By Lisa Zimmerman, Player Engagement Insider
Wes Schweitzer’s road to the NFL was an unexpected one. The Atlanta Falcons rookie offensive lineman, was by his own admission not a standout performer when he first started playing football in high school.
Then he changed schools in his hometown of Scottsdale, Arizona, which set him on a different path. The 6’ 5” Schweitzer, who was also a wrestler, combined a growth spurt with some seriously increased food intake and went from 189 to 270 pounds in the space of the year. However, even then, although he was now the starting right tackle, Schweitzer’s future plans didn’t include the NFL.
“I was going to enlist in the Marines because I wanted to serve my country,” he recalled.” Then I got my first (college) offer and that changed my life. I chose San Jose State (SJSU) because originally I wanted to go to med school and I chose to major there in bio chemistry.”
Schweitzer excelled both on and off the field at SJSU. He was elected team captain, earned second-team All-Mountain West honors and won four academic all-conference honors.
Then things changed again. Working in an atmospheric chemistry lab, Schweitzer became captivated by that area of science and shifted his goal to earning a PhD in chemistry so he could go into research and teaching.
But, that too was put on hold when Schweitzer began to receive attention from NFL scouts. Seeing a new opportunity, he put everything he had into it.
“I trained as hard as I could,” he said. “A lot of teams came [to San Jose State]. I impressed them and got a lot of interest after that and started taking visits with different teams.”
His training was made all the more complicated by the fact that it was in the spring, when he took his most challenging course load. Having taken AP classes in high school, Schweitzer came into college with a year’s worth of credits already under his belt, which might have allowed him to graduate in three years.
However, he wanted to give everything its appropriate attention and arranged his schedule so he had a very light load in the fall during football season, and then his heavier loads in the spring. Ultimately, after red-shirting during his freshman year, Schweitzer spread his college career out over five years, graduating in 2016.
Although he still plans for a future career in science at whatever point his NFL days are over for now as Schweitzer heads into his first NFL season, a career he never envisioned but couldn’t be more excited about, he is putting 100% of his focus into his football career, and for the first time is able to concentrate on just one thing at a time.
“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” he said. “You just don’t know until you get here. It’s a whole other level of detail and learning from college. But this is exactly what I want to do.”
Lisa Zimmerman is a long-time NFL writer and reporter. She was the Jets correspondent for CBSSports.com, SportsNet New York’s TheJetsBlog.com and Sirius NFL Radio. She has also written for NFL.com.