“There’s definitely pressure to come back. There’s the expectation that if you seem like you can play, you should do everything you can.”

BEFORE THE CAUSE, IN SEARCH OF A CAREER

During their college days, Nowinski and Kacyvenski shared many things—shaved heads, a propensity for stopping the run, and even a bunk bed (despite their combined weight of 550 pounds)—as part of what Nowinski called their “symbiotic relationship.” The summer before their senior season, the Polish Connection lived together in DeWolfe House, during which time Nowinski cooked and worked as a finance consultant from eight-to-five and trained with his teammate for the NFL at night.

“He was in the top bunk, I was on the bottom,” Kacyvenski says. “He would snore unbelievably loudly, because he was 50 pounds overweight. I developed an ability to throw pillows and shoes at him. Anything to get him to stop, even really loud clapping.”

After Kacyvenski finished his career as the Crimson’s all-time leader in tackles, the linebacker seemed destined for the next level, and was drafted in the fourth round of the 2000 NFL Draft by the Seattle Seahawks.

But two shoulder surgeries after his senior season meant the other half of the Connection was not destined to continue his football career.

After graduating cum laude with a degree in sociology, Nowinski moved on from football, beginning his first job as a consultant at Trinity Partners, a life sciences consulting firm in Waltham, Mass., that gave him his first experiences with the medical world.

There, he was paid well, but began to become uncomfortable with the long hours he needed to work and with the life he had begun to lead. He realized then that he was not a 40-hour-a-week guy.

His way out was just down the hall.

Nowinski’s boss, John Corker ’79, was, like Nowinski, an avid wrestling fan, and the two would often converse about the sport as an escape from work.

“We both expressed our somewhat hidden enjoyment of professional wrestling,” Nowinski says. “John had friends in the business and thought that I could make a career out of it.”

As a natural athlete, Nowinski decided to take the suggestion and run with it.

“[John] put the idea in my head that the consulting job would be there forever, but the window to be a professional wrestler was short,” Nowinski says. “He kind of gave me a license to go over to Killer Kowalski’s Pro Wrestling School and let me head out early to train.”

The former football player spent four nights a week honing his skills, turning in 14-hour days on a regular basis. After Nowinski spent a few months at the Allston facility, Corker—who had a few friends in the television industry—helped his consultant obtain a preliminary tryout with the WCW, the wrestling organization owned by Turner Broadcasting.

Nowinski then took matters into his own hands, submitting an application tape to the MTV reality show “Tough Enough.” His video was accepted, and though initially hesitant, Nowinski decided he would take the gig.