Professional Quarterback with Engineering Degree
He learned to solve difficult math equations in school and then solve football problems on the field.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Josh Dobbs (JD) was born in the Atlanta, Georgia area. His father was a long-time banking executive. His mother was a former U.P.S. (United Parcel Service) executive.
CHILDHOOD
JD’s parents raised him with a general creed: The world is yours and you can do anything you choose. To do that, you must know what’s available.
So, JD’s parents sparked the curiosity of their son through yearly trips, often flying to their destinations: visiting different colleges and exploring museums. They wanted their son to absorb it all. JD also enjoyed the plane rides.
EDUCATION
As JD reached high school, his math interest and skills came naturally. He enjoyed problem-solving and was so proficient that he began taking higher-level math classes at a local community college as a high school junior.
Realizing that he could pair his love of flight with his aptitude for math, JD decided to pursue aerospace engineering in college. Advisers tried to talk him out of it, outlining the schedule constraints and workload, but JD would cut them off. His parents backed their son’s vision because they believed in the reward of passionate pursuit. And they knew their son was committed.
Long before he became the University of Tennessee’s starting quarterback, months before he even committed to the university, JD took a tour. Alongside his parents, JD was chaperoned across campus. They visited the football facilities and then the engineering lecture halls.
Behind the scenes, the athletic department had orchestrated a meeting with the head of the aerospace engineering department. Toward the end of their conversation, the professor tossed out a question:
“What math are you currently taking before coming to college?”
JD deadpanned (speaking without revealing any emotion): “Differential Equations.”
The professor’s eyebrows rose because Differential Equations typically follow Calculus 1, Calculus 2, Matrix Algebra and Calculus 3. A high schooler taking such an advanced class was unheard of.
COMBINING D-1 FOOTBALL WITH ENGINEERING COURSES
Preparing to succeed in both the classroom and on the football field was never a problem for JD. He awoke at 6:30 a.m., attended engineering classes from 8 to 2, practiced and watched football game film from 2:30 to 7 pm, then finished his homework in the academic building from 7:30 to 10 p.m. If need be, he would find extra time for classwork or film study earlier in the morning or later in the evening.
Football fans heard about this the first time JD played in a college football game. Tennessee’s starting quarterback had injured his right thumb so the Vols (short for Volunteers, the team’s nickname dating back to the Civil War) turned to JD, then a freshman, playing ‘on the road’ (an away game) against Alabama, then (and often) the best college football team in the country.
During the television broadcast, CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson shared an anecdote that had been relayed to her by a Tennessee football staffer: A few weeks earlier, Tennessee had played Oregon, another away game in Eugene, Oregon. The Vols lost the game and flew home late at night. All the plane’s cabin lights were dark – except for one. Tucked in the middle of the plane was JD, who sat in the aisle and flipped through thick engineering books.
As Wolfson shared the story with the millions watching the game on tv, an engineering professor at Tennessee was listening and thought: “Now I understand how he completed his assignment in honors Engineering Fundamentals 157.” That class had involved a relentless academic pace: students attended lectures Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Tuesday and Thursday were reserved for labs, projects, and problem sessions. That semester, JD also took four-credit math and chemistry classes.
JD played five games his freshman season and entered spring practice in a full-on quarterback competition. Away from the field, he was constructing Olympic medal stands out of foam core and working his people connections to secure an engineering internship for the summer.
In his four college football seasons, JD completed 61.5 percent of his passes for 7,138 yards and 87 touchdowns (53 passing, 32 rushing and 2 receiving). He led the team to 9-4 marks in his junior and senior seasons, setting several school records along the way. He graduated with a perfect 4.0 grade average and won Tennessee’s highest honor for an undergraduate student.
But there was even more to JD than athletics and academics. One time JD held up the football team buses before a road trip because he was spending time talking with a young girl who had been diagnosed with Alopecia areata (also known as ‘spot baldness’ a condition in which hair is lost from some or all areas of the body, often resulting in a few bald spots on the scalp, each about the size of a coin), just as he had. A football staffer informed JD that spending 5 minutes with the girl would suffice. Forty-five minutes later, JD was found laughing with her inside Tennessee’s indoor practice facility. She had worn a wig, nervous about her condition but JD had made her feel comfortable enough that she took it off. Coaches noticed JD was missing and yelled for him, only to find out later what caused his delay. As the staffer noted, “It was a time when he didn’t have time. And he took time to make time for the little girl.”
After being drafted but cut by several NFL teams during their preseason games, JD signed with another team and was soon traded to the Minnesota Vikings after the 2023 season started. He flew to a new city, buried himself in a new playbook, and stayed at the team’s practice facility with the Vikings assistant quarterbacks coach, late on Friday afternoon to ensure he could operate the game plan as the third-string quarterback if needed. Of course, (?!) the Vikings’ first two quarterbacks were injured, JD was called upon to play with only 5 days of practice and he ‘engineered’ (pun intended) a thriller of a victory on national tv.
CAREER SATISFACTION – A WORK IN PROGRESS
In the eyes of JD’s parents and supporters, JD’s apparent quick success as a rookie NFL quarterback is a story of avoiding the path of least resistance. Exhausting all available resources. Preparing yourself for ‘the (specifically unknown) opportunity’ so that when the time comes, the only people who are surprised are the ones who don’t know you at all.
As this story is being written in early 2024, JD remains employed as a professional football player. When that career path comes to an end – as it must eventually – JD will have prepared himself for his alternate career, for which he will have to catch up to new developments in engineering but there can be no doubt that he will.
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This career story is based on a news article written by Alec Lewis for The Athletic, published by The New York Times on November 18, 2023
