Chiefs Draft: For rookie OL Hunter Nourzad, football is his first love

Do you bear in mind the primary time you noticed her?

Perhaps you pulled off I-435 and took a proper on Stadium Drive. All of a sudden, she was there: the gorgeous crimson bowl with the enduring oval scoreboard.

Or possibly you have been driving down I-70 in your approach dwelling from work once you noticed her peeking out from behind Kauffman Stadium, with the dying mild of a protracted day glittering on her white exterior.

Do you keep in mind that feeling?

Photograph by Kara Durrette/Getty Photos

It’s one thing that the Kansas City Chiefs’ fifth-round draft choose — inside offensive lineman Hunter Nourzad — will always remember.

“It’s fairly surreal,” he stated of his arrival on the Truman Sports activities Complicated for the primary time. “I imply, you sort of attempt to put together your self as greatest as attainable in the course of the course of — however you actually do not know the place you’re going to go.

“However as soon as the bus rolled up the highway and we noticed the stadium and the ability, it was actually… it was actually breathtaking. It’s actually an unbelievable expertise that I really feel really blessed to have the ability to expertise.

“It was simply… unbelievable.”

Popping out of The Walker Faculty, a prestigious personal faculty in suburban Atlanta, Nourzad wasn’t extremely recruited. So when he began school at Cornell, he didn’t know what he would do along with his life.

“I didn’t actually have a plan,” he admitted to reporters earlier than the crew’s first rookie minicamp session on Saturday. “To go to high school, I assume — that was [the] massive factor. Go to high school, get an schooling — after which, like lots of people my age — simply see what I can pull off out in the actual world.”

However throughout his junior 12 months, issues began to alter. NFL scouts began exhibiting up at apply.

“Nobody [had] actually stated this was a risk for me,” he recalled. “However that was sort of the primary second once I thought, ‘You realize, if I put sufficient work into this, I could make it come true.’”

So after finishing his mechanical engineering diploma at Cornell, Nourzad went to Penn State with two objectives: to get a grasp’s diploma in enterprise administration — and get seen by taking part in for the Huge 10’s Nittany Lions throughout his last 12 months of eligibility. He achieved each objectives — however intentionally set no expectations about what may occur within the NFL Draft.

“I imply, there’s by no means actually certainty in any of this stuff,” he defined. “I attempted to keep away from the Web articles and all of the rating and stuff like that — simply because I didn’t assume it will be a constructive impact on me whether or not it was a very good rating or a low rating.

“And so I actually didn’t know. I figured that I’d be a Day 3 man — and so I sort of went into it simply with that mindset.”

Nonetheless, nothing is promised — even once you’re picked within the draft. Nourzad understands he has work to do. However he’s keen to do regardless of the crew wants him to do — and after the draft course of, he’s able to return to the routine.

“Soccer is the one factor I actually love,” he stated. “So having the ability to return to that? Being fully centered on studying my playbook, getting to fulfill my teammates, ? Getting out and doing drills — and getting higher?

“It’s actually relieving.”