CBS 58's Hometown Athlete: Marquette High School's Riley Nowakowski thriving with the Steelers
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- "I actually got a little bit of input from TJ, you know, training with him here," Riley Nowakowski says.
Nowakowski knows -- training with teammate TJ Watt in the offseason? You're gonna hear about it.
"We were doing sled pushes, and you know, I was like, didn't fully finish the line. He was like, what are we doin'?" Nowakowski says with a laugh.
Nowakowski drafted in the fifth round by the Steelers. And Pittsburgh is like Wisconsin east.
"It's obviously super cool," Nowakowski says. "Getting to play with Aaron Rodgers. You know, a guy that I watched play for the Packers, win a Super Bowl and everything. And obviously Mike McCarthy, same thing. And you know, it's awesome. It's great to have that a little bit of a connection, that little bit of a group that, you know, you're never really far from home."
And coming home, he's still part of the Badgers family.
"Coach Chryst really, you know, he was about family," Nowakowski says. "So, you know, like we never lost that. You know whether it's, you know, back here, you know, all these guys. You know, we all played together and everything and that was a big, you know, motto when you got recruited there. Going there was just like, you know, it was a family, so you know, we always talk about that stuff, and it really was a brotherhood."
Yet leaving Wisconsin, he won a national championship at Indiana.
"It's really been like, wow," Nowakowski says. "Like, you know, just really, you know, getting an appreciation for it. And you know, just kind of being able to look back and be like, wow, I really have accomplished, you know, a good amount of things and I've met great people along the way, you know, and so you know, every day I just, wake up, you know thank God for, you know, giving me another day and being able to live this blessed life."
