SportTechie’s Athletes Voice series features the views and opinions of the athletes who use and are powered by technology. SportTechie recently spoke to Pittsburgh Steelers backup quarterback Joshua Dobbs about his interest in aerospace and how he applies engineering principles on the football field.
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Joshua Dobbs took over as the University of Tennessee’s starting quarterback halfway through his sophomore season in 2014. Over the next three years, he led the Volunteers to a 22-10 record and three bowl game victories—at the TaxSlayer, OutBack, and Music City bowls, respectively.
Dobbs set school records for rushing yards and touchdowns as a quarterback, and his single-season 3,781 yards of total offense ranks second in school history only to two-time Super Bowl champion Peyton Manning’s 3,789. The Steelers selected Dobbs in the fourth round of the 2017 NFL draft, and he made his regular season debut in relief of Ben Roethlisberger during the 2018 season.
Most impressively, Dobbs succeeded on the football field at Tennessee while maintaining a 4.0 GPA and graduating with a degree in aerospace engineering. He was one of seven seniors in the class of 2017 to receive the Torchbearer Award, the university’s highest honor, given for “academic achievement, leadership, and outstanding service.” While in college, Dobbs twice interned at aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, and he had an externship with NASA planned for this spring until the federal government shutdown hit. He did, however, get a chance to take a flight in an F-16 with the U.S. Air Force’s Thunderbirds in March.
Interest in Aviation
“It started when I was three, four, five—whenever we started going on family trips. I remember I used to ask my parents if we could get to the airport early so I could watch planes take off, land, and just marvel at them. Interest grew over time. I was good at math and science, so I kind of knew what field I wanted to get into.
“The seventh grade was when my interest really piqued, and I really realized that this was what I wanted to study in college and past college. My parents took me to the Tuskegee Airmen, a weeklong camp in the Atlanta area. As part of that camp, we’d go and visit different aerospace facilities in the Atlanta area. One day, we went down to the air traffic control center down at Hartsfield-Jackson. The next day, we went and toured the Delta production facility right off the tarmac next to the airport.
“I still loved and wanted to fly the planes, but I also knew I wanted to be more on the engineering side of it where I’m ultimately building, designing futuristic airplanes that are going to revolutionize the industry—but flying in my free time. I knew I didn’t want to be a pilot by trade.”
Applying Engineering to Football
“I did do a brief project for my fluids class on laminar flow and just talking about the boundary layer the spirals on the football produce, but I did come up with the fact that they don’t really restrict the ball from flying in a straight line. I would say that the biggest thing that I’ve learned—and, yes, you understand the formulas and concepts that go behind projectile motion, throwing the football, or momentum-collisions, but obviously in real-time, you’re not thinking about all that—is you’re just playing the game.
“On the football field as the QB, you’re a problem solver. The defense presents you with various problems on a play-to-play basis. Of course, the time limit is a little different on the football field than in the classroom, but I think that thought process—learning how to see a problem, quickly identify it, solve it, excel at it, and then move onto the next problem and repeat the process—can translate definitely from the classroom onto the field.”
Technology in Football Training
“I use a Whoop. I use my Apple Watch. I stay in tune to how far I’m going on a week-to-week basis—just to track it and understand the wear and tear on my body. In college, at the QB position, we did a little more running in practice than we do here. But in college, I was all into the metrics of how far I was going, how fast I was running.
“I also enjoy doing a lot of the vision training. I think that’s big. We have a Dynavision board, the light board where you quickly tap and try to race to see [how fast you can react]. We also have another one where it’s a touchscreen board, and it portrays shapes onto the board. You have a middle shape, and it’ll be a square, for instance. Then it’ll have prongs coming out in different directions. One will be a triangle, one will be a square, one will be an octagon. You have to match the shape in the middle to whichever prong reveals that shape as well, but it only flashes for like half a second, so it really tests your peripheral vision where you have to see the entire board and match it. I enjoy the vision training, just that you’re always testing to see the entire field without having to turn your head and look in a particular direction.”
