Just off the kitchen in J.T. O’Sullivan’s Coronado home is a library. The shelves are at near capacity with books, while kids’ artwork hangs from the walls and family photos and mementos break up the mosaic of book spines.
The 45-year-old is focused on his studies – not of books, but film.
“I don’t really get a chance to watch a lot of football on the weekends,” he said while seated at the kitchen table just outside his library-turned-studio.
On this weekday morning the house is empty and O’Sullivan is poring over – and marveling at – another MVP caliber performance from Ravens QB Lamar Jackson.
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“It’s the perfect amount of football for me,” he said. “It’s fun, scheme X’s and O’s but I’m not getting fired at the end of the year. I’m not getting cut, I’m not moving.”
O’Sullivan knows exactly what that life is like. After a decorated Division II career at UC Davis, he was picked in the sixth round of the 2002 NFL draft by the New Orleans Saints. What followed was an 11-year career spent with 11 different NFL teams and two separate stints in Europe.
“Got cut multiple times, people gave up on me multiple organizations … I’m really proud of that experience. Sure it would’ve been great to play for decades on the same team, that’s just not the reality for most people. So I’m really proud of sucking the marrow out of my career.”
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After spending the 2012 season in Canada, O’Sullivan put football behind him.
“I didn’t pay attention to it, I didn’t watch it.”
But by 2019 he was back in the game as head coach at Patrick Henry High School. Around that time his brother sold him on an idea.
“Basically that my experience — football, the visual element to football, the film element of football — would translate really well to YouTube."
He created The QB School, an outlet for his football expertise that immediately became a source of joy.
“That was kind of the lightbulb moment for me where I was like, oh this is probably gonna work for me, if I can get it rolling where enough people are interested in it because I really like doing it.”
As it turns out tons of people are interested. Six years after creating his YouTube channel, it now has over 358,000 subscribers. Perhaps more important are the over 5,000 who pay for exclusive content on Patreon. Their subscriptions allow him to make a very good living as a retired football player.
“There’s nothing else I could do that would be this fulfilling, this rewarding,” O’Sullivan explained. “The only thing I probably am qualified to do that would generate anything close to this is like go coach at a high level and even then I’m not sure I’m qualified to do that.”
He stepped away from coaching high school football after three seasons to get more time with family, and made schooling football fans his full-time job.
“I want to make it as meaningful and as easy to understand as possible,” he said. “And then you just crank out the videos.”
From the comfort of his home in Coronado (and often wearing one of his many Padres hats), J.T. O’Sullivan has figured out his way of staying in the game.
“I think a lot of people struggle with identity when you retire as a professional athlete,” O’Sullivan said. “You’re not in the locker room, you’re not out there competing but there’s a lot of football that overlaps with this experience and I just have a hell of a lot of fun doing it.”
