For NFL agent Kyle Leunissen, the realization of his dream, a dream he's carried since he was just a kid, means the realization of many dreams. That's not something most people can say, but Leunissen, one of the lucky few to work in an industry that will someday allow him to say it, has pursued his own goal for that very reason. Only, Leunissen isn't quite in the dream-making business just yet.
But he's getting there.
Leunissen had just taken a red-eye back from a recruiting trip to one of the nation's biggest collegiate football programs, the sound of sleep still heavy in his voice, when he spoke to Headlines & Global News recently for an exclusive interview. For most, a 3 a.m. flight, scrambling, not to pack an overnight bag - you'll be homeward bound before the sun touches the horizon - but to gather materials for your pitch, which you'll make almost as soon as the wheels touch down, or whenever your prospective client decides they're ready to hear said pitch, sounds like a nightmarish hassle.
For Leunissen, it's just another aspect of life as an NFL agent that gets him excited.
Learning The Ropes
For an agent, a representative to NFL players, your clients are your top priority. Whatever they need, it's your job to, something like a genie or "Pulp Fiction's" The Wolf, make it appear (or disappear, as it were). When you're a wet-behind-the-ears NFL agent like Leunissen with only two years of experience in the game to your name, the opportunity to sign a player and turn him into a Leunissen guy, an Enter-Sports Management guy, is an opportunity to grow, to learn more about an industry that chews up and spits out aspiring player reps at an alarming rate.
Leunissen, who got certified just last year and has only two clients at this point, is still getting a feel for the game, still figuring out how to treat Player A as opposed to Player B.
"Learning a little more every day," he deadpans.
Player A in this instance, the guy Leunissen and company had traveled to meet and hopefully woo, represented, like most endeavors do these days for Leunissen, another learning experience. Only Leunissen's lessons didn't just start when he and his business partner, Daniel "Kuni" Kuniansky, joined Hadley Engelhardt at EMS two years ago. Leunissen's been learning the game since his days hanging at West Campus Apartments on the Louisiana State University campus.
Making Connections
"One of my friends I grew up with played football, and when I went to LSU he was one of my best friends. I started hanging out with him, networked through him and the whole football team, got to know a bunch of guys," says Leunissen.
Shockingly, Leunissen's sports agent education actually goes back even further than those heady college days. Not many kids know what they want to be when they grow up, let alone what industry in which they want to work. According to his mom, Leunissen's mind was made up somewhere around fifth grade.
"I knew I wouldn't be big enough to play professional sports, so my dad said, 'Look, this is the best way to stay in it and be around it,' if not play," he says.
Leunissen brought that desire, that inherent "want-to," with him to LSU, where, through casual connections, through his own networking, he was able to hook up at West Campus with football players like former Arizona Cardinals first-round pick Patrick Peterson.
"The athletes all live there and I was always over there, and they kind of had the party house I guess," Leunissen admits, laughing a little. "And everyone would come by that house every weekend and hang out and they got to know me as Kyle. I would always be around and it was mostly just the football team and me."
Leunissen wound up living with two football players, one of which was LSU's All-American placekicker, Josh Jasper, and other players simply seemed to flock to the house. Leunissen used these casual connections to "sit in" on the various Tigers players' meetings with agents, providing him his first real glimpse, his first real taste of what recruitment for Player A, Player B or Player Z may entail.
Keep Dreaming
But don't think EMS is small or that Leunissen doesn't dream big. It's just that recruiting, targeting that talent, putting together your pitch, is specific to each player. It takes a feeling-out period, and EMS, as a boutique firm, presents specific attributes that are going to draw in some but repel others.
To realize his dream, to realize the dreams of others, Leunissen takes it all in stride and is willing to work. He'll catch those red-eyes, he'll fight for clients like Wegher and current free agent and former Atlanta Falcon Xzavier Dickson.
But it's no cakewalk.
Thinking of making a run at becoming an NFL agent? Get ready for late nights and early mornings. But in the end, you'll be able to say you realized a dream, for yourself, and for others.
