Grant Newsome Talks Injury, New Role, Recruiting, Tight End Room, More
Former offensive tackle Grant Newsome could be bitter about missing out on what likely would've been a long and fruitful NFL career, but instead he's shining in his new role as U-M's tight ends coach.
"I think it changed my life completely," Newsome said. "I think if I didn’t have that injury, I’d be somewhere completely different right now. Whether that’s good or bad, we’ll never know, but everything happens for a reason. If you look at the totality of everything that happened, I’m really blessed to stand where I am today. And I think that it all really happened for a reason and I’m just trying to embrace that."
Newsome has always been an extremely intelligent young man and obviously worked really hard to be a top-flight offensive tackle who was good enough to play as a true freshman at Michigan. Obviously he didn't need any special motivation at that time and he hasn't used his injury as a driving force either.
"It's not something I circle back to for motivation or anything like that and I try to stay away from it," he said. "It’s something that changed my life and I’d like to believe it’s changed it for the better."
Questions about being a former player who was forced to retire due to injury are inevitable for a first-time, 25-year old assistant, but in the fall it'll be more about how his guys perform on the field. Luckily for Michigan fans and for Newsome, his room is pretty loaded.
"[Erick All and Luke Schoonmaker] have really high expectations for themselves and I think we have expectations; myself and the rest of the staff in this building," Newsome explained. "Our expectations are that Schoony and Erick should compete against each other to be the best tight ends in the country. I think you want every guy in the building to have that expectation, but I think that the reality of it is we have two really, really talented guys at the top of that room, and then obviously other talented guys below them. They are guys who have a chance to be really, really special."
Newsome covered a lot of topics today and all of them are outlined in the video above. He already seems like a pro at the podium and it's clear that he's ready for his new job. He's obviously not polished as a coach yet, but Michigan fans should feel great about what he'll do as a part of Jim Harbaugh's staff.
