Family, finance, and football. No, it’s not the title of a memoir you’d find in the discount bin. Nor is it the name of a seminar that would put many sports fans to sleep.

 For David Nixon, those three things are simply life itself.

The former BYU and NFL linebacker is now, to use a bit of “business speak”, serving as the vice president of the Salt Lake City branch of the real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle. But more importantly to him, he is now a husband and father.

But to fully understand Nixon’s story, we must go back to the beginning. Because before he was a family man, before he was in the NFL, before he was a college star, David Nixon was an A&M Consolidated Tiger, class of 2003.

“I have very fond memories of my school days at Consol,” Nixon said. “Everything about it was just a class act.”

The memories come flooding back. Dancing like nobody was watching at homecoming. Blasting music from the back of a truck with the boys in some random pasture. Finding ways to live free and enjoy life. But this is Texas, and there’s something magical that you can see on the football field that you don’t find anywhere else.

 “I [still] tell people that Friday Night Lights was the real deal,” Nixon said. “My senior year, we packed [Tigerland] Stadium. We’d have that place sold out.”

To put it mildly, the 2002 Tiger squad was good. They finished as 10-3 and runner-ups in the district, made a playoff run, and outscored opponents 409-198. The cause of their success? According to Nixon, chemistry.

“I played with kids that I grew up with going to South Knoll elementary,” Nixon said.  “We were playing with our buddies we’ve been friends with since we were just five years old. We had this common bond [with each other].”

It was a high school career full of highlights for Nixon, but a certain opponent from his senior season stands out above the rest: a Matt Flynn-led Tyler Lee (now Tyler Legacy) team loaded with talent.  

Yes, this is the same Matt Flynn who would lead LSU to the 2008 BCS National Championship before beginning a nine-year stint in the NFL.

The Tigers headed up the road to Tyler to face the Red Raiders, and they returned home with a road victory over a team ranked in the top five in the state.

How many people can say they played against a Natty-winning, NFL-team-record-setting, Super Bowl-champion quarterback and won? Not many, but Nixon and the rest of that 2002 team can state it with pride.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be a storybook ending for that Tiger squad. They would face that same Tyler Lee team in the quarterfinal round of the playoffs, and the result of the rematch would not be the same.

“It was a really close game,” Nixon said. “We should have beat them again.”

While it may not have ended the way he hoped, Nixon’s time at Consol did prepare him for the next level of his athletic career.

“The coach that was recruiting me for BYU, he told me, ‘Listen, if you come to BYU, you’re going to start as a freshman. I guarantee you because you played in Texas against the best talent in the country,’” Nixon said. “And so sure enough, I was able to start my freshman year.”

And so began his college career, and what a career it was. After starting his freshman season in 2003, he spent two years away on mission, returning to the team in 2006. In his final three years, BYU went 32-7, including upset wins over UCLA, Oregon, and then-perennial BCS Buster TCU. His accolades with the Cougars included being named All-Mountain West Conference in 2008. 

“We had some good years,” Nixon said. “[It] was a lot of fun, I made some really cool friendships that still exist today.”

After going undrafted, Nixon began his NFL career with the Raiders. He was a pro-football journeyman, bouncing around from team to team before exiting the league shortly before the 2012 season. 

“Pro [football] is kind of its own different beast,” Nixon said. “It’s now your profession, it’s now your job. Every single year the roster changes.”

Exiting the league in an unremarkable fashion may seem like an anticlimactic end to such a stellar career, but football isn’t everything. Newly wed and about to build a family, it was time for Nixon to take on a more stable livelihood–one in which he wouldn’t have to fly to the other side of the country to chase the next contract.

“Family is really all that matters,” Nixon said. “I go to work every day to support my family. And those memories together, that’s what it’s all about.”

Nixon would then take his talents to the world of finance in his second career. But that passion developed much later than his interest in football.

“In college I took a real estate class that I really liked,” Nixon said. “I wouldn’t say that I necessarily made up my mind in high school.”

Nixon is not alone in his indecisiveness. Many current students still aren’t exactly sure how they will earn their living, even as choices are being made that help decide what they will do for the rest of their lives. But, he notes, maybe you don’t have to have everything planned out by the time you graduate.

“In high school, you can make up your mind on what field you want to go into,” he said. “So you want to be a doctor?  Now you go to college and you start taking classes and you figure out ‘Okay, [do] I want to be an ER surgeon, or [do] I want to be a pediatrician?’ College is where you start to figure out what [job] you want to focus on. But high school is where you start to figure out what your interests are.”

A pair of internships with local firms lead to Nixon landing a position at Jones Lang LaSalle, where he has been for seven years. A far cry from not knowing where (or if) he would be playing in any given year. Even so, Nixon believes that his experience on the gridiron has been beneficial in his financial career.

 “[Football] teaches you to be disciplined. And it teaches you to work towards a common goal,” Nixon said. “And that’s something that does translate well in my life as a business partner. We have goals we set. Sometimes it’s tough, and we face adversity, but we fight through and overcome them and find ways to problem solve and get things done.”

Looking back on his schoolboy days, Nixon offers some advice for today’s students: Branch out. Enjoy it while it lasts. Find a team or club you’re passionate about. But most importantly, find ways to give back to the community.

“Keep searching for those opportunities, because those are the opportunities that will provide everlasting joy in your life,” He said. “Money and fame is great and all, but if you want something that’s gonna last forever, it comes through loving others and serving others, and enjoying the ride.”

Note: Tigers in the Wild is a series of alumni profiles that will be featured on The Roar’s website. If you have an idea of someone you’d like to see interviewed, email Ian at ian.curtis.the.roar@gmail.com