Packers.com has a new article today on a Packer turned youth pastor. Here’s an excerpt:

Offensive tackle John Michels’ cleat caught in the ground, and his knee twisted while blocking defensive end Vonnie Holliday during a one-on-one pass protection drill in the last week of the 1998 training camp. Michels tore his anterior cruciate ligament, his medial collateral ligament and cartilage. That devastating injury and the lengthy rehabilitation process that followed, however, gave him a new direction in life.”It was kind of through the process of all these surgeries that I found a passion for medicine and decided to go pursue that,” Michels said. “I enjoy the fact that (doctors) really get to impact people’s lives.” Michels, in his second year at USC’s medical school, studies toward a different career than he expected. While undergoing six knee surgeries and the accompanying rehabilitation, Michels, a religion major on the
undergraduate level at USC, worked as a youth pastor.

Few thought Michels would be pursuing a career in ministry or medicine after just three years in the NFL.

The Packers drafted him in the first round in 1996 and planned for him to protect Brett Favre’s blind side at left tackle well into the 21st century. And that future started earlier than expected.

JG