From football to firefighting: it's a transition few people make, unless you're former Tennessee Titans tight end Erron Kinney.
Kinney, 35, played for the team in the early 2000s. He was a volunteer firefighter while on the roster and continued that career after he retired from the NFL.
When his NFL career ended in 2005, Kinney followed his passion and became a real life hero by fighting fires full-time.
Now, city leaders in Mt. Juliet have decided to make him their fire chief.
"When people would ask me, I would say, 'Well, football is my job - or was my job - and firefighting is a passion. It's something that I've always been drawn to," Kinney said.
Fast forward to today, and that passion for firefighting has become his career. After seven years of being a professional firefighter, Kenney is Mt. Juliet's very first fire chief.
"Whether I was doing it in Mt. Juliet or somewhere else, I would be doing it somehow, some way, somewhere, serving the fire department - fighting fires, doing what I could to impact lives in a positive way," Kenney said.
Though he won't be rushing to the scene anymore, Kinney expects to now be putting out fires of a different kind. It's something he said the NFL has uniquely prepared him to do.
"Believe it or not, a lot of the positive things I learned from that helped me to be an effective leader," he said.
Source:WSMV