Aerospace Internships
“The first summer I was [at Pratt & Whitney], I was a part of the F135 engine program. We were on a development engine. The 135 engine goes in the F-35 Lightning fighter jet, and we were working on the [Carrier] Variant and the STOVL, so it’s vertical takeoff and landing and short takeoff, vertical landing. This was just ground testing. My daily task was to go, prep the engine for run testing throughout the day, do various checks and maneuvers with my fellow test engineer, and then at the end of the day, we would do some test engine runs where we would take the engine through different missions, and work wear and tear on the engine so they could see what problems over the lifespan of the engine that they will have to fix.
“When I first started that internship, you walk in and that jet engine is pretty extensive, as you can imagine. But a fighter jet engine is probably 10 times more sensitive than just a commercial airline engine. There are probably a hundred different components and mechanisms hooked up to each other, and honestly, the first time, I had no idea what I was looking at. At the end of the month, the last week I was there, they would just give me the sheet and let me go out and do the pre-test check on my own.
“The second internship I had was actually in Canada where they do more of their commercial, smaller engines up there—from the PT6, the first engine Pratt & Whitney ever came up with, to the 400 series engines which go on the Gulfstream private jets. That one was more all-inclusive. I was a test engineer one day. I went up to the production line the next day. I was a part of the maintenance team as they were taking apart engines and fixing things one day. I was working with strain gauges and taking measurements the next day.
“The NASA externship was going to be at their Goddard Base, which is right outside of Washington, D.C. There, they work on various up-and-coming technologies, so anything from future space travel to a common simple tool that you can use around the house every day. They work on taking those technologies and equipment they are creating and figuring out how to apply them to a real-world problem. It would give you the mindset of how to be an engineer and an entrepreneur. I was excited about it, and that definitely has a lot of promise there as well. We’re still in dialogue, most likely shooting for next offseason.”
Flying in a Thunderbird
“It was an unreal experience. If you’ve seen Top Gun, know of Top Gun, or just grew up playing any video game when you were flying a fighter jet, you’ve always wanted to step in a real cockpit and really take on that experience to see what it’s like. To be able to do it was definitely a top of my bucket list item. I loved every minute of it.
“We did a 9g turn. We did a full flight profile with various turns. We started off with some kiddie rides, basically—the 3g, the 4g turns—just so you can practice your breathing techniques to help you withstand more g-forces. They warm up with some rolls, quick rolls, slow rolls, some turns. Then we started doing some loops. Then at the end, the last maneuver we did was the 9g turn. It literally felt like someone or something was just pushing you straight down into your seat. Your vision starts getting a little narrow, narrow, narrow. You feel your flight suit tighten on you. And, then, before you know it, you’re out of it. I was able to say that I made it through the turn, no passing out or anything, so I did accomplish that.”
Ever want to fly an F-16 fighter jet? Steelers QB @josh_dobbs1 had the chance to do just that with the @AFThunderbirds.
Watch Dobbs take flight on @watch_SITV: https://t.co/svKwRTvr45 pic.twitter.com/X3EokEmDzz
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) May 28, 2019
STEM Education
“The STEM industry has become very popular and very promising, especially for the youth. For them to get exposure to it at a young age, I think that’s extremely important. I’ve been blessed to work with several organizations that agree. Girls, Inc. does an amazing after-school program, especially in STEM, where they’re teaching life lessons and also different math and science tools that they’re able to use outside of what they’re learning in school.
“I grew up loving math and science, and I grew up with two phenomenal parents who gave me opportunities outside of just what I was learning in school to figure out my interests. Being able to help out the youth who may not have that support system and give them the tools or what I’ve learned, to share with them my experience. That’s been an amazing experience for me to have that impact on them.”
His Post-Football Plan
“I know I definitely want to do something in the aerospace field. Whether it’s space—there’s a lot going on in that field with SpaceX and NASA. Now they’re pushing to Mars, pushing back to the moon. But that’s why I’m doing all these experiences, to take it all in.
“When you’re in school, you learn concepts and you learn how to problem solve, how to critically think, and how to be an engineer. But you don’t always see all the wonderful opportunities that you have once you get out of school. I think these opportunities have been very enlightening because you’re able to work with the Air Force to see what they do. You’re able to work with Pratt & Whitney who produces a lot of well-known engines and a lot of reliable engines that go on many of the planes you fly on a daily basis. You get an opportunity to eventually work with NASA, who’s going to space. Every experience is a different realm and opens your mind to the possibilities that you’ll be able to do once you dive into that new field.”
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