Aaron Brady made the most out of his time at Rutgers, going on to graduate with a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology as part of the class of 1999. Brady also made his mark on the football field as he is currently the sixth leading tackler in Rutgers history. Since that time, football has remained an integral part of his life.

This fall, Brady will begin his first season as the head coach of Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. However, it was quite a journey that enabled him to reach that point.

"I grew up in a small town on a farm," said Brady, a native of Hanover, Pa. "In my high school, we really didn't have many Division 1 players. We had like three Division 1 players in fifty years, but football was a real big deal in my town."

Brady was also a standout baseball player, but started to receive quite a bit of attention for his performance as a safety on the football field. He received scholarship offers from nine different schools and narrowed his choices down to Boston College, Rutgers and Northwestern.

"Rutgers was the first one to offer me," said Brady. "I didn't know that much about it. When I went on my visit, the guys there were incredible. After my visit, I really wanted to go there."

For the next five years, Brady left his stamp on the Rutgers program. He started thirty-seven consecutive games at safety and linebacker and still remains the sixth leading tackler in school history.

Once his playing days at Rutgers were over, the two-time All Big-East selection focused on a future in the NFL. Brady signed a free-agent contract with the New York Giants, only to be released before the start of the 1999 season.

"After I got cut, I was watching the waver line, waiting for someone to get hurt or get cut," said Brady. "But nothing ever happened."

It was then that Brady embarked on a new venture that would go on to shape his future. He took a job coaching the defensive backs at Newark East Side High School.

"It changed my life," said Brady. "That was the first time I ever coached kids. These were kids who didn't know where the next meal was coming from, kids that didn't have anywhere to go home to. Practice was the best time of day for those kids. For two hours, they had no worries."

Following that season, Brady had an opportunity to return to the football field and play for a team in NFL Europe. But an opportunity of another kind also arose. Brady was offered a coaching job at Mansfield University.

"At that point, I wanted to devote my life to coaching," said Brady. "After being in big time football, I wanted to get back to that level. The best way to that was by coaching."

Brady began to rise through the ranks after spending a year at Mansfield. He moved on to become a Graduate Assistant at Duke for two years before obtaining an assistant coaching job at Georgetown.

From there, Brady also spent a year as an assistant coach for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League.

"It's a different world up there," said Brady. "The people love it, they love you there. That was a super experience for me. I really enjoyed being up there. That actually helped me in coaching coming back to the U.S. with the passing game on defense. Up there, there is so much field to cover."

Brady returned to coach at Georgetown, but was forced to leave because the head coach had been fired and his staff was subsequently not asked to return. That led Brady to begin his coaching career at the high school level.

"I got married that year and my wife was still a resident so she couldn't leave her residency," said Brady. "So I applied for the head coaching job at Bullis High School and I got it."

A couple of years later, Brady and his wife left for Florida where he coached a year at Nease High School, the alma mater of 2010 first-round NFL Draft pick Tim Tebow. He returned to Maryland a year later to coach at the Landon School before being offered the head coaching position at Gonzaga this past February.

"I've learned a lot," said Brady. "It's not great to bounce around a lot but in bouncing around, I've learned a lot from a lot of different people. I've taken things from each place that are good. At the end of the day now, my biggest goal is to make sure football is a positive part of the high school experience for these kids."

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