My Story

During the height of the pandemic, Mason Laramie was about as far away from football as he could be.
 

The Schaumburg native had left school at the University of Sioux Falls despite being the football team’s kicker and second-leading scorer following the 2018 season.

 

“As a Division II athlete, I was always thinking that I wanted to play Division I. I spent about two years in Sioux Falls, S.D. and then I dropped out of school. I wasn’t taking any courses. I was just working a full-time job,” Laramie told Prairie State Pigskin recently. 

 

“I went back to Chicago and worked for this company called Peloton. I delivered and installed bikes in people’s homes. I got sent on routes throughout the city and different parts of Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana.

 

“Being a fitness science major and having some background in the fitness industry, this was a job that was right up my alley. I enjoyed it because I got to mature during that time. (But) I showed up to the same gas station every morning, filled up my truck and thought to myself, ‘What am I doing not playing football?’”

 

Fast forward to today where the 6-foot-1 graduate student focuses on his professional future and getting a shot at kicking the longest field goal in Western Illinois University history.