Three things to know about the Seattle Seahawks, associate defensive head coach, Sean Desai

Sean Desai has been in and around the National Football League for a decade and is the current Seattle Seahawks associate defensive head coach. He is the first person of Indian descent to become a coordinator in the NFL and has made a name for himself.

In this piece, we will highlight three facts you might not know about Desai. You may be surprised, so let's look at them.

Three things to know about Sean Desai

1. He was a professor at Temple University

Before Sean Desai had NFL aspirations, he was more concerned with taking the academic route to career building. He earned his bachelor's degree from Boston University and majored in philosophy and political science. He then proceeded to complete his master's degree at Columbia University, with a focus on postsecondary education.

Immediately after finishing the previous program, Desai enrolled at Temple University, snagging his Ph.D. in educational administration. After completing his program, he served as an adjunct professor for two years before moving on to the NFL. You'd hardly see that on an NFL coordinator's CV.

2. He once had a promising football career, only to be curtailed by an injury

Did you know that Sean Desai won a state championship in high school? That's right, the current Seattle Seahawks' defensive guru was once a solid prospect on the same high school side as future NFL QB Dan Orlovsky.

He was a key contributor to the team. Unfortunately, he suffered a season-ending ankle injury in his first year. The injury was so bad that he skipped his second year on the football team but returned for the third and fourth seasons. Thank goodness he made a comeback, as who knows whether Desai would be in the NFL today if he had abandoned football back then.

3. He is a proud philosopher

Securing a job in the National Football League is hard, and Sean Desai didn't get it on a platter. He got the job based on hard work and pure tenacity. He chose a philosophical path, which has helped him in team management.

Desai was a philosophy major at Boston University and gravitated toward ancient works. He studied East Asian philosophy in the religious texts of the Tao Te Ching and the Bhagavad Gita.

He was primarily drawn to the ancient Greeks in western philosophy: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. These teachings have truly helped him understand the game of football differently.