Exclusive: Grant Newsome turned career-ending injury to lifelong job
All at once, everything changed for Grant Newsome.
As a sophomore, he started at left tackle for Michigan, and his NFL aspirations were legitimate.
Newsome's future as a pro was inevitable at 6-foot-7 with a high football IQ and absurd physical attributes. In the blink of an eye, a knee injury from a low hit against Wisconsin in 2016 changed his life forever.
He nearly lost his leg and went through six surgeries in a little over a month.
Newsome sat out the next season and thought he would be able to return in 2018.
For two years, the New Jersey native dug into his roots, and in gritty Jersey fashion, he did everything he could to return to the gridiron.
Two years into his rehab, he realized his career as a football player was over, but Newsome's story was already written. He just didn't know it yet.
"I got hurt in 2016, but it probably wasn't until 2018 when I finally accepted that, alright, I'm not going to continue playing on the field, at least not the way I want. It was definitely a tough realization at first," Newsome told Maize & Blue Review in an exclusive interview at Schembechler Hall on the campus of the University of Michigan. "I'm super fortunate to be here and have Coach Harbaugh who made that transition super easy, where I was able to work through what I really wanted to do in my life all while still being involved and still being part of the team."
Six years after the injury, Newsome has risen from player-coach to tight ends coach.
At 25 years old, he's the youngest full-time assistant coach in college football.
How did he get here?
Newsome wasn't ready for football to end unless it was on his own terms. And football wasn't quite done with him yet, either.
After retiring, he joined the staff as a student coach and worked with then-tight ends coach Jay Harbaugh, who's held many positions at U-M, currently as special teams and safeties coach.
Harbaugh, the son of head coach Jim Harbaugh, is one of many mentors for Newsome.
"I think I've been super, super fortunate to learn from all of our great coaches," said Newsome. "Coach Jim Harbaugh, Jay Harbaugh, Sherrone Moore, Josh Gattis, and the list goes on and on of people I've been very fortunate to be mentored by."
Newsome stuck with the tight ends for two seasons before earning a graduate assistant position and switching to the offensive line in 2020. While helping out Sherrone Moore for two seasons (2020-21), Newsome's future, once in question, materialized.
"I think it was a byproduct of the situation. I really had no intentions of coaching. I always thought I would hopefully play in the NFL and then do something else with my life outside of football," said Newsome. "I think being hurt, not being able to leave football on the terms that I was ready for or how I wanted, kind of drew me towards coaching. Then I fell in love with it."
Newsome is in love with his job and humbly understands how much more he needs to learn about it, but so much of what it takes to coach is innate to him.
"When Grant first was a student coach, you knew he would be an exceptional coach. His details, focus, how smart he is, how he coaches the game — obviously, he was a really good player — but just his thought process and the way he attacks everything," co-offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore said. "You can see him going up in the ranks."
With his work ethic, people skills, and two Michigan degrees (Bachelor's in American Culture; Master's in Public Policy), Newsome wasn't going to struggle for long. If he needed a career outside of football, he'd be alright.
Newsome's story is the epitome of what it takes to make something great out of something tragic. To be resilient and not sit around feeling bad for yourself when things don't go as planned.
When football took everything from him, he still didn't blame it or swear off the sport.
His life plans always had the NFL in them, and many people say that, but few of them are 6-foot-7 and an anchor at left tackle for a 10-2 Michigan team as a sophomore.
Still, he stuck around, returned to Ann Arbor, not as a player, but to coach the guys he played alongside not long ago, and in betting on himself, Newsome didn't have to wonder what he was going to do ever again.
"(Michigan) means everything. It's my home. It's where I became a man. I came here at 18 years old. You think you have an idea of who you are and what you want to be, but it's really those formative years I spent here and going through the life experience I went through. Then getting the opportunity to coach and start my adult life here. It's really meant everything," said Newsome. "All of us who have been blessed enough to go through here and get all the benefits that Michigan has to offer. I feel like we owe this University, the program, and the coaches something."
He continued.
"I think that, for me, I'm trying to pass along a little piece of what I experienced to the next generation of Michigan football players. It feels like that's what I'm called to do."
With his passion for the University at the foundation of his decision to coach, he's making a bit more than he did as a pre-NIL era offensive lineman.
At 25, he's earned a base salary of $250,000 as U-M's tight ends coach. The median salary for Americans his age is $39,000.
Following his four seasons as a student coach and graduate assistant, Harbaugh promoted Newsome and, in doing so, changed his life forever.
It wasn't without a challenge. Newsome had to mature fast and without much of a warning. He remained unfazed.
One second, Newsome was a student at U-M who was stepping in as a coach during practice because he couldn't play; the next, he was a full-time coach.
