There was a time when T.J. Rushing thought his career would take him to the nation's capital, not the capital of Florida.
When he figured he might be leading the free world, not a group of college football players.
"If you had asked the 18-year-old T.J. Rushing, I would have told you that I was gonna go to law school after undergrad," Rushing explained. "I'd have been a politician and then try to be the first black president, right?"
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Barack Obama might have beaten him to the Oval Office, but there are no hard feelings from Rushing.
Florida State's new defensive backs coach says he decided more than a decade ago that his future rested on the gridiron, not in dealing with the gridlock in Washington.
"I realized when I was in college that there was no way I could live without football," he said. "It's in me -- all the way. So that's what I wanted to do eventually, whenever my playing days were over."
As a player, Rushing was a very good defensive back and an outstanding return specialist. While earning his political science degree at Stanford, Rushing started 19 games at cornerback and also racked up 1,409 career yards on kick returns, which ranks third all-time in Stanford history.
After being selected in the seventh round of the 2006 NFL Draft by the Indianapolis Colts, Rushing spent four years there before moving on to the Detroit Lions and a brief stint in the Canadian Football League.
That's when his career in coaching took a fortuitous turn. After taking a graduate assistant position at Arizona State, Rushing got to work very closely with then-ASU offensive coordinator Mike Norvell.
As part of his duties as a defensive G.A., Rushing would prepare the scout-team defense to give the best "looks" possible to the Sun Devils' starting offense. The better Rushing did his job -- the more the scout-team defense tested the starting offense by showing them exactly what each week's opponent would do -- the better Norvell could do his job.
