Nate Boyer is not only a retired professional football player, he is also a war veteran. Boyer is well known for advising Colin Kaepernick that he would be better respected by kneeling instead of sitting in protest during the national anthem. Before Boyer’s college career at the University of Texas, Boyer enlisted in the U.S. Army and became a Green Beret. After serving in Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan, Boyer returned to the United States and decided to walk on to the University of Texas football team in 2010, despite never playing a down of organized football in his life. In 2015, he signed a free agent contract with the Seattle Seahawks. During the Seahawks 2016 preseason around the time Kaepernick began sitting for the national anthem to protest injustices against minorities in the U.S., Boyer advised Kaepernick that kneeling would be a more respectful action to take as a form of protest.

Nate shares the qualities of leadership that his favorite coaches and role models in his life exhibited. Nate also highlights that knowing your players as people and making them feel like a person before an athlete is a key way to achieve great leadership.