Antrel Rolle is brash, vocal, hard-hitting and beloved, a former Miami Hurricane cornerback turned NFL veteran who is due for a new adventure. He never shied away from the spotlight, thus it’s only right for his voice to be heard ‘round the clock.

Rolle, 34, is on record saying, “I want to play where I feel good playing, I want to play where my heart is going to be.” Of course when he said this last summer, Rolle was referring to a spot on an NFL roster … But, nowadays Rolle's applying equal passion to a potential career in the broadcast booth.

STAYING IN DADE

With the South Dade product leaving high school as the No. 2 ranked prospect in the state and No. 14 nationally, The U wasn’t exactly a hard sell for Rolle. He’d be joining the most elite squad in collegiate history (Don’t @ me). A member of the 2001 Miami Hurricanes national championship team — the team we rightly declare the greatest ever assembled — Antrel was just a boy, yet also one of only four true freshman to letter that year.

Still, it wasn’t until a year later when Antrel’s talents truly broke out onto the national landscape. In 2002 during his sophomore campaign, Rolle earned All-Big East first-team honors, only to outdo himself as a back-to-back consensus All-American the following two seasons before embarking on his NFL journey. The honors come as no surprise when you remember he shutout future NFL Hall of Famers Larry Fitzgerald and Calvin Johnson in 2004, to the tune of 26 yards and 10 yards receiving, respectively. #NeverForget

BIG LEAGUES

Then came time to head to the bigs where Rolle was drafted eighth overall in the 2005 NFL Draft by the Arizona Cardinals. In 2008, after a few relatively uneventful seasons with flashes of brilliance, Rolle moved from cornerback to safety, a position he played until his retirement in November 2016.

Eleven seasons in the NFL takes its toll, but along the way Rolle picked up a Super Bowl XLVI ring in 2011 as a member of the New York football Giants – a team he remembers as “a franchise that [he] loves."

Rolle finished his NFL career with 834 tackles, 4 sacks, 8 forced fumbles and 26 interceptions.

WHERE IS HE NOW?

Now, Rolle looks to get into the broadcast booth, and in his eyes the best way to do so was to join the 2017 Broadcast Boot Camp, a program in its 11th year since its inception. Two weeks ago, Rolle completed the rigourous camp along with nearly 25 other former and current NFL athletes — Sure, the program doesn’t exactly require the physical strain of an NFL training camp, but after a successful football journey, Rolle deserves the rest.

There Rolle learned (and will continue to refine his craft) in play-by-play analysis, radio broadcasting and field reporting.

As Rolle embarks on this new journey after successfully completing the boot camp the NFL says has lead to broadcasting jobs for more than one-third of its 200-plus participants, we over here at SOTU wish him the best of luck.

GOOD LUCK, ANTREL!