During the 2021 NFL offseason, Kansas City Chiefs TE Travis Kelce teamed up with San Francisco 49ers TE George Kittle and retired NFL TE Greg Olsen to create Tight End University (TEU). The ultimate goal was to provide a space for players at the tight end position to learn from each other and continue to advance the position as a prominent part of the NFL game.
Their inaugural TEU summit was a smashing success, which led to a second summit last year with over 80 NFL tight ends in attendance. Now, the trio will put on a third event from June 20-22 in Nashville, Tennessee at Vanderbilt University.
According to Kittle, this year’s event will feature 75 NFL tight ends in attendance. Josh Allen, Trey Lance, CJ Beathard, Sam Darnold and Nick Mullens will be among the quarterbacks in attendance. They have some special guests in terms of NFL legends with Rob Gronkowski and Jordan Reed coming to help teach the younger players in attendance.
They’ll spend two of the three days in the classroom, going over everything from running routes to rest and recovery tips. They’ll also get out on the practice field for a day with some hands-on instruction in terms of technique and reading coverages.
Kelce spoke about mentorship and what’s ahead at TEU just last week:
“Oh man, I love it, man. We got the best tight end room in the league right now and it’s fun to be a part of just the grand scheme of things in terms of this offense and what it can do but coming to work and being around the tight end group, man, we got a fun group that just loves to play this game and wants to make plays no matter how they got to do it. Whether we’re blocking, whether we’re catching the ball down field or just finding a way to get somebody else open. And that’s the beauty of the tight end position is we’re pretty selfless and whatever you need we can do. The young guys, the guys that are kind of like still getting molded into this offense that you’ll see this year – any bit of advice I can give to anybody – and that’s kind of across the league – I’ll give nuggets of gold over here at Tight End U coming up next week or what I think are nuggets of gold (laughter). And it’ll be – I’m here to try to get everybody to be at their best and still got that confidence that what we do over here is always going to be, you know, number one.”
Head over to Tight End University’s Instagram page to find some information on the players across the NFL set to attend this week.
