Leigh Steinberg is representing the NFLs hottest player, reigning MVP and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Hes represented eight Hall of Famers, including quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Steve Young, during their playing days.
Given his experience and tenure, Steinberg is among the most knowledgeable in the sports world. Hes mentored people such as TCU athletics director Jeremiah Donati and Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza. Hes also groomed other high-profile agents who have since broken off on their own such as Athletes Firsts David Dunn and Rep1s Bruce and Ryan Tollner.
Steinberg will share what hes learned over the years later this month at the Steinberg Sports Career Conference on March 23 at SMU, a program he started geared toward those interested in working in sports.
Steinberg, who inspired the Oscar-nominated film Jerry Maguire, talked about the seminars and other pressing NFL topics.
Q: People link you to Jerry Maguire and your popular Super Bowl party and see the fun side of being an agent. But thats not the day to day life, right?
A: Yes. The first thing you want to do is be realistic about the level of competition. There are 900 certified agents, so you want to be realistic with young people about how
treacherous a path to sports agency can be. We talk about persuasion and recruiting and how to find clients, but mostly how to listen. Understanding your clients deepest hopes and dreams. There are three central components to sports agency _ recruiting, contract negotiations and client relations.
Q: You recruited a pretty good one in Mahomes.
A: Hes the hottest player in professional sports right now in some ways. Hes new. Hes gifted. Hes a wonderful person. Given the fact that hes the MVP of the league in his first year of starting, well have intense curiosity of how he got there.
Q: Did you see him getting there?
A: You could see he was an extraordinarily gifted talent at Texas Tech. What some people failed to accurately project was they only looked at the Air Raid offense and thought he was a gunslinger. Well, Texas Techs defense was such that if he had to score 50-plus points a game. It put tremendous pressure on him to score every drive. But his skill set and freakishly gifted arm, his intelligence, his athletic temperament, made him an ideal franchise quarterback prospect. And, if you liked him as a player, you loved him as a person.
Hes the consummate role model.