On this week’s podcast, Marcus sits down with Jim Nagy. Jim took over as executive director of the Senior Bowl in June 2018 after spending 18 years in the National Football League. Listen to this week’s episode to hear all about his time in the NFL! You can find this episode on , Spotify, or iTunes.   Jim: Jim Nagy, executive director of the Reese's Senior Bowl. Marcus: Well it's awesome to have you on the podcast, Jim, Jim: Appreciate it. Marcus: I'm looking forward to this. So I know we met at an event, what was it? Jim: A chamber thing. Marcus: A chamber event, yeah, the other day. I think Grant Zarzour introduced us and we had lunch and I'm enjoying getting to know you. I know you're kind of coming back to Mobile from a life of travel, so how are you adjusting to that? Jim: Well, I'm coming full-time back. My family's been down here 11 years, but the last 18 years I've been working in the NFL so it's really in town as much as I'm out of town. I tell people one of the big reasons I took this job at the Senior Bowl is I've been married 16 years, I've been in the NFL 18. I've been in the NFL the last 18, married 16, but if you go in my Marriott profile I've been in those hotels over nine of those years, so it's been in and out. So yeah, it's been an adjustment actually being home. I think it's more of an adjustment for my family than myself. Marcus: Having you around. Jim: The kids having dad show up every night, my wife having me home. So that's been ... Marcus: That's cool, man. Very cool. Jim: Yeah, it's been awesome. Marcus: One of the things that people enjoy about this podcast is getting to hear some of the backstory of who you are, where you're from, where'd you go to school, all of those kinds of things. Obviously you've mentioned that you're married, you have kids, so give us some of the backstory of Jim. Jim: I grew up in Northern Michigan. The podcasters can't see it but Michigan people usually use their hand to show where they're from because we're shaped like a mitt. So I can't do that but I grew up on the Lake Michigan coastline, so grew up on the water. So being down here in Mobile is kind of a homey feel for me, just being on the water again. I went to the University of Michigan out of high school. People always ask me, "did you play football at Michigan?" because of my experience in the NFL. And I didn't, my only opportunities out of high school were small schools, division two, division three offers. And at the time, pre-internet, I knew what I wanted to do with my life, from the time I was a little kid. People always ask, "well how'd you get in the NFL?" And I told them really the only leg up I had is that I knew from the time I was about seven years old that I wanted to scout in the NFL. Marcus: Really? Jim: Yeah. My dad was a football coach so I grew up around it. I never got bit by that coaching bug. The more team building part of it was always a lot more interesting to me. So I went to Michigan, I thought you would have to go to a big major football factory to get a step in the NFL, so that's what I did. I worked with the coaching staff my last couple years there, did some things in the athletic department, and then just sent out resumes and cover letters to all the NFL teams. So that was again, pre-internet, I didn't know how to do it. Just sending stuff out, and I got a bunch of rejection letters back and I only got one internship offer with the Green Bay Packers. So again, that was my first job out of college. Marcus: And I would imagine going to college there's not a major for recruiting? Jim: For scouting, yeah. No, not really. That's why you just need to immerse yourself in football and learn football. I got my degree in Sports Management and Communications, I took a bunch of business classes. A lot of kids ask me that wanna get into scouting what the most applicable classes are and what you do. To me, you need to know human anatomy and physiology, just how the body works. Because you're really breaking down athletes is what you're doing. So that, I took a lot of English classes, you gotta know how to write. You gotta know how to write reports, because you're writing for your general manager or your head coach because those are gonna be the ultimate decision makers so you gotta be able to paint a picture and have a pretty strong hold- Marcus: Grasp of the vocabulary? Jim: Yeah, you need to do that. And then the business side of it. Thank god I took some business classes because now I'm in a job that I actually get to use some of it. It would be great if there was a scouting major, but there's not. Marcus: Go back to high school. Would you paint a picture of yourself as a good student? What was that like? Were you a straight-A teacher's pet? Jim: No, not at all. Marcus: I'm asking the question knowing what the answer is just from knowing you a little bit. Jim: Yeah, and I did okay in school. I was wait listed at Michigan. Michigan's a pretty good academic school and it was my dream school but I was wait listed. I didn't think I was gonna get in so I was actually gonna go play college football, and then I got in late to Michigan. I ended up getting better grades in college than I did in high school. My son's in eighth grade, I think he studies more right now as an eighth grader than I ever did in high school. Shoot, my fifth grader probably studies more in her classes than I did in high school. Marcus: If they're listening to this, that doesn't matter. Do what your father says, not what he did. Jim: I didn't crack too many books in high school, but I really did in college. I busted my butt in college. Marcus: There was something for me that switched when I got to college, and I don't know what it was. If it was just that I felt that I was actually working towards something that really mattered, and not just checking boxes going through. Or if it was really that I was studying things that I wanted to be studying, versus having to take all of these general classes that I really didn't give a rat's ass about. Jim: Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think getting on a track where you're actually interested. And for me, not having the sports anymore, because that took up so much of my time. Then I had all this time on my hands, oh geez I can actually study a little bit. To me, and I try to impress this on kids when I talk to them, you really don't wanna mess those four years of college up. Because that really sets the course of the rest of your life. I've had friends that have gone to school and partied too much and flunked out and found themselves out ... you can't ever make up for those four years. It's hard, I mean you can, I'm sure there's instances, but those four years really kind of set your course. So if you buckle down and do well those four years, you can party the rest of your life. Marcus: Do you want your kids to go to college? Jim: Absolutely. Marcus: Absolutely. Jim: I want them to do what they wanna do, but yeah. I had a good experience, my wife had a good experience, she went to Alabama. Marcus: There's been a lot of discussion in the business community lately about just how college doesn't have the same emphasis that it did. At the same time I do see some value of learning how to work with teams, and continuing education, especially if you know what it is that you wanna do. My hope is that we will move away from a standpoint that college is a requirement. Jim: I agree. Marcus: And move towards something where, if there is something you wanna do that requires the education, then do it. But we need to stop looking down our nose at people who don't go to college. Because there are all kinds of things ... like I have an English degree, I don't know how much, I mean it does help because I do a lot of writing. But at the same time, it didn't teach me to run an ad agency. Jim: Right. I agree, the value of trades now. It's just the college debt thing is what blows me away. Why go to college and incur all this debt- Marcus: 100,000 dollars easy. Jim: And then you're digging out until you're 40. Whereas you could go to school, learn a trade, you can make a really nice living if you're a tradesman. It's sad that our country's kind of got away from that blue collar mindset. Again like you're saying, look down your nose at it. To me, my grandfather was a factory worker and he was the hardest working man. I learned a lot of my work ethic from him, and my dad passed that down from him. I feel like our country's just gone away from that. College isn't a necessity. College to me is more personal growth than actually in the classroom. It's getting away and one thing I will stress to me kids because I have traveled all over the country now for my job in scouting and being in the NFL, the benefit with that was I've seen all the different universities around the country. I've been on all the different campuses. And maybe kids today are different because of the internet, maybe their minds are more open and we'