{"id":1559,"date":"2023-02-20T14:16:34","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T19:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/?p=1559"},"modified":"2023-02-20T18:33:34","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T23:33:34","slug":"from-red-dragon-to-philadelphia-eagle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/2023\/02\/20\/from-red-dragon-to-philadelphia-eagle\/","title":{"rendered":"From Red Dragon to Philadelphia Eagle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Cortland graduate\u2019s journey to the Philadelphia Eagles staff.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyshawn Gray, a person who has been counted out his entire life, surpassed the odds to work in an NFL building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born prematurely at twenty-five weeks, Tyshawn was just a pound and a half at conception. \u201cThe doctor told my mom not to worry about me,\u201d Gray said. \u201cHe told her I would not be alive the next day.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite enduring multiple procedures from birth to when he was about five, Gray had a clean bill of health until tragedy struck his senior year of high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyshawn was rushed into the emergency room for immediate brain surgery due to complications from his premature birth. With the incident occurring just a week before his graduation, peers, and teachers felt his seat would be empty on that celebratory day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, he arrived on graduation day with no signs of vapidity. \u201cMy classmates did not know I was coming.\u201d Tyshawn insisted on crossing the stage on his lonesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI saw one of the deans following close behind me as I crossed the stage,” he said. “So I turned around and said ‘man I got this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This situation speaks to the dedication Gray has to success and the effort he ultimately bestows in mastering his craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that being said, Tyshawn recognizes the impact sport can have on the youth. As a varsity basketball player in high school and a coach working various clinics, sports encompassed the essence of his life work: to teach through sport. That ultimately led him to SUNY Cortland to study sport management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a four-year academic journey in Cortland, Gray set his sights on the biggest league in American sport: the National Football League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He spent 2021 with the Philadelphia Eagles working for the team equipment staff as he fulfilled the required internship for his degree. The intern looked at this base-level position as a \u201cstepping stone to get into the building.\u201d He then doubled down and completed a second internship with the Eagles in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2022 was quite a successful year for Philadelphia. Their season ended in a Super Bowl LVII appearance that totaled over 100 million concurrent viewers. Tyshawn was lucky enough to be on the sidelines for the game, experiencing its ups and downs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While everyone knows Jalen Hurts and AJ Brown, not many know about Tyshawn Gray. Doing the dirty work behind the scenes became the intern\u2019s call to duty. “I put in over 140 hours over two weeks throughout the leadup to the Super Bowl,” Gray stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of this, he says, \u201ceven in the equipment room we feel the impact of the wins and the losses. After the Super Bowl loss, you could have heard a pin drop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Via Gray & PHI Eagles<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While Gray is unsure what his immediate next steps will be, he does not doubt that he wants to be a part of the next wave of society growing through sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to make sure the youth of our country knows that sports are not the only way to live a successful and fulfilling life,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyshawn is living proof that success can be arduous. He can also be proof that obstacles and barriers are simply roadblocks in the way of achieving your full potential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Cortland graduate\u2019s journey to the Philadelphia Eagles staff. Tyshawn Gray, a person who has been counted out his entire life, surpassed the odds to work in an NFL building. Born prematurely at twenty-five weeks, Tyshawn was just a pound and a half at conception. \u201cThe doctor told my mom not to worry about me,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":1563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured-news-article","category-sports","entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2023\/02\/IMG-1304.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2023\/02\/IMG-1304.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Lorenzo Wilkins","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/author\/lorenzo-wilkins\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}