"Matt Furstenburg's professional football career was brief. The former Maryland tight end played for one season on the Ravens practice squad before he moved on.
Fortunately for him, he had been planning for that moment for more than a year. His post-football career is working out even better — Furstenburg is now the chief executive officer of Grip Boost Inc., a company that develops enhancements for athletic gloves.
As a rising fifth-year senior Terp in the summer of 2012, Furstenburg noticed an ongoing problem: The adhesive coating on the palms of his football gloves wore off easily, forcing him to buy new pairs. The cost piled up, so he sought a better solution: a gel that could be applied to the gloves to preserve their ability to stick to the football.
"From there, it was kind of on the back burner for me, where I was focused on football," Furstenburg said. "But then when I was done, I was like, 'All right, let's do this.' And it kind of just went from there."
Given Furstenburg's football schedule, it took two years for him to coordinate with chemical engineering Ph.D. students at Maryland, develop the product and begin selling it. They launched in August 2014, after Furstenburg's year with the Ravens in 2013..."
