NFL Player Turns To Teaching During Lockout

Amy Ta, NPR | June 23, 2011

As the NFL tries working through its lockout, one professional football player decided to teach youth from grades one through 12. In April, Denver Broncos safety David Bruton became a substitute social studies and math teacher at Jane Chance Elementary School and Miamisburg High School (his alma mater) in Ohio.

Bruton says he got the idea from his high school coach and teachers. Why did they think he was teacher material? Bruton says maybe it was because he performed well during his own high school and college years, and he had what it took to be a role model. His patience and persistence also helps, he says.

The NFL player naturally taught social studies because he majored in sociology at Notre Dame. But math came as a total surprise, he says. The last time Bruton took math courses was his first year in college. “I was definitely in the books, on my iPad looking up how to figure out quadratic equations and finding out angles,” he says.  (Read more)