For NFL agent Kyle