and away from the facility. There are very high demands, high pressure, and a lot of expectation. With the way you are compensated, you are expected to be all in, all the time.”
How to make that total commitment is one of the many topics we teach at our annual Rookie Symposium in June, which is designed to mold players into professionals.
“The professionalism in the League would surprise many people who aren’t in it, and is driven by two factors,” said former player and Transition Coach Keith Elias. “It includes being accountable to your coaches and your teammates, and being responsible to show up on time and to work as hard as you can.”
Accountability and responsibility are time-tested traits, but are more important now than ever in this evolving world of social media.
“Given social media and its evolution, the kids have to understand that given your nature as a public figure, you are always under the eyeballs of the world now,” emphasized Kerney, an active participant in NFL Player Engagement programs. “Everything you tweet and put online is now there forever, and that is what’s building your brand and reputation. It is very much like pushing a boulder up a mountain. It’s very hard and very long to get up near the top, and as soon as you let go and put that one questionable Facebook post or that one tweet out, you let go of the boulder and it goes all the way back to the bottom. Then, you have to start pushing it all the way back to the top, and it’s long and it’s hard to restore your name.”
With your good name the key to building your brand, staying grounded is critical according to Kerney.
“It is incredibly important to stay attached to friends who are not football players,” the former defensive lineman noted. “By doing this, you understand how hard they work and how many nights a week they are sitting in their office to earn a fraction of what players will make as NFL rookies. That helps put perspective on what players should expect of themselves in terms of commitment.”