Like any fast riser in an industry where the top is occupied by highly experienced middle-aged men, Newsome quickly had to grow up and leave college life behind for the coaching life -- two totally different worlds.
"It's definitely a transition to go from being a player — and obviously, it's extremely tough because of the physical and mental demands — but it's different. At the end of the day, you leave the facility, and you may watch film, but you're still a student. Still a kid in some ways," Newsome said. "When you transition to coaching, it's different. The responsibilities are different. The expectations are different. The lifestyle is different. So I definitely did have to grow up and mature a little more than I would've had I not gotten injured. But again, I've been super lucky to be here where our guys are super mature, so it's really made for an easier transition than it should've been."
By accident, Newsome fell in love with coaching. His knowledge of the game -- not an accident -- was like a figurative rocket strapped to his back, quickly sending him from the ground floor of a retired football player trying to coach football to one of the brightest young minds in the sport.
Crediting everyone around him for his success is the type of person Newsome is. But the truth is, he's just a naturally good ball coach and has been from the jump.
Don't take my word for it. Hear what Newsome's boss had to say.
"(Grant) checked every box from the moment he stepped on campus -- in every way. As a player and as a worker, respected by all his teammates, respected by all of his coaches. He respects everybody on campus and within the team. Anybody that comes he comes in contact with, he has a positive effect on literally everybody. Transitioning into a student assistant and graduate assistant, and now coach -- he continues to check every single box," Jim Harbaugh said when I asked him about Newsome during his weekly press conference on September 12. "Doing a great job communicating, doing a great job coaching."
In Harbaugh fashion, we got a story out of it.
"He had one of his finest hours last Monday, a week ago. In our opportunity scrimmage, where we had players who didn't play much in the game, they get to be developed, they get to be coached, and they get to play in a scrimmage. Grant called the plays for the offense. You've got 10 minutes, it's a 10-minute scrimmage," Harbaugh explained. "The offense starts from the 25-yard line. The offense scored and turned around, from the 25-yard line, to score again in about a minute and 43 seconds with a running clock. The practice ball went to Grant Newsome, and he was able to check another box. Just continues on with numbing repetition of the way he checks the boxes."
Newsome put on the polo instead of the pads, and he seamlessly adapted because he embodied most of what goes into being a successful football coach by being who he is. A football junkie, a conversationist, and a born leader.
"He's done an outstanding job and continues to do it. Coaches his guys really hard. He does a lot of what I do because he worked with me for so long. But he's taken his own way of doing things, which is really good," said Moore. "That's what you have to do if you want to be a good coach. The sky is the limit for Grant and his coaching career. He's great with Xs and Os, but he has a great ability to relate with the players because he was just in their shoes. But at the same time, that separation of coach and player, he does a good job of keeping it that way, so they don't look at him as just a friend. He's their coach, and they really do look at him like that."
In 2016, before the injury, Newsome played alongside Ben Bredeson, a former guard whose brother, Max, is a tight end at U-M.
Sometimes, life comes full circle. Newsome ended up as Max's coach.
"Grant is the man. Great football mind and helps so much. Knows everything there is to know about football. Obviously, being a young guy, before the game, Ben sent me a picture of him and Grant playing against Hawaii (who Michigan was playing the day he sent it). Definitely being young, he's played here. He gets it — how everything works," Max Bredeson said. "Love him as a coach. As soon as he stepped in as tight ends coach, it was seamless. We started rolling right away. Definitely glad to have him as a coach."
Sometimes overzealous and overstated, Harbaugh wasn't kidding about the plethora of boxes Newsome checks.
He can scheme, coach, relate, and recruit.
Perhaps his best trait, though, is associated with his inexperience -- his youth -- because if he's this good at 25, imagine how good he'll be at 35.
But before you can coach at a level like the Big Ten, you need your own philosophy.
What's his?
In Grant Newsome fashion, it's something he learned in a conversation with one of his mentors.
"The one thing I live by is something I took from Sherrone. Players don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. That's one thing I try to carry in every day," Newsome said. "I'm going to coach the guys hard and demand a lot from them as they would want. At the same time, I'm going to love them and treat them with the respect that they all deserve and recognize them for the people they are."
So, how's the youngest assistant coach in college football doing through four weeks?
Without star tight end Erick All, who was out due to injury, tight end Luke Schoonmaker had 7 catches for 72 yards and a touchdown in Michigan's Big Ten opener against Maryland on September 24.
Not a bad start, young man.
We'll see how far football continues to take Newsome, a tireless worker who refused to quit on the game that molded him.
He won't tell you, but he's more than college football's youngest assistant coach. If you ask anyone around him, he's its next star.
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