Six Years After Playing in the Super Bowl, He’s Tackling His Next Challenge: Business School
By Andrew Ramspacher
The scope of the Super Bowl hit home for Micah Kiser when, upon noticing his photos in the lead-up to the 2019 Big Game, his third-grade teacher messaged him on Instagram: “Wait, is that you?”
Kiser was 24 then, a rookie playing for the Los Angeles Rams, and on the heels of an outstanding career at the University of Virginia. The two-time All-America linebacker for the Cavaliers was primarily a special teams player for the Rams during their Super Bowl LIII matchup against the New England Patriots, meaning he was on the field for the opening kickoff of a game more than 98 million people across the world watched.
“I was shaking,” Kiser said. “It was a surreal moment.”
Kiser is 30 now and three years removed from his last football game. Nervous energy, though, still abounds as he tackles his first year at UVA’s Darden School of Business while juggling life as a husband and father.
“Back then, I was a young guy on an awesome team and thought I’d be doing that forever,” Kiser said. “The stakes are just so much higher now, especially with a family. You either make it or break it.”
Kiser and his wife, former UVA lacrosse player Maggie Preas, are parents to McKenzie, a 1-year-old girl who, according to her dad, is already displaying her athletic potential. “She’s a beast,” he said.
Observers of Wahoo football from 2013 to 2017 would likely describe Kiser in a similar fashion. He finished his UVA career with 411 tackles, still good for fifth-most in program history, along with 19 sacks, eight forced fumbles and six fumble recoveries.
Kiser greets fans during training camp with the Los Angeles Rams. A fifth-round pick of the Rams in 2018, Kiser made a career-high 77 tackles for the team in 2020. (Los Angeles Rams photo)
He was a two-time captain, including for the 2017 season when the Hoos made it to a bowl game for the first time in six years.
But Kiser’s UVA legacy is always tied to more than on-field achievement. On Dec. 5, 2017, seven months after he received his bachelor’s degree in foreign affairs, Kiser became the second Cavalier in program history to win the Campbell Trophy, an honor known as the “Academic Heisman,” given to the best football scholar-athlete in the nation.
It should come as no surprise he’s now flourishing at one of the country’s finest graduate business programs.
“He was a star student in my class and a natural leader,” said business administration professor Rajkumar Venkatesan, who had Kiser in his core marketing course in the fall. “He came prepared every day and actively contributed to the class. You could tell his peers look up to him.”
Kiser remains one of the best linebackers to wear a UVA uniform. In 2017, he became just the second player in Atlantic Coast Conference history to lead the league in tackles in three straight seasons. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)
That group includes Joe Rodrigues, a fellow first-year Darden School student and Kiser’s closest friend in the program. They’re both on the investment bank track and have leaned on one another through a strenuous recruiting process for summer internships.
On a Friday night in early January, when Rodrigues heard Kiser had received a job offer, he excitedly called Kiser to offer congratulations and ask where they could go to toast the occasion.
Except Kiser had other fun plans – like catching up on an accounting case in advance of Monday’s class.
Kiser holds proudly the Campbell Trophy after receiving the award during a ceremony in New York on Dec. 5, 2017. The Campbell Trophy, known as the “Academic Heisman,” annually goes to the best football scholar-athlete in the nation. (Contributed photo)
“I was like, ‘Dude, it’s Friday. That can wait,’” Rodrigues said. “But that’s Micah. This guy just can’t turn it off. He’s trying to succeed in any way he can. It’s admirable.”
That unrivaled work ethic has long been part of Kiser’s game plan. As a football player, Kiser said, “I was never the greatest athlete, by any means, so I had to be a high-level guy mentally in order to excel on the field.”
This meant long hours in the McCue Center, the old home for UVA football, where he’d dissect film and lift weights. “I worked out all the time,” he said. “I was a grinder. I wanted to be unbreakable.”
The Rams selected Kiser in the fifth round of the 2018 NFL Draft. He stayed in Los Angeles for parts of four seasons, peaking in September 2020 when his 16-tackle, one-forced fumble performance against the Philadelphia Eagles earned him National Football Conference Defensive Player of the Week honors.
A series of injuries, capped by a ruptured patella tendon as a member of the Las Vegas Raiders during training camp in 2022, eventually ended his football career.
The business pivot began as a stay-at-home dad studying for the GRE and later, after acceptance into the Darden School, included a cross-country family move from their home in Southern California.
Kiser and Preas – with McKenzie in tow – were officially back in Charlottesville last July. Classes began in August.
“This is me betting on myself,” said Kiser, who has secured a summer internship with Santander Corporate and Investment Banking in New York. “I have a family, so I have to make it work.”
He’s doing it in the only way he knows how. Without Super Bowls to play anymore, he’s re-channeled his will to succeed.
“I see school as a competition,” Kiser said. “I want to get good grades, but I also want my teachers to come away and say, ‘I had Micah Kiser in class. He’s a bright guy who brought a lot to class and people look up to him.’”
This article was originally published in UVA Today.
The University of Virginia Darden School of Business prepares responsible global leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences. Darden’s graduate degree programs (MBA, MSBA and Ph.D.) and Executive Education & Lifelong Learning programs offered by the Darden School Foundation set the stage for a lifetime of career advancement and impact. Darden’s top-ranked faculty, renowned for teaching excellence, inspires and shapes modern business leadership worldwide through research, thought leadership and business publishing. Darden has Grounds in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Washington, D.C., area and a global community that includes 18,000 alumni in 90 countries. Darden was established in 1955 at the University of Virginia, a top public university founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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