Talk about being an overachiever. NFL player Joshua Dobbs is giving us all goals to aspire to. Not only is he the backup quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Dobbs is also a literal rocket scientist, Inside Hook reported.
Dobbs graduated with honors with an aerospace engineering degree from the University of Tennessee, the report stated. During the offseason he shifted from athlete to academic to complete an externship program with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida.
“When you get down there and you see how intelligent people are and how hard they work, just what they are even talking about and are able to pull off, it’s truly amazing,” Dobbs told USA Today. “It was so specialized.”
Dobbs’ externship lasted for nearly three weeks in February during which he learned more about space travel. He said it was a daily learning experience.
“It felt like every part of Kennedy Space Center kind of wanted to show me what was going on,” Dobbs said. “Every single day was different, so I got a chance to learn kind of the ins and outs, everything that goes on, and how everything comes together to support the rocket on launch day.”
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Dobbs was assigned specifically to Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) by Scott Colloredo, NASA’s Deputy Director of Engineering. Colloredo initiated contact with Dobbs via LinkedIn to pitch the externship in 2019. He talked about how special Dobbs is.
“The fact that in his spare time he had the interest and the ability to come work for NASA, we’re very impressed with him,” Colloredo said. “It was pretty unique. But let’s face it: Josh, his approach and the way he’s going about parallel activity between the NFL and becoming an aerospace technologist, that’s pretty unique.”
His interest in STEM began at an early age, Dobbs told USA Today. And he did well in it. He said he chose aerospace engineering in college because he wanted “a major and degree field that I enjoyed, that I was passionate about and would challenge me.”
Having parallel careers in professional sports and being a literal rocket scientist makes Dobbs quite the anomaly, but he respects the work everyone does on and off the field.
“Whether you’re on a football field or down there, it’s a team,” Dobbs said. “At the end of the day for us, we’re trying to win football games, trying to win a Super Bowl. For them, at the end of the day they’re trying to send a rocket to the moon. So everyone has their big goal.”
