Dave Szott, after 14 years as an offensive guard in the NFL, is the New York Jets director of player development. Photo courtesy of New York Jets.
USA TODAY has been recognizing the nation’s top high school athletes for more than 30 years. As we prepare to announce the 2014 American Family Insurance ALL-USA Football Team in a few months, we’ll dig into the archives and check in with ALL-USA honorees from the past three decades. Today, we’re catching up with New York Jets director of player development Dave Szott, who was an ALL-USA offensive lineman at Clifton, N.J., in 1985 and went on to play for Penn State and three NFL teams, including an All-Pro season with the Kansas City Chiefs in 1997.
Dave Szott started all but six games in 14 seasons while playing offensive guard for the Kansas City Chiefs, Washington and New York Jets, but as the Jets’ director of player development, he reminds players the NFL also stands for Not For Long.
“What other business would have an occupation encouraging people to look into another form of work?” Szott says. “We’re essentially HR directors. We focus on helping our new players into the game and preparing our older players to transition out of the game. We work with continuing education, financial education and career development, figuring out what they want to do when football is done. We’ve done everything from coaching internships to outside internships.”
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Szott, 46, prepared for the physical pounding of playing on the offensive line by growing up in Clifton with two older brothers who were wrestlers and football players. His oldest brother, Ed, was a Division III All-American offensive lineman at St. Lawrence University. His other brother, Kevin, despite being legally blind since he was 10, played football for St. Lawrence, was a strength coach at Penn State and won three Paralympic gold medals.
“It was a very physical house,” Szott says. “Both of my brothers drove me and Kevin was particularly ruthless in challenging his younger brother. He was very successful and very driven. He’s a guy today who takes two trains to work because he can’t drive. I would look at him and say, if he can do it, why can’t I?”
Szott started as a freshman at offensive guard at Penn State, but was moved to defense as a nose tackle his sophomore and junior years.
“I was asked to move and I moved over for the team,” Szott says. “I knew it was a selfless act. I liked defense, but I did not love it. People say you get to hit on defense, but I would argue on the offensive line, you get to do it every play. On defense, you get to hit if you’re lucky on a given play. On the line, you’re able to hammer all day.”
He moved back to the offensive line as a senior and was drafted in the seventh round by the Chiefs in 1990.
“At the time, only 10 percent made it in the league among seventh-rounders,” Szott said. “I was totally sold on and focused on making the club and took it a practice and a day at a time.”
Because his first mini-camp with the Chiefs was that spring, he left Penn State shy of a degree but continued taking classes in the offseason until he graduated six years later.
“I had a backup plan if I didn’t make it,” Szott said. “I thought I would end up coaching and teaching at a local high school.”
Sticking around in the league became even more important in 1995, when he and his wife Andrea had their first child, Shane, who was born with cerebral palsy.
“When you are thrust into the world of disabilities, it’s not something you sign up for,” Szott said. “It was a difficult, long journey. Because of my wife’s strong faith, we were able to persevere through it. I had the easy part because she had to deal with it all day and I got to go off to work. I would go to practice, then come straight home. Shane’s taught us more than we could teach him. It’s not easy, but afterward, you’re much better for it.”
Shane’s medical needs were a factor in Szott’s deciding to sign with the Jets in 2002.
“When the door opened to play for the Jets, I got to finish my career at home,” Szott said. “Plus, the medical and educational services for Shane were much more extensive here. The owner, Woody Johnson, has been fantastically supportive of me in my career.”
After Szott retired as a player in 2004, then-Jets coach Herm Edwards offered him a job as an assistant offensive line coach on a reduced schedule, allowing Szott to spend more time at home. When the job became a full-time position under then-Jets coach Eric Mangini in 2006, Szott became the team’s chaplain for two years. He became the team’s director of player development in 2008 when the Jets moved their practice facility to Florham Park, only 10 minutes from Szott’s house in Morristown.
Though he has a few aches and pains left over from his years in the trenches, he says he’s relatively healthy, especially since the 6-4 Szott has dropped 30 to 35 pounds from his playing weight of 290.
Working so close to home, he’s enjoyed getting to coach his second son, Josh, in youth football.
“As his coach, I was definitely harder on him than anyone else,” Szott said. “That’s what’s hard for a son of a coach. You see a lot of things they do wrong.”
Josh, who is 6-3 and 170, is a sophomore football and basketball player now at Delbarton School (Morristown, N.J.).
“I try to be realistic with him, that only 1.2 percent of college players get to have a career in the NFL,” Szott says. “Even at Penn State, only two or three played in the NFL for more than three years. How you tell someone that and not kill their dream? I tell him he has to continue to prepare and dream but also prepare for the worst. If he could make it to an NFL practice team, I would be thrilled because I know how hard that is.”
Szott’s latest challenge is he and his wife have recently begun giving foster care to a baby girl.
“I can get up at 6 a.m. or 5 a.m., but the 1 and 2 a.m. feedings, I can’t do that anymore and function,” Szott says. “I was hoping we would foster an older child, but my wife had other plans. She was 10 days old when we brought her home. We had a little bassinet and a few other things, but now the house looks like Babies R Us.”