Las Vegas Raiders star Maxx Crosby was honored to be named an assistant general manager for the Eastern Michigan football program.
On Monday, Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby became the first active NFL player to become the general manager of a college program.
It is a major honor for Crosby, as he owes a lot to his alma mater, Eastern Michigan University. Crosby became a fourth-round pick after Chris Creighton took a chance on him as an overlooked high school prospect.
Since then, Crosby has become one of the best defensive players in the NFL and earned a major contract extension. He now wants to build the program that helped him get to where he is.
Crosby spoke about his new title on the latest episode of his podcast, The Rush.
“I’m so excited,” Crosby said. “Obviously, it’s an extremely big honor. Gotta give my credit to Scott Weatherby, Chris Creighton, everybody over there at Eastern Michigan. We’re Ypsi [Ypsilanti, Mich.] lifers in this group right here. Just them showing their love and respect and dedication towards me and my career since day one, I just feel like it’s only right. Obviously, I’ve given a lot back on a financial basis, but also, just taking the time.”
Crosby explained what his tasks will be in his new position.
“There’s a lot of things that go along with being assistant GM,” he said. “I know people have their question marks. ‘Oh, is he just doing it for publicity, or for recruiting?’ Things like that. I don’t think people realize how involved, not just myself, but you guys [his co-hosts, Brogan Roback and Darien Terrell] are, and everybody in our circle is. It’s just given more validity to that role, and more structure, and more say. That’s what fired me up about the opportunity.
We’ve been talking about it for a couple of months now, but we made it come to life, and it’s a huge blessing. So, we’re going to be hitting on the NIL part, but that’s something we’ve already been involved in, the collective. With the NIL, just bringing more money and more funds to a MAC school that typically doesn’t have the same amount of money as these big Power Fives.”
It will be interesting to see what Crosby can build a small school like EMU into with his work in the program’s front office.