Dan Arnold - From D3 to the NFL
How a Two-sport D3 Athlete Became an NFL Tight End
Dan Arnold is a former D3 student-athlete (University of Wisconsin-Platteville) and NFL Tight End (2017-23) who is currently coaching football at his alma mater.
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In this episode of the Student-Athlete Sessions:
Dan’s recruiting process & how he found D3 Athletics and UWP
Playing two D3 sports in college (Track & Football)
Learning how to navigate adversity via sports
Landing his first NFL opportunity with the Saints after going undrafted
How Dan Campbell convinced him to switch from WR to TE (previewed below)
Here’s a preview of the conversation:
D3Direct (Karl Barkley) (00:13:50):
What is that like as a player to swap roles?
I know there are other D3 Football players, Ben Bartch is the kind of funny, famous example, his bulking journey to move from tight end at St. John's to play O-line in the NFL. What is that like as a player?
Is it a challenge, or does it feel like you bulk up and you can just shift positions?
Dan Arnold (00:14:14):
Truthfully, it’s probably one of the more difficult things I've ever done in my life. Going from a receiver who played on the outside a lot in college. And yeah, that's the one thing that you learn about the NFL is that the closer into the interior of the offense, those bodies start to get a lot bigger. And that's really where you start to see the size and strength of players. So yeah transitioning to tight end was difficult.
The bulking, that's just a whole other side of it. Trying to put on weight was difficult, even with all of the resources that you have at your fingertips at an NFL team. But then also picking up the run game and something I wasn't super integrated into in college and having to learn you know the point systems and the protections and the run schemes and everything at a whole ‘nother level, but then trying to do that at in the NFL at the at the highest level that it's that you're capable of doing it at, there were definitely some growing pains - it was it was difficult.
But Coach Campbell, Dan Campbell was my tight end coach when I was in New Orleans and he's the one who came to me and he was like, “Hey, I think if you're going to play in this league that you're probably going to have to think about transitioning to tight end.”
And he, I remember he, he asked the question of me, “Do you want to switch to tight end?”
And I was like, I mean, if you're sitting here telling me that I should change the tight end, I should probably do it. And it's not really, it's like a no brainer. Having him [as a coach] and there's not enough things I can say about Coach Campbell and just him giving me a shot, I think, is kind of the biggest thing I can be thankful for.
Seeing a kid who worked his butt off to get to where he was, but then you see a lot of guys in the NFL that work their tail off and they just they don't get the shot or, it just fizzles out. And it has a lot to do with your situation. But him being patient with me and pushing me every day and, seeing the potential in me is amazing. I can't thank him enough, and I owe him everything for my NFL career for sticking with me even, as I'm getting tossed around by Cam Jordan and all those guys and probably thinking to himself, what the heck am I doing with this kid?
But, yeah, it was tough. It was grueling. A lot of nights, you know, coming back to the house doing, like, questioning whether it was enough to be able to make the team the next day and kind of living in that world is pretty stressful, but I was able to make something happen out of it and really had an awesome experience and got to meet a lot of great coaches along the way and something that I always would, take notes and keep in my toolbox for, when I wanted to be a coach and how I would do it.
And seeing those guys at the highest level and the way that they coach, I learned a lot and try and emulate that every day when I come in here.
To listen along with the full transcript, check out the original newsletter post.
