Isaiah J. Kacyvenski ( ; born October 3, 1977) is a former
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
linebacker
Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, ...
of the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
. He was drafted by the
Seattle Seahawks in the fourth round of the
2000 NFL Draft
The 2000 NFL Draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur U.S. college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 15– 16, 2000, at the Thea ...
. He played
college football at
Harvard and earned an MBA from
Harvard Business School after he retired.
Kacyvenski also spent time with the
St. Louis Rams
The St. Louis Rams were a professional American football team of the National Football League (NFL). They played in St. Louis from 1995 to the 2015 season, before moving back to Los Angeles, where the team had played from 1946 to 1994.
The arr ...
and
Oakland Raiders. After spending the 2007 season out of football trying to return from
microfracture surgery
Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate the driving force on a crack and those of experimental solid mechanics t ...
, Kacyvenski officially announced his retirement in 2008.
Isaiah is currently the Founder and Managing Partner of Will Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on sports technology opening up large, adjacent markets.
Early years
Isaiah Kacyvenski was the youngest of five children growing up in upstate
Endicott,
New York. He grew up at times homeless and without food with his parents; his caring mother and his alcoholic and sometimes abusive father
until their divorce when he was nine.
When he was thirteen, his mother left to do missionary work, leaving the care of him and his siblings back with their father, now sober.
Kacyvenski attended
Union-Endicott High School
Union-Endicott High School (UEHS) is a public high school located in Endicott, New York, Endicott, New York (state), New York. The school, a part of the Union-Endicott Central School District, enrolls 1,280 students from 9-12 and has a student/tea ...
where he was an honors student and served as captain of the football team.
His ultimate goal was to earn a football scholarship to
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic university, Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin fo ...
to play with the
Fighting Irish
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are the athletic teams that represent the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish participate in 23 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I intercollegiate sports and in the NCAA's Divisi ...
.
His mother was killed by a truck as she walked along the road on the same day of Kacyvenski's biggest high school football game in his senior season. Upon hearing of his mother's death, he fell "to his knees crying." He ended up playing in the game that night, calling it one of the best games of his life.
He received a phone call at the end of his senior year from
Harvard Crimson football
The Harvard Crimson football program represents Harvard University in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). Harvard's football program is one of the oldest in the world, having begun ...
coach
Tim Murphy Timothy Murphy may refer to:
Politics
* Tim Murphy (American politician) (born 1952), American Republican Party politician from Pennsylvania
* Tim Murphy (Canadian politician) (born 1959), Canadian politician
* Timothy J. Murphy (1893–1949), I ...
offering him an academic scholarship.
While Kacyvenski was reluctant to go to for fear of not fitting in, his coach convinced him that he would never regret going to Harvard.
College career
While he was a freshman at Harvard, Kacyvenski came across items that belonged to his mother. Among the items he found a picture of his mother wearing a Harvard sweatshirt and her
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
with a passage highlighted: "Can a woman forget her own baby and not love the child she bore? Even if a mother should forget her child, I will never forget you. I can never forget you! I have written you in the palm of my hands." – Isaiah 49:15. Kacyvenski took these things as signs that he was making the right decision in his life.
Coincidentally, 49 was also the jersey number he had been randomly assigned upon arrival at Harvard.
For four years, Kacyvenski started every game at Harvard University.
As a freshman, he won the
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...
Rookie of the Year award, and for three years, won All-Ivy League first-team honors.
As a senior, he had a school single-season record 135 tackles, and for his college career, finished with a school career-record 395 tackles, 4.5 sacks, 11 interceptions, and 8 fumble recoveries. He received the
Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Award given to "best, most academically talented" football player in New England, and also the Harvard University Male Athlete of the Year following his senior season. Isaiah was a finalist for the Buck Buchanan Award that is given to the top 1-AA defensive player in the country, as well as a 1st Team Associated Press All-American.
In
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...
, Kacyvenski was selected in the 4th round of the NFL draft by the
Seattle Seahawks and became the highest draft pick in Harvard history. He graduated
cum laude with a pre-med degree, but elected to miss his commencement ceremony to attend the first days of football training camp.
His father attended the ceremony in cap and gown in Kacyvenski's stead and received the Harvard diploma for his son.
Professional career
Seattle Seahawks
Kacyvenski played six-plus seasons with the
Seattle Seahawks recording 267 tackles in 90 games and was elected as the Special Teams Captain 3 years in a row. In 2002, Isaiah earned the starting job at Middle Linebacker, after battling for the position with
Orlando Huff
Orlando Huff (born August 14, 1978) is a former American Football linebacker. He was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the fourth round of the 2001 NFL Draft. He played college football at Fresno State.
Huff was also a member of the Seattle Sea ...
