Utah's Nate Orchard balances family, training ahead of draft
Paste BN Sports has assembled a talented team of prospects to chronicle their paths to the NFL draft. Today's entry is from Utah defensive end Nate Orchard, who ranked among the nation's leaders with 18½ sacks and earned second-team All-America honors in 2014.
On Tuesday, I had a private workout with the Tampa Bay Bucs. Then I had another Wednesday with the Houston Texans. The head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, Marvin Lewis, was there watching, too. Both workouts went really well. After pro day, hopefully, I'll be getting more.
With Tampa, they had me do a lot of d-line drills – seeing how I turned my hips, how I bend. With the Texans, we did strictly defensive back drills. The coach said he had seen me rush the passer enough and wanted to see me dropping back, how I move in space, how I turn my hips and run, breaking on the ball, see if I have soft hands. You never know, they might move me to safety after that. I did pretty good.
I wake up early every morning. I go up to the University of Utah and work out with the team, do some conditioning, position drills. After that, I've got a lot of downtime. I'm home with my wife and little girl and we're cleaning around the house. I've been putting a playhouse together for my little girl, and we've been in the backyard, filling in some potholes with dirt. It's nice to not be in school. I can be home and doing daddy work around here.
When my daughter's down for the night, I'll get to my trading cards and start signing stickers for about an hour and a half. I've got 5,000 stickers I've got to sign in two weeks. I told the trainer the other day, 'Something's wrong with my wrist.' He said, 'What have you been doing?' I said, 'Well, I've been signing autographs, what do you think?' They just laughed at me and told me to put ice on it. I get no sympathy around here.
At this point, I'm just anxious. I want to know where I'm going and what position I'm going to be playing, so I can continue to work on that craft. Also, I want to know what the weather's like where I'm going. I love the cold. My wife hates it. We're going to have our differences wherever we go.
It's funny, because I meet with all the scouts and coaches and GMs, and we have a common ground. The majority of them are married. They've had kids. We can relate on that level and so it's fun to talk to them about that and how the school systems are in these different states. That's what I'm going to be focusing on and something my wife's going to have a hand in.
I know what I'm getting myself into going into the NFL. This opportunity only comes once. I'm definitely going to make the most of it, give it my all. I know I can be a great player, and I will be. I'll continue to work hard. I've got a great work ethic, and I think that's going to take me far and take my family far. So, I'm excited for what the road has ahead of us.
It's not hard for me to avoid speculation about where that road might lead. Don't give me a hard time, but right now I live in a very nice apartment – and I don't have cable. I can't afford cable, to be honest. I'm still living on my scholarship checks. My wife's a personal trainer at a gym here right in the neighborhood and does a really good job. We can afford Netflix and Hulu, but that's about it. Then you've got wifi. You've to take that into account, and so that's already 70 bucks.
I think we all deserve some cable. I think my little girl deserves Cartoon Network. I think she deserves Nickelodeon. And my wife and I deserve an HDTV. I have a little one, like 42 inches, nothing crazy. I might just carry that around with me. I don't need a Lamborghini. I got myself a 2011 Subaru with 34,000 miles on it. That's going to last me hopefully until my second contract.
I've had my moments, buying whatever I wanted, spending money on nonsense things. But now, being married and having the little girl, you really put life in perspective. I'm going to start paying taxes pretty soon. I've got to pay my agent. I've got to pay my financial advisor. You cut that all out my check and I'm left with less than half of whatever I was given. I've really got to take that into account, and my children and my wife are my main priority. I need to get them set for life before I do anything fun or adventurous for myself.
All I can do now is keep working out, keep getting better, bigger, stronger, faster. There's always room to keep tweaking things in my game that I need to improve on. I'm not the perfect athlete. I'm not the greatest student of the game. I'm fortunate that Utah's letting me keep my iPad so I can watch film.
I've got a lot of poopy diapers to change, too. We're getting into the 'terrible twos' right now with the little one. She acts a little crazy, but we love it so much. I'm very lucky.
Follow Nate Orchard on Twitter at @OrchardNate