JMike, a well decorated UCLA Football player, shares the behind the scenes of being a student athlete. While he's suiting up for the field, he's also balancing his school work, personal life, and brand partnerships. Step into JMike's world.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00 My name is J. Michael Sturdivant. I'm from Dallas, Texas. I play football, wide receiver for UCLA.
00:07 I wear number one. I'm going into my junior season and I'm here to tell you about the business side to college football.
00:14 I started playing football, it was actually funny. I was playing at recess with a lot of my friends and I was like the best one on the field by far.
00:23 One of the kids, his dad was a head coach. He told him to force me to try out. My dad just took me to a practice. I had a good practice and then he told me I was playing.
00:32 I bawled my eyes out, I was crying. That's how I started playing, went to college at Cal and then transferred to UCLA.
00:37 How has being a college football player at Cal and UCLA shaped your outlook on life?
00:44 It's shown me how far connections go. The people that you meet in college is crazy. I've talked to a lot of people that are up there just because I play football.
00:54 I think that's probably the biggest thing I've seen in life and one of the biggest things I'm going to continue to do is network the best I can in life to live the life that I want to and make as many friends as possible.
01:06 There have been recent changes in the NCAA regulations which allows you a lot more freedom. How do you think that has affected financial opportunities?
01:19 It's definitely changed lives. The money that we're allowed to get now is stuff that a lot of people will never see in their lives.
01:27 I feel like it's a blessing to finally get benefits for all the hard work that we put in and the people that put in work before us fighting for this to give us the opportunity to make money off of our own name.
01:37 I think that's very life changing and I'm grateful that it happened. I think that it's something that's been needing to happen throughout all the college sports.
01:44 I'm just glad I'm part of the people that get to see the benefits of it.
01:47 Do you think you could give us some examples of how you or fellow student athletes could profit off of your name and likeness but for people who might not really know what that means?
01:58 One example that I think was probably really cool is a guy in Alabama. He changed his name to Kool-Aid and then he got sponsored by Kool-Aid.
02:05 I think that's one of the examples that you can make money off of literally your name and stuff like that and just connect with companies that want to come out and meet you and see who you are as a person.
02:15 Because everyone sees you on the football field but NIL is a chance to connect on a more personal level and kind of get who you really are out there to the world.
02:23 There's another one, his name was Dakota Crawford. He got sponsored by an AC company or something. So I think that was pretty cool too.
02:30 It's a blessing to be able to be in the position I am right now to have companies that want to work with me and have guys in my circle like Tao.
02:37 Tao, he's a marketing representation for me and he's just a guy that kind of tells me stuff that I can do to go out and meet people and kind of put my name out there.
02:48 I'm kind of stubborn when it comes to stuff like this because I really just want to focus on football because that's what I came to college to do.
02:54 But I think it is a great opportunity to be able to go out and meet new people, network and find new ways to get people to know who you are.
03:01 If I could be in some commercials, that would be tough. I've been seeing the personalities that they put.
03:07 It's really good players but they seem kind of boring on camera. So I was like, come on, you could give a little bit more.
03:12 Because I know these people aren't this boring in real life. They just probably get camera shy a little bit.
03:16 So I don't know, it would be fun to be in a commercial doing a little bit of acting, maybe like a soda commercial or Gatorade or something.
03:22 But I think it would be cool to do something like that.
03:24 So you would need a football version of Shaq?
03:27 Yeah, that would be perfect. Because he got a lot of marketing reps too.
03:31 His face is, you go to Walmart and see him on like ten different things.
03:34 My dream job would be to be a real estate agent and sell houses all over the world.
03:38 I'd love to be in movies or TV shows. That would be something that I would have a lot of fun doing.
03:45 But yeah, those would probably be my two avenues that I want to go into after I'm done playing football.
03:49 Because you can still have a personality, still get to train and just make money.
03:55 Ever since a kid, my mom, she was like the real academic person in the family.
03:58 So she was the one that was making sure I was getting good grades in school, doing my homework before I even went to bed or anything.
04:05 She was the one that was really pushing me to tell me that my grades were important.
04:08 My dad was telling me too, but my mom definitely had the better grades.
04:12 I've been balanced for a long time, so now it's kind of like second nature to me.
04:15 But also it does get harder sometimes because you let it pile up a little bit too much.
04:19 And now you've got to find the balance again in order to get back to equilibrium.
04:23 So it's hard at times, but it's something I think I've gotten pretty good at.
04:29 It's really some of the classwork you've got to do. That's one of the biggest things.
04:40 Because you've got to be able to balance it with all the workouts.
04:43 And then especially in the season, you've got to balance it with film.
04:46 You've got to balance it with film, your school, people trying to still talk to you, be friends, maintain relationships.
04:52 You need the schoolwork to be able to keep playing. I think that's one of the hard ones.
04:56 And maintaining positive relationships with a whole bunch of people can get hard at times.
05:00 Because you can't string yourself out to too many people and still expect to perform at a high level.
05:05 You've got to learn how to prioritize things and stick to them.
05:09 I'm not getting a girlfriend because it's just too much to balance all that right now.
05:13 So it's just not in the cards for me.
05:15 I'd probably say sticking to your priorities is probably one of the toughest ones.
05:19 Because it's moments where you're like, "I want to go hang out with these people, but I also have to get a good amount of sleep so I can perform at a high level still."
05:27 So I try my best to always put football first.
05:31 From a financial standpoint, I'd say save your money.
05:39 Because a lot of people, they post on Instagram and stuff, going out buying all the designers and stuff.
05:43 But realistically, they're just blowing money away.
05:46 So I'd say make sure you save your money, buy stuff that you know you're going to wear a lot or use a lot.
05:52 From a social standpoint, I'd say meet as many people as you can, but don't string yourself out.
05:57 Make sure you make a lot of connections with the student-athletes at the school.
06:01 Because it'll go a long way, and you'll be able to meet a lot of new people through them by just having simple interactions.
06:07 So I'd say, "Say what's up" to people.
06:09 Say, "Hey," if you see somebody out on campus or something.
06:12 And meet your teammates as much as you can.
06:16 Stay in the locker room, have good conversations, and really get to know who you're spending your life with.
06:21 Make sure your schoolwork is getting turned in on time.
06:24 My name is J. Michael, and this has been the Business of College Football.
06:28 Yeah, I'm a very superstitious person.
06:37 In high school, I used to have one where I couldn't wear Bluetooth headphones.
06:40 Because I wore Bluetooth one time, and I had a bad game.
06:43 So you still wear wires? No AirPods?
06:46 No, I wear Bluetooth now. I do, yeah.
06:48 Good, at that price.
06:49 Yeah, it broke. Thankfully.
06:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]