Pressley didn’t reach his goal of being a starting college quarterback, but he’s OK with that.
His dream changed, and he isn’t shy to admit it. All it takes is a day of shenanigans to understand the realizations of the now-happier Pressley.
The Renaissance Man
The cart maneuvers through Polk Place. It’s too big for the walking paths, barely navigating around the sea of students.
Pressley, seated in the second row of the cart, gets curious and even frustrated glares from onlookers.
Some might recognize him based on his established cyber reputation. Pressley, a communications studies major, created a comedic video series “Quarterbacking with Caleb Pressley” in 2013.
Now the series is “Coaching with Caleb Pressley.”
Bystanders definitely don’t recognize Pressley as a coach, though. A recruit, maybe. Whoever’s in the cart, he cuts the line of students waiting to drink from the Old Well. There, he snaps a selfie, but he can’t be late. He has an appointment at 12:45 p.m., sharp.
The next stop is Saunders Hall. He’s there to meet one of his favorite professors, whom he hasn’t seen since December.
Religious studies professor Zlatko Plese sits in his office across from Pressley. They’re leaning toward each other, legs crossed, as Pressley tells Plese about studying in Scotland in the spring.
“He can think. That’s something I really appreciate,” Plese says. “He’s original.”
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Pressley had to think long and hard about studying abroad. Leaving spring football practices behind essentially meant quitting the team. Yet leaving Chapel Hill meant exploring a world beyond football at the University of Edinburgh Divinity School. He was once a religious studies major but had to drop it to a minor because of football.
“I don’t know any other football players who studied abroad, ever. And you can call academic advisers,” Pressley says.
He had to say his goodbyes to the football team, similarly to how he parts ways with Plese today.
Pressley walks out of Saunders, ready for the next adventure.
“Today isn’t a typical day,” he says. “No football.”
Moment of clarity
Zooming through the concourse of Kenan Stadium in the cart, Pressley contemplates his new role of play-calling.
He won’t take the field today. The first day of class is always a day off from practice.
“The players needed a break for their legs,” he says. “Me, I’m still locked in.”
He shifts his attention to the tune now playing through the speakers: a Lana Del Rey song.
“Lana has my heart. I’m in love with her, but I don’t ever want to meet her because I’m afraid she won’t be who I think she is,” he says. “Football did that to me. I loved it so much coming into college. Then I realized the nature of the beast, and it lost some of its appeal.”
Three years ago, on his first day of class, the idea of playing football was Pressley’s entire world. As a junior, he quarterbacked the A.C. Reynolds High School football team to a 4-A state championship. Pressley was the MVP of that game.
He turned down a partial scholarship from Appalachian State to attend UNC as a preferred walk-on. Former UNC offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach John Shoop offered Pressley a preferred walk-on spot. He had hope for Pressley, and Pressley had hope for himself.
“I was going to be the starting quarterback,” Pressley says. “In my mind, I knew I had a coach in Coach Shoop who believed in me.”
Before Shoop left UNC after just one season with Pressley, he taught the young quarterback something that was once unfathomable.
“I’m one of the ones who’s figured out that there’s more to this whole life thing than playing football,” Pressley says. “Shoop is the one who taught me that.
“This is why I’m here today.”
End of an era
Pressley’s midday voyage around campus is over. The golf cart is parked, and he enters Kenan Stadium.
To get to his new staff locker, Pressley passes through the player locker room where his No. 16 jersey used to hang. In three years on the team, he put in the same work of the quarterbacks who occupied the lockers around his.
Pressley, though, rarely saw his name move up the depth chart.
“There’s a lot of low times,” he says. “A lot of low times as a backup.”
He makes his way to the equipment room where the team keeps all its jerseys, new and old. Players only get to keep their jerseys from a bowl game appearance.
Pressley has his jersey from the 2013 Belk Bowl at home. It was his last game as a college quarterback and the closest he ever got to seeing starter minutes.
Due to late-season injuries last season, Pressley found himself as the No. 2 quarterback for the final regular season game and the Belk Bowl.
“I was one play away from playing,” he says.
As seconds ticked off the clock in the Belk Bowl, Pressley had a realization. His future was already planned. He’d leave the team in the spring to study abroad in Scotland.
“I knew it was my last time playing football,” he says.
The equipment room is not too far from Pressley’s new staff locker. He doesn’t have a nameplate yet.
His old player nameplate is at home — removing it officially ended his collegiate career.
“I took every single thing that I had out of my locker,” he says. “I had no intentions of coming back to play football.”
Pressley awaits the stadium elevator. The doors open, he enters and he presses four.
That’s where quarterbacks coach Keith Heckendorf’s office is. “Coach Heck,” Pressley calls him. He’s now Pressley’s boss and the guy who got him to come back to the team.
A new beginning
Pressley approaches the office and notices Heckendorf is on the phone. The two don’t get to talk now, but they’ve had quite a few chats since Pressley returned from Scotland.
He came back with no intention of rejoining the team, which has four quarterbacks.
“There was a gaping hole in my life. Football was taking up so much,” he says of leaving. “It had a lot to do with me not playing. If I was playing and I was starting, I’m sure I’d have a completely different outlook.”
Football didn’t cross his mind much in Scotland. He spent time doing what he missed in three years on the team. He went to the cafe every day. He wrote scripts, poems, short stories. He watched a film every single night.
“You don’t do that when you play football,” he says.
Pressley was living the life that’s much more than football: The life he dreamed of in Chapel Hill, the life Shoop introduced him to.
But he still loved football in Scotland. That never changed, and it never will. Pressley told Heckendorf all the things he missed about the game, and the coach had a proposal.
“Come back, signal plays, finish strong, finish with your friends,” Pressley recalls Heckendorf telling him. “That changed my life, really.”
Heckendorf thinks a part of Pressley misses playing.
“No,” Pressley says. “I have a very good role right now.”
He has an office on the fifth floor of Kenan Stadium. He can ride around in a golf cart on the first day of class.
“All the crazy shenanigans...” he says. “For me, these are the things in my life that make me happy.”
Happiness was once the dream of being a starting quarterback, but he’s living a different dream now.
Unlike the first time he stepped foot on campus, today Caleb Pressley knows football isn’t his entire world.
“Anyone can either let football consume them and become their whole life, or they can let it become part of their lives,” he says. “This game of football. It’s not all perfect, but it still has the magic. Now, I just know how I fit into the magic.”
sports@dailytarheel.com