. In 2005, Kacyvenski was Special Teams Captain of the Seattle Seahawks and helped lead the team to
Super Bowl XL
Super Bowl XL was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Seattle Seahawks and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion f ...
, which was played in
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...
. He was released by the team on September 30, 2006.
St. Louis Rams
Kacyvenski signed a one-year contract with the
St. Louis Rams
The St. Louis Rams were a professional American football team of the National Football League (NFL). They played in St. Louis from 1995 to the 2015 season, before moving back to Los Angeles, where the team had played from 1946 to 1994.
The arr ...
on October 3, 2006,
and played in ten games for them during the remainder of the 2006 season after suffering 2 concussions 3 weeks apart.
Oakland Raiders
An
unrestricted free agent
In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is ...
in the 2007 offseason, Kacyvenski signed a one-year contract with the
Oakland Raiders on July 11.
[ ] He was placed on season-ending
injured reserve on August 7 and released with an injury settlement a week later after undergoing
microfracture surgery
Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate the driving force on a crack and those of experimental solid mechanics t ...
on his leg.
Retirement
After being released by the Raiders with an injury settlement, Kacyvenski said he wanted to return for another season in the NFL.
However, in September 2008, it was reported that Kacyvenski had decided to retire. A knee injury kept him out of the 2007 season and it was recommended by
Dr. James Andrews
James Andrews (born May 2, 1942) is an American orthopedic surgeon. He is a surgeon for knee, elbow, and shoulder injuries and is a specialist in repairing damaged ligaments. Practicing in Gulf Breeze, Florida, Andrews has become one of the bes ...
that he not continue playing.
Also in September, Kacyvenski, the first of five other former NFL players that soon followed, agreed to donate his brain upon his death to the
Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, a joint program between the Boston University School of Medicine and Sports Legacy Institute in order to have research into the effects of concussions on the human brain performed. Kacyvenski, like many NFL players, suffered a number of concussions over the course of his playing career. At the end of 2008, Isaiah was awarded the
PETA Compassionate Action Award after being the first professional athlete to donate his brain to science.
He was elected to the Board of Directors of Sports Legacy Institute in 2008, and has used this as a platform for awareness surrounding head trauma and making contact sports safer to play.
Personal
Kacyvenski earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 2011.
Isaiah is currently the Founder and Managing Partner of Will Ventures. Will Ventures is a venture capital investment fund focused on sports technology.
Prior to Will Ventures, Isaiah was a Founder and Managing Director of the Sports Innovation Lab.
Prior to founding the Sports Innovation Lab, Kacyvenski was one of the first employees to join a very early stage MC10, an electronics company, and remained there for 6 years as the Global Head of Business Development as well as Chairman of the MC10 Sports-Medicine Advisory Board.
Kacyvenski is also an individual investor in, and advisor to, several companies in technology, sports, biotech, consumer, media and sports medicine.
On the July 12, 2007 episode of ''
The Oprah Winfrey Show
''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', often referred to as ''The Oprah Show'' or simply ''Oprah'', is an American daytime syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicago, Illinois. Produced ...
'', Kacyvenski appeared as the first guest to talk about his rough childhood and reconciliation with his abusive father.
Kacyvenski was featured in an
NFL Films
NFL Productions, LLC, doing business as NFL Films, is the film and television production company of the National Football League. It produces commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentaries for and about the NFL, as well as ...
production that was nominated for an
Emmy Award for Outstanding Long Feature in 2007.
On October 24, 2010, Kacyvenski was invited back to Seattle to raise the famous 12th Man Flag before the Seahawks played the Cardinals.
During his time at Harvard, Kacyvenski was roommates with
Christopher Nowinski, who later went on to become a
WWE
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vari ...
wrestler. After retiring from wrestling due to concussions, Nowinski has spearheaded the effort to make sports safer in the United States and worldwide.
Among his investments, Kacyvenski is a founding investor in b.good, a chain of casual restaurants located globally.
Kacyvenski was chosen to announce the
Seattle Seahawks second round draft pick from the podium during the
2013 NFL Draft
The 2013 NFL Draft was the 78th annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible football players. The draft, which is officially called the "NFL Player Selection Meeting", was held at Radio City Music Hall ...
, one of 32 NFL Greats chosen.
32 NFL Greats To Announce 2nd & 3rd Round Draft Picks In Primetime
nflcommunications.com (April 17, 2013)
References
External links
Oakland Raiders bio
St. Louis Rams bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kacyvenski, Isaiah
1977 births
Living people
Players of American football from Syracuse, New York
American football linebackers
Harvard Crimson football players
Seattle Seahawks players
St. Louis Rams players
Oakland Raiders players
Harvard Business School alumni