Casey Thompson considers potential coaching future, plans after football

Nebraska quarterback and former Texas transfer Casey Thompson is a cerebral guy, one who has considered a potential coaching future following his playing days. And the junior’s thoughtful answer when asked if he’d like to be a coach betrayed a depth of understanding few his age have.

“I don’t know. I love the game of football, so obviously now as a player I love it, everything that goes into it,” Thompson said. “I love just sitting down watching the game, studying. So from that side, I guess the Xs and Os, yeah I would love to be around the game as long as possible.

“But when I see what the coaches have to deal with sometimes I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I’d be able to do that,’ so… Just dealing with the recruiting part, dealing with parents, you have grade checks and making sure guys go and weigh in, and just, I don’t know. There’s a lot that goes into it. I’m not sure. I love the game of football, so I just think that if I continue to do my best and put my whole mind, body, spirit into the game of football, someday it will give some success back to me. Whether that’s as a player or coach, I don’t know, we’ll see someday.”

Thompson still has some time to decide. He’s also got a serious backup plan if needed. Or the backup plan might actually be the primary plan. Maybe it’s just the order they happen in that is yet unsorted.

In any case, it’s something he’s been thinking about for quite a long time.

In fact, even the final step in obtaining his Masters degree from Nebraska was centered around his vision for the future, the way he wants to make the world a better place with the skill set he has.

Casey Thompson considers potential coaching future, launching performance training facility

The Nebraska quarterback, who finished his first season with the Cornhuskers 173-of-274 passing for 2,407 yards with 17 passing touchdowns, five rushing touchdowns and 10 interceptions, explained his plan.

“I currently am in my fifth year, as you guys know,” Thompson told reporters. “I just completed a one-year Masters program in applied science, is the official name. What that means is I just know when I got here they asked me, ‘What do you want to do after you get done with football?’ And I said I want to build a training facility that focuses on the mind, body and spirit.

“I want to have elite sports performance training. I want to have cardio in there. I want to have a daycare center in there and study rooms, and I want to give back to the community, both men and women and kids and adults of all ages. So our family business plan is to someday build a sports facility, hopefully in Oklahoma, maybe in Texas and Nebraska, as well.”

Thompson certainly has a good base of information to start from. Being an elite college athlete at a prominent Power 5 program, he knows what real training looks like.

Playing quarterback, he also knows it takes more than just pure skill to make everything fit together and achieve maximum output.

A training facility where he can begin to give back to others the same kind of lessons the sport has helped instill in him?

“That’s what my plan is. I gave a two-hour presentation to the graduate program yesterday and they gave me four out of four votes, so I finished my Masters degree,” Thompson said. “I’ll receive that in a few weeks. At the University of Texas I graduated with a sport management major and a business minor. The hardest classes that I took in college by far was the business minor. The accounting, the finance, micro, macroeconomics, business law.

“Those classes were real hard, so being able to get two degrees in college has been a dream of mine since I stepped foot in college. When I was in high school I finished, I graduated three-and-a-half years and enrolled early just so I could kind of set myself up to be; I knew if I was in college long enough I would receive two degrees, just because I was always ahead.”

Those dreams were established at an early age for Thompson. Others helped him first dream them, then begin to realize them.

By the sound of things, Thompson wants to be that same inspirational force for others.

“I don’t know, my mom was big on academics,” Thompson said. “When I was back in the seventh grade, we sat down with my seventh-grade principal and she said, ‘Put him in high school classes so he can get ahead in high school, so he can get ahead for college,’ so that’s always something that I’ve always kind of had, a dream of mine.”