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.

In this video, Nate talks through the power that sports had on him growing up and how sports helped him recognize and realize that you have to make many sacrifices to get to where you want to be.