Striking while the gridiron is hot

As the clock ticked down toward zero, tensions were running high in the crowded room. Anthony Firkser, A.B. '17, had just stepped out to take a phone call, and the crowd was growing restless. The door swung open and Firkser re-entered. Punching a fist high into the air, he announced to the throng of friends and family that he had just signed with the New York Jets. They erupted into cheers, while Firkser, an applied math concentrator at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences , felt a surge of elation and a wave of relief that the tense NFL draft process had finally ended. He would be joining a team located only 45 miles from his hometown. "I remember thinking that playing there some day would be a crazy opportunity, but I doubted it would ever happen to me, knowing the percentages of people who make it in the NFL," he said.