Former NFL Player Geoff Schwartz, came down to his alma mater PaliHi with his father Lee. The two watched the Dolphins beat Westchester.
Former Palisades High football players often come back on Friday nights to watch their old team. Geoff Schwartz, who lettered in football, basketball and baseball at Pali, recently made one of his first football visits since graduating in 2004. He came to the Stadium by the Sea on October 5 and watched the Dolphins beat Westchester, 28-21.
Schwartz has good reason for not coming back sooner during the football season: he was ab offensive tackle with the University of Oregon and then played nine seasons in the NFL.
During halftime, Schwartz told Circling the News, “I’m back in L.A. for work.” Now married and living in Charlotte, North Carolina, he said he returns here about three times a year.
He is a columnist for SB Nation, a spots blogging network owned by Vox Media (visit:sbnation.com), where he shares his insights on football. His most recent stories have been “Should Chiefs, Cowboys and Rams Fans Be Panicking?” on October 14 and “4 Ways to Fix the NFL’s Officiating Problems” on October 17.
He also has a website, “Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You,” where twice a week he examines misinformation, hot takes and theories—and anything social media offers about football and dissects it. (Visit: theathletic.com/podcast/86-geoff-schwartz-is-smart-than-you/).
“I work for ESPN Radio on weekends,” Schwartz said, “and I host for Clay when he’s out.” [“Outkick the Coverage with Clay Travis” on Fox Sports Radio.]
While at PaliHi, Schwartz was named first-team All-City and All-Westside by the L.A. Times. At Oregon, he started for three years at right tackle and helped the team lead the Pac-10 in rushing for two consecutive years. He was then drafted in the seventh round by the Carolina Panthers, where he played through 2011. He also played for the Minnesota Vikings, the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Giants. His final contract was with the Detroit Lions, who released him in August 2016. He’s 6-6 and 340 pounds.
Schwartz’s younger brother, Mitchell, also a former PaliHi star, played at Cal Berkeley and is now in his eighth season as a pro. He’s currently with Kansas City and checks in at 6-5 and 320 pounds.
The boys’ father, Lee, is a business consultant and their mother, Olivia Goodkin, is a lawyer. When her sons started playing football, she said, “I started out worrying that they were going to get hurt, but then I realized it was the other players I should be worrying about. They were like trucks hitting small cars. And I started to kind of feel like maybe this was their destiny.”
Geoff Schwartz is also the author of “Eat My Schwartz: Our Story of NFL Football, Food, Family, and Faith.”