Dr. Shawn Eagle

I had gone to a big high school in a very small college, and I wanted to feel what it felt like to be a student at a big program with big-time sports, and Texas Tech was the best option of those.

That's how I ended up in Lubbock.

Yeah, sometimes things just kind of line up in an interesting way, and hopefully we'll get to this, but you've had an influence on my life, whether you knew it or not.

And let me go back first.

So we were the third biggest high school in terms of student population in Western Pennsylvania.

Western Pennsylvania is a big time for high school football, sports in general, but definitely football overall.

area.

Um, you know, I'm not sure it quite lives up to Texas, uh, high school football, but some, some of the all time football grades have come out of Western Pennsylvania and, you know, football was a big deal and it felt like a really big deal to us.

And, you know, thousands of people would come watch us play our games.

And, uh, you know, you don't know this at the time, but I played tight end of defensive end.

And when I lined up at tight end, the person to my left,

played for the Green Bay Packers for several years.

And the person to his left played for the Minnesota Vikings for several years and blocked for Adrian Peterson.

we had big time athletes all over the place and, um, you know, it, it felt very, you know, especially to a young kid, it felt very important to me.

Um, and you know, I had had a series of injuries my senior year in high school and I had a converse, I had a conversation with my parents was like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore.

Like I was pretty broken down by the end of my senior year.

Like, I'm not sure I want to do this and college and,

They both pushed me into doing it, and I'm glad they did.

I landed at a small Division III school for football and went from Friday Night Lights, where it felt like this big, huge event in the center of the town, and playing for...

40, 50 people on Saturday afternoons at a small school.