After almost 16 years of practice and planning, 34-year-old former Marine Matt Ganyard will make his NCAA debut as a kicker for the University of Virginia, despite never playing a game of organized football in his life.
A lifelong athlete, Ganyard’s football dreams started on the high school soccer pitch. “I realized probably around sophomore year high school that I wasn’t good enough to necessarily play [soccer] at a UVA-type school,” he says. “I remember clearly stepping on Grounds with my dad on a visit, fell in love with [UVA, and] said we could cancel the rest of the trips to the other schools in the area.”
And while he didn’t make the football team when he first tried out as a second-year in 2009, the California native didn’t give up. Ganyard, who watched YouTube videos for tips on translating his soccer skills into those better suited for the gridiron, kept practicing, before ultimately deciding to follow in his dad’s footsteps and become a pilot for the U.S. Marines when he graduated in 2011.
Under NCAA rules, Ganyard’s eligibility clock was paused during his time as an active-duty service member, leaving him with one year of playing time. As he approached the end of his military contract and considered attending business school, Ganyard decided to reach out to universities about the possibility of walking on as a kicker.
After getting accepted to the Darden School of Business and talking to UVA Special Teams Analyst Drew Meyer, Ganyard was ready to join the Cavaliers in 2022. However, his plans hit a snag when he found out that his class schedule made it impossible for him to play.
For Ganyard, it was frustrating that “everything seemingly lined up only to kind of be shut down at the last minute” by a scheduling issue. Still, he wasn’t ready to give up, and applied for an eligibility waiver from the NCAA—and was denied.
In one last Hail Mary, Ganyard and UVA appealed the NCAA’s decision. Four days before the start of this year’s fall camp, the second-year Darden student was granted a sixth year of eligibility.
“Next thing you know, I’m finishing my summer internship and getting a physical with an NCAA football team,” Ganyard says. “And here we are.”
The start of fall camp brought a lot of novel experiences, from trying on a helmet and pads for the first time to meeting his much younger teammates. “I did the math … the freshmen on the team are closer to my daughter’s age than they are to my age. So that kind of set the tone right off the bat for what we’re in store for, for age gaps,” says Ganyard, who’s been nicknamed Pop-Pop, Uncle Matt, and Grandpa.
As he gets ready for the start of the season, the former Marine says the entire experience remains surreal for him and his family. Still, Ganyard and his wife Marie—who met as undergrads at UVA—are enjoying being back in Charlottesville with their 3-year-old daughter and 9-month-old son. “My wife and I can take our kids and go have a glass of wine at a vineyard and let them run around and just enjoy the beauty of Charlottesville.”
While the official starting lineup hadn’t been released at press time, many are predicting that Ganyard will be the Cavaliers’ starting kicker when UVA opens its season with an away game against No. 12 Tennessee on September 2 at noon.