Jim Ivler, Penn State Class of 1990, has his own personal list of favorite Penn Staters.
And like a lot of PSU grads, it’s filled with past and present Nittany Lion football players:
Like Tamba Hali, Robbie Gould, John Urschel, Jordan Hill and Donovan Smith. And Deon Butler, Michael Haynes, Deion Barnes and DaQuan Jones.
New to his list in 2016 are recent grads Anthony Zettel and Kyle Carter.
That list is not only at the forefront of his mind nearly 24/7, but everyone on it is in Ivler’s cellphone as well – on speed dial. All those players have one thing in common: Ivler was or is their NFLPA certified contract advisor.
In other words, their agent. Ivler negotiates their contracts, works out their marketing deals, funded their preparation for the NFL Combine and helps manage myriad aspects of their lives.
A graduate of Widener Law School, Ivler has been a partner in Sportstars Inc. in New York City for 23 years. He has over 30 clients currently in the NFL whom he personally keeps tabs on – the agency has multiples of that – and while “his guys” aren’t all Penn Staters, about 30% are.
GETTING DRAFTY
This is a big week for Ivler, as well as Zettel and Carter. The NFL Draft is Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with a mad free agent scramble sure to follow in the days that follow. So a big chunk of Ivler’s focus is on Zettel, an athletic freak on the defensive side of the ball and first-team All-Big Ten in 2014, and Carter, a first-team freshman All-American tight end in 2012 who has since shown splashes of great potential.
Ivler isn’t sure where – or if – they’ll get drafted – but he likes what they’ve done, with his guidance and financial investment, over the past four months to put themselves in the best position possible.
“I’m really proud of both Anthony and Kyle because they’ve had really great post-seasons,” Ivler said. “They’ve worked really hard and they’ve performed really well. They went to the East-West Shrine Game. Anthony was at the Combine. They both did Pro Day and teams have come in to look at both of them. I have no idea how high they’ll be drafted. They could go as high as the mid-rounds to not being drafted. The truth will probably be somewhere in-between.”
Ivler has a couple of clients who should draw special interest in the 2016 draft. Michigan center Graham Glasgow could go as high as the second round. And Ivler has the only two Division II players who were among the 335 players invited to the NFL Combine in Indianapolis – Matt Judon and Dominique Robertson. Judon, a defensive lineman from Grand Valley State, won the Gene Upshaw Trophy as Division II’s top lineman last season. Robertson is a 6-foot-5, 324-pound offensive line behemoth who played for West Georgia by way of junior college and Texas Tech.
Much of Ivler’s business is relationship-based. So just like current Nittany Lions in the NFL vouch for Ivler with potential new clients, he signed Robertson the same way. Robertson’s uncle is George Warhop, the offensive line coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And one of Warhop’s top talents in 2015 was a rookie left offensive tackle by the name of Donovan Smith, an Ivler client and former Nittany Lion who was drafted in the second round last year – higher than many folks predicted – and had a stellar rookie season in the NFL.
Once Ivler signs a player – he’s careful to point that never happens until the season is over and a player’s eligibility is up and/or he’s finished his third season – he does a lot more than negotiate his contract. From being the point person on the successful efforts to get Hali’s mother out of Liberia to setting up Zettel and Carter with all-expense-paid training this winter at athletic performance giant EXOS in San Diego, Ivler is part-agent, part-career adviser and all-in on Nittany Lion football players.
PENN STATEMENT
“I have to be careful what I say so my non-Penn State clients don’t get jealous. But I’ve been blessed,” Ivler said over coffee at The Corner Room two weeks ago. He was in town for the Blue-White Game, but stayed an extra few days to see Bruce Springsteen (“for about the 50th time” with his daughter Randi, a Penn State sophomore).
“Although people would accuse me of not being objective,” Ivler said, “I would say that by and large a very, very high majority of Penn State guys I’ve signed have shown themselves to be of the highest character and intelligent. They’re hard-working and they get it. I’d like to think that part of it is due to my vetting process. The same way that a player is evaluating an agent during the recruiting process, I’m doing the same with a player. If I’m not feeling it, I’ll pass.”
Once they’re on Ivler’s team, though, he’ll do all he can to help out his clients – “as long as it’s legal,” the lawyer in him quickly adds.
