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P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> 2 0 1 8 S E A S O N goal late in the '99 season remains, ar- guably, the most depressing upset in Penn State's football history. The then-No. 2 Lions were three wins away from a spot in the national championship game when disaster hit, and Short still prefers not to talk about it. "I was disappointed," he said. "We had the best team in the country. I think on the defense we had nine [future] pro foot- ball players and on the offense seven or eight. We had a pretty good team, but we just didn't play like it that day." Short had set goals for what he wanted to accomplish playing football for Penn State and he reached most of them, in- cluding becoming an All-American. "I also wanted to win the Butkus and a na- tional title and just fell a little bit short," he said. Nor did he reach all his goals in the NFL after being drafted in the fourth round by the New York Giants. 'More than just football' Short spent his first four years in New York, two years with Carolina and his final season in 2007 back with the Giants. He played in 11 games in his first year, then started in 69 of his next 89 games and finished with 480 tackles, two inter- ceptions and four recovered fumbles. Perhaps, the fate of his career can be de- fined in two of his NFL goals, playing in and winning a Super Bowl game. "I went to the Super Bowl in my rookie year and we lost to the Baltimore Ravens," Short said. "I left the Giants and NFL after 2007 and they won the Super Bowl the next year. I'm not disappointed in my NFL career. Just like at Penn State, I didn't reach all my goals. The average ca- reer is a year and a half. So, I lived a dream. I'm ecstatic because all that led to where I am now." After his grandma, Short credits Joe Pa- terno as the crucial person who changed the course of his life. "Joe cared as much about my develop- ment as a man and as a student as he did about my development as an athlete," Short said. "He helped mold me into the man that I am. He showed me there was a much larger world out there and life was much more than just football. There's a reason why Joe had such high graduation rates while he was head coach, ranging overall from 86 percent into the low 90s and the same for his African-American players. "If you didn't go to class, you didn't play. After practice, he would read your name in front of everyone and tell them you didn't go to class and you're letting the team down. We won because of Joe and in spite of him, because he didn't play the best players if they didn't go to class or weren't being respectful in the com- munity and doing all the good things Penn State players are expected to do. He taught me to believe deep down in your heart that you've got to do great things. "Joe used to say, every current player will be a former player and you have to use the platforms you have to set yourself up for the rest of your life. That's something I took to heart. Being a member of the New York Giants, I sat on boards of non- profit [organizations] with some of the fi- nancial and political leaders in New York. When I was sitting with these champions of industry, I realized I was with the guys signing the checks for the NFL players and not the guys receiving the checks. I had a business background, but I learned that I needed to refine my secondary ed- ucation to reach my full potential." Unsure of what to do next when he left the NFL, Short spent a year in broad- casting for SportsNet New York. Then, with advice from some Penn State con- tacts, including other former players working on Wall Street such as John Shaffer, Scott Gob, Matt Johnson and Tim Freeman, he spent the next two years earning an MBA from Columbia. Through Columbia's career services de- partment, he was able to interview for a position in New York at Goldman Sachs, one of the premier investment banks in the world. Shaffer, quarterback of the Lions' 1986 national championship team, was a Goldman Sachs executive at the time but was not a part of Short's in- tense interview process, which involved 33 people and some 300 candidates for the position. "My job was in real estate investment banking," Short said. "[That meant] ac- cess to capital through the markets. We did IPOs, bond offerings, real estate com- pensation and investment trusts, mergers and acquisitions." Short's wife, Mahreen, also worked in the financial industry in New York. Soon after she became a partner in a private eq- uity company in Dubai in 2012, Short was able to transfer to the Goldman Sachs of- fice in that city, a few dozen nautical miles across the Persian Gulf from Iran. The Middle East is a volatile tinderbox with conflicts across the region, but Short said he felt safer in Dubai than in his hometown or anywhere in the United States. "Dubai is really a safe city because there are no guns," he said. "It's a culture shock. But it's the safest place I've ever lived." In Dubai, Short was part of the Gold- man Sachs Middle East North Africa in- vestment banking team, helping to provide capital for Middle Eastern com- panies. About a year after landing in Dubai, Short left Goldman Sachs to be- come a co-founder and president of a United Arab Emirates company that spe- cialized in loans for small- and medium- sized businesses adhering to precepts of the Islam religion. "I lived in Dubai for three years and de- cided I wanted to move from the sell side to the buy side of investment banking," Short said. "I reached out to some friends and people in London." That ultimately led to him to his current position as a vice president at Round Hill Capital, a global real estate investment and asset management company with of- fices in eight countries, and a move to the firm's London office. "I work with corpo- rations in helping CEOs and CIOs to find long-term capital for the product and strategic initiatives for the product," he said. Setting new goals Through all the pressures of their inter- national financial careers, Short and his wife have been able to raise a family. Daughter Miriam is 2 years old, and son Noah was born last November. Short also

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