The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/106890
where are they now? graduate of Michigan's prestigious Ross School of Business, Mesko has interned in New York during the offseason with eyes set on a potential Wall Street career. He'll be back again this summer, but his experiences with his charity have opened his eyes. He's hired a public relations firm to expand the Zoltan Mesko Foundation and plans to further expand upon his passion. Wall Street might still be in his future, but he's exploring all of his options. This summer, he'll attend summers at life-after-football seminars arranged by the NFL. "Those guys do a good job putting in the effort to help you hit the road running once football is over," Mesko said. "At Michigan, the Ross School of Business has partnered with the NFL Players Association to create four-day programs on franchising. I'm not that interested in it, but it's funny — I am interested in what Notre Dame is offering with a social entrepreneurship program, which kind of ties into helping out our efforts and ideas in the Zoltan Mesko Foundation. "One thing I've seen is our mindsets and motivations always change. I really have taken up my love for making a difference in the community. Nothing else gets to you like that, and there's no price you can put on it … I get choked up so easily, call myself a wimp for it, but I've realized helping others really is what life is all about. Money will only take you so far. In the end it's really about making a difference, having a loving family and friends." His current profession has helped with the former and supplemented the latter. He's committed to his craft and extremely loyal to the franchise that drafted him three years ago. While some NFL kickers and punters go through the motions in practice, Mesko continues to hone his skill and plans on staying in the game "as long as my body allows." He enjoyed one of his best games of the year against the Texans, averaging 52.8 yards (49.4 net) and pinning the Texans deep twice. "This has been a season where I've grown a lot mentally," he said. "Physically, rarely do you grow at this stage — most of that comes at the college level, early on. I've become wiser in the game of knowing how to deal with certain situations, how to attack different returners, what to do, trading off hang time for distance, when and where and what direction to kick it. The more you put in, the more you get out of it. "People wonder, 'How can a punter never stop during practice?' There are so many drills I do, boring or not, that are going to affect the outcome on Sunday for me, and maybe for the team. I don't mind doing them because I see that formula paying off. A big part of that was Michigan football and Lloyd Carr kind of instilling that vision in me, to see ahead for the future and to plan for it." It's a different vision than it might have been when he received his master's degree from Michigan in 2010. "I definitely think I have a different outlook on life since I came into