Take the case of Hali, who came to the United States with his family when he was 10 years old and despite all kinds of efforts for over a decade, his mother was still unable to make it out of Africa and into the United States.
“I was intimately aware of the story, since he went to high school in New Jersey, where I lived,” Ivler said. “He spoke to her once or twice a year, if she was able to find a phone. It was a war-torn country and Penn State had been working on trying to get her out for four years.
“He asked if I could help. The ensuing months were a series of things that best could be made into a screenplay and, with the twists and the turns, into a major motion picture. We got high-level political people involved, and the Paterno family was involved – all of them with varying degrees of success. Ultimately, we turned it into an ‘Inside the NFL’ HBO piece, which ends with me walking off the plane with his mother in Kansas City into his and his brother’s arms. When you become an NFL agent you don’t think you’re going to be dealing with Liberian immigration officials. But it was what he needed and he held up his end of the bargain – he was the 20th pick of the draft, which isn’t bad.”
SELLING URSCHEL
Ivler’s most unusual Penn State client ever? That’s easy. John Urschel.
Urschel was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the fifth round of the 2014 NFL Draft and in 2015 worked his way into the starting lineup for seven of the team’s 16 games – that’s 43.75% of all Ravens games. It’s Urschel’s brain and his ability to articulate and integrate mathematics into everyday life that make him Ivler’s most sought-after client. Ever. Urschel earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in math at Penn State and is currently pursuing a PhD at MIT.
“They don’t come much brighter than John Urschel and he’s about as independent as it gets,” says Ivler. “But he still needs our help. Just handling his non-football calendar can be overwhelming, because in the 23 years I’ve been doing this I’ve never had the number of the types of companies and institutions making a request that I’ve had for John.
“We’ve partnered up with companies that normally would not be interested in an NFL player. That John brings a unique skill set would be an understatement. From Fortune 500 companies like General Electric and Texas Instruments to cutting edge technology companies like Persado, which is based in New York City, he is in high demand. We’ve heard from high-level educational institutions around the world. We’ve heard from seemingly every STEM organization that’s ever been created. I certainly learned what that acronym means. It’s non-stop.
“John is as low maintenance and unaffected by all this as much as you can possibly be,” Ivler added. “He recognizes this incredible opportunity in front of him right now, having this dual life of an NFL player and an academic. He gets 10 to 12 opportunities a week. I’ve never seen anything like it. We have to pick and choose. He gets compensated well and recognizes that this window is only going to be here a short time – he can be an academic his whole life, but he’s only going to be in the NFL for a small number of years.
FUN AND FANDOM
As a Penn State undergraduate from a Penn State family (his father, brother and wife all have PSU degrees), Ivler was as diehard Penn State sports fan as there is. His face was on a Penn State basketball marketing brochure, showing him cheering wildly in the front row at Rec Hall. His class ring has the inscription, “1986 National Champs.”
“Other than cheering very loudly at the games, I didn’t have very much of a role on the ’86 team,” he said. “But it was certainly a significant and seminal moment in my life. I’m a huge Penn State fan. I’d love to see Penn State win the national championship very year. It’s not the same maniacal fandom, now that you know how the sausage is made.”
First and foremost, Ivler roots for his clients. That made Super Bowl 50 easy this year, since Broncos’ starting right tackle Michael Schofield — “a third-rounder from Michigan two years ago,” says Ivler – was his only client on either roster.
It made Super Bowl XLIX between Seattle and New England agonizing. Early in the contest, Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane, picked off Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, fracturing his arm and tearing his ACL in the process. Seattle lost, 28-24. (But Lane did come back healthy the next season and signed a new, enhanced contract.)
And it made Super Bowl XLVIII a blast, thanks to having four clients – including Penn Stater Jordan Hill — on the winning team’s roster. The game was played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., not far from Ivler’s home. After the Seahawks dismantled Denver 43-8, he took his daughter Randi onto the field as it rained confetti. Then, afterwards they went to Seattle’s team hotel and enjoyed the celebration.
“It was a special night, to share that with my daughter and have her kiss the Lombardi Trophy,” Ivler said. “It’s times like that when it’s neat to be in this business.”
