Nearly three decades after an injury cut his college football career short, a 47-year-old California pastor is putting the pads back on for an unlikely second shot at his on-field dream.
“No one’s going easy on me… and I’m not going easy on them,” Justin Buzzard told “Fox & Friends First” co-host Todd Piro. “I’m giving them everything I’ve got, too.”
Buzzard, who recently made the San Jose City College Jaguars, said his much younger teammates have embraced him despite his initial uncertainty over how they would react to a 47-year-old joining the roster.
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“I was really wondering, ‘How are they going to handle… a 47-year-old guy showing up?’ Are they going to receive me? Are they going to accept me? Will they try to go easy on me? Will they try to attack me? And they’ve been incredible.”
Also, a husband and dad of three, Buzzard must also balance his on-field ambitions with his family life — including a wife for 23 years who initially had some reservations about his return to the gridiron.
“She told me actually a couple of weeks ago, she said, ‘I want you to make the team, but I don’t want you to play in any games,’” Buzzard recalled. “I told her those are some of the most hurtful words she’d ever told me in my life.”
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Her outlook has since changed, however. Now all of her husband’s games are on her calendar as she plans to cheer him on from the stands.
Buzzard told NBC Bay Area that he got the idea to return to the field after his son highlighted a social media reel about a 60-year-old man playing the sport on the East Coast.
To his surprise, reaching out to a coach at San Jose City College led to him lining up as a defensive end, the same position he once played years ago.
For Buzzard, the comeback goes beyond football and family and into faith — something that has helped guide him through the unconventional journey.
As he prays to stay healthy enough to “go the distance” and make it through the entire season, he remains eager to help his new team in every way possible.
And for anyone else wondering whether it is too late to pursue a longstanding dream, Buzzard offered a simple message: “Risk or rust. You’re either risking or you’re rusting as a man. Take risks. Don’t rust.”
