Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Delaire.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
So I played in the NFL for a total of 4 years. I started with the Carolina Panthers, then the Indianapolis Colts, and finished with the San Francisco 49ers. My career started in college at the University of Massachusetts where I was told that I had the potential to make it to the next level as far as playing professionally. But at the same time, I never relied on NFL because I valued my education. I just felt that things are going to fall into place as they may so at the end of the day I’m going to work my hardest to be the best on the field and in the classroom. Every practice I treated as a game and after every practice I would take at least thirty minutes to work on any mistakes I made during practice to perfect my craft.
Soon enough my talent spoke on game day I started to outplay my peers. My game play gained the attention of a separate schooled in a different division called Towson University, I took the opportunity to transfer to transfer to Towson pursue a starting role in the rotation. While there I never changed my mindset of treating every practice like a game so as a result games were easy. Within my first years at Towson I received All-Conference honors and All-American Honors. My last year I also received All-Conference and then graduated with my degree in healthcare management. One goal I wanted to pursue was getting my degree before going to the NFL just to have a backup plan if the league didn’t work out for me. After getting my degree I began training for the NFL combine and performed pretty well among my peers. In a way where I got the opportunity to start my career with the Carolina Panthers.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The struggles along the way were rough. Upon going to the NFL combine I was dealing with a groin injury so I couldn’t train with the intensity that I wanted. At the combine, I did pretty well but It wasn’t until my pro day at my college was when I did my best. My agent and I believed that I would be drafted to a team but I actually wasn’t. I was signed as an undrafted free agent first to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and started my career there only in preseason then was released then picked back up with the Carolina Panthers. I then began to learn from an abundance of great players and coaches to jump-start my career
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
My future plans after football is to build a real estate business. I see that there’s a lot of opportunity in the Houston area as far as real estate and I would love to be a part of it. I bought my first of many rental properties March 2019 and I can’t wait to get my next.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: pretty_flacko56
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