Believe it or not, Eagles second-round pick JJ Arcega-Whiteside has a LinkedIn profile.
It does not say he’s a football player.
While the Eagles made Arcega-Whiteside a professional athlete on Friday night, his LinkedIn still needs to be updated. It says he’s an “Intern at the Office of Condoleezza Rice.”
Yes, that Condoleezza Rice.
The 6-foot-2 receiver known for his jump-ball ability spent last summer working for the former Secretary of State, who is now a professor at Stanford University.
“I like to say I was her first body of defense,” Arcega-Whiteside said on Saturday afternoon at the NovaCare Complex. “Anybody who wanted to contact her, meet with her, they had to go through me first, which was cool, because I got to meet some extraordinary people from around the world.”
As an intermediary for the former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Arcega-Whiteside picked up her mail, screened phone calls and responded to her emails.
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Arcega-Whiteside, who majored in international relations, went to Stanford because he thought it was the best possible blend of athletics and academics. He eventually met Rice — whom he apparently calls “Condi” — and later began working for her.
When Arcega-Whiteside was asked for some names of the coolest people he met or spoke with during his internship, he said he wasn’t sure how confidential he should keep things. But he admitted he met a Russian ambassador, Chinese ambassador and some of Rice’s close and important friends, but declined to divulge names.
He did, however, tell a story about answering a phone call from George Shultz, who was Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State. The two talked “for a while,” but Arcega-Whiteside didn’t know who Shultz was until after he hung up the phone. Why would he? Shultz left office in 1989, years before Arcega-Whiteside was born in Zaragoza, Spain.
Born to parents who both played basketball overseas, the 23-year-old international relations major didn’t move to the United States until he was 6. Arcega-Whiteside has lived in Spain, Portugal and Italy and he learned English as his third language.
Some teams worry when a player has many outside interests for fear their commitment to football might waver. The Eagles are not one of those teams.
Suffice to say, Arcega-Whiteside is not a typical jock. He reportedly plans on returning to Stanford in the NFL offseason to finish up his final three classes needed to graduate.
Arcega-Whiteside said Rice’s office is full of football helmets, signed jerseys and she even has a football on her desk. It turns out “Condi” is a pretty big football fan, so Arcega-Whiteside ought to get her one of his Eagles jerseys to hang in her office and prepare to give her a call in about a decade or so.
In the meantime, it might be time to update his LinkedIn page.
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