Seahawks head coach turned down a cushy career in finance at KPMG for a football internship—12 years later, he won the Super Bowl at 38

The Seattle Seahawks just triumphed over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX, taking home the Lombardi Trophy after a 29–13 victory this past Sunday. The team’s coach, Mike Macdonald, led his players to victory at just 38 years old—and it’s all thanks to an early career gamble.

Macdonald had graduated from the University of Georgia with a master’s degree in sports management, and he was at a crossroads. His four-year stint working for the college’s football team, the Bulldogs, was coming to a close. Despite loving football (and like many graduates before him), he chased a stable career and landed a job offer at Big Four global accounting firm KPMG at the end of 2013.

“It felt like it was time, that there wasn’t anything that was going to come up,” Macdonald told The Athletic in 2022. “So I was kind of like, ‘Okay, I guess I’ll go make some money.’ I signed a contract and everything.”

But then one phone call changed everything.

The former special teams coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens, Jerry Rosburg, gave Mac...