Serious Business
Sam Ehlinger, BBA ’21, UT’s star quarterback, balances the demands of football with the rigors of McCombs.
By Todd Savage
Five mornings a week, Sam Ehlinger, BBA ’21, treads up the slow-rising hill along 21st Street from Moncrief Training Center to the CBA building at McCombs. It’s a well-worn path for the Austin native, connecting two places where he spends many hours on campus. He begins his mornings with a workout in the football training center, pushing past a door greeting players with a placard reminding them that EVERYTHING MATTERS and down hallways decorated with trophies from past championship seasons and displays heralding legendary Longhorns.
Ehlinger, who took over as starting quarterback last year and led Texas to its best season in a decade, spends hours a day at the training center, working out, meeting with players and coaches, reviewing film of opposing defense for next week’s game, and getting massages and other post-workout treatments. Up the hill at McCombs, he’s sitting in business classes or huddling with other student entrepreneurs on a start-up project. Then he’s back to the team for practice, more care for his body, and then studying with his teammates in the football academic center.
“It’s all about compartmentalizing,” Ehlinger says. “Once I put the football stuff behind me, then I’m focused on school. It’s a busy schedule from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. It’s the only way really to do it.”
And yet Ehlinger says he sees football and business as complementary pursuits. “The atmosphere created by the professors as well as the students at McCombs is parallel with how successful athletes succeed on the field. Everyone in that class is working to be the best. Everyone is working to learn as much as possible. When I leave the football facility to go to class, I’m still around that competitive environment, so nothing really changes. I come back to training, and I’m still in a competitive mindset.”
For Longhorn fans, Ehlinger’s biography is well-known by now. Since taking over as starting quarterback last season, he emerged as a leader and face for Texas football. This year, he was named one of five team captains, his face was on the cover of magazines, from Austin Monthly to Sports Illustrated, and he’s on pace to challenge many long-held Longhorn records for passing and touchdowns. Early season buzz had already talked up Ehlinger for Heisman consideration.
Ehlinger has been observing and studying UT football all his life. Both UT alumni, Ehlinger’s parents grew up dressing him and his siblings in burnt orange and taking them to games. His father died suddenly when Sam was 14, and he went on to play football at Austin’s Westlake High School. “Even through the tough times, The University of Texas has always been a source of happiness for my family and me,” he wrote to his 65,000 followers on Twitter, where he’s identified as “Quarterback/McCombs Business Student.”
Ehlinger was drawn to the business school based on what he heard growing up. “Observing what successful people were doing, I gathered some information and heard how prestigious the McCombs School of Business at UT was. My dad was a lawyer, and he said never to go to law school,” Sam says with a grin, “so I think that led me to business.” His younger brother, Jake, is a freshman at McCombs and a walk-on with the team.
Ehlinger says he thrives in his business classes because he can already see the real-world application of everything he’s learning. “It’s also exciting to be connected to the McCombs name and be learning things that will help you be successful in the future,” he says.
Like other ambitious business students, he has already started a company, with two other McCombs students. “Through McCombs I’ve made incredible connections with successful business people,” Ehlinger says. “I can apply every single class that I’m taking to my own company and just run scenarios through my head and apply it in a real-world sense instead of just seeing it in the book and trying to remember it.”
What he has already learned is how to handle the media spotlight with the criticism and adulation that comes along with it. He works hard to stay in the present, whatever the task before him. “When I’m in the facility working out, that’s all I’m focused on. That’s the same way I am when I go to class. You have to be locked in. You have to stay focused or you’re going to miss some important information. If I want to succeed in football and I want to succeed in school, then I’m going to have to work hard in both of them. I don’t really have an option.”
Leadership is a key skill, whether guiding an offense on the field or directing an organization. Ehlinger has been praised for his ability with a diverse range of players on the team. Why does he think he has been so successful in this area? Explains Ehlinger: “The only way to have a great relationship with someone is to be equal. That seems elementary, but if you show anybody any sign that you’re higher up in a job than someone else, you’re automatically discredited.”
He also understands that you have to connect with people to build a bond. “My life story with my father passing away, that’s obviously one of the tougher things that you’d have to go through in life, and so people respect that I’ve done that and still work very hard. They understand that not everything has been easy for me in life, and you have to connect and relate to people in order to lead them.”
What does he consider a good leader or leadership? He doesn’t subscribe to the “it’s lonely at the top” idea of being a leader. “I believe if you’re a leader, it should be the opposite of lonely, because you’re always bringing people along with you,” he says. “Leadership is having a heartbeat for what others around you need, and everybody is different. You never know what’s going on in their heads and so you have to go into it with an open and equal mindset.”
This article appeared in the fall 2019 issue of McCombs magazine. Click on the link to see the full issue.
