Donte Savage Talks About NFL Career & Being An Entrepreneur

Founder & CEO of Prolinked http://prolinked.net My name is Donte Savage. I’m originally from Northeast Portland and grew up on Dekum St. I was raised by Albert Savage Jr. and Jamie Savage and am the youngest of three siblings. I had a rough up bringing due to issues in my household. For a long period of time, my father was addicted to drugs and alcohol, which brought a lot of stress on our family. My mother is a strong woman and kept everything together as best as she could. She always pushed me to be great and do great things with my life. My father always told me that education was the key to anything. I was a pretty shy kid until you got to know me. I spent my time as a kid playing sports and hanging out with my cousins. When I was a kid, I used football as my outlet to deal with all the things I saw at home. From the first day I played, I fell in love with the game. I knew I wanted to play professionally when I got older. I pushed myself daily to be the best player I could be. After high school, I landed a scholarship to Fork Union Military Prep School and then a full ride college scholarship to New Mexico State University. After college I played for the Green Bay Packers, in addition to a number of other semi-pro leagues. It struct me, toward the end of my football career, that I may not get to play football for the rest of my life and would eventually need to find a way to make a living. I knew, whatever I did, I didn’t want to work for anybody else and I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. I got to thinking about how hard it was for me to get into college, play for the NFL, ect. It is a long and rough road to get teams and coaches to notice you when you don’t have the right resources and the right people in your corner. One morning, while a free agent, I was at the house with my fiancé and got the idea to create a business to help other free agent athletes in my position. I told her “I’m going to make a website and app to help free agent athl