Jackson State University place kicker Ryan Deising is a sure shot, able to score from half a football field away, but he puts it through the uprights in the classroom, as well — keeping a 3.6 GPA.
JSU fans still congratulate him on his career longest 50-yard field goal against Prairie View A&M on Oct. 4, but they might not know that he scored an internship for two months last summer in Frankfort, Germany, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Deising earned the internship through a corps outreach program.
“It was a civilian job,” working as a corps employee, said Deising, 20, a junior in civil engineering.
“I’m thinking about going the graduate school,” he said. But he doesn’t rule out pursuing a career after he graduates, either.
Deising admits his GPA would probably be higher if he didn’t play football, but that came as a surprise, also.
Growing up in Nashville, Tenn., Deising was soccer player. He fell into football inadvertently at Pearl-Cohn High School.
“I had some friends on the team and they said they were needing a kicker. So, I gave it a shot.”
“I didn’t tell my parents,” he said, laughing. “They didn’t like football.”
He’s been drilling them through the goal posts since then.
Asked if he had considered a professional football career after graduation, he didn’t rule that out either.
“If that door opens for me, I’ll try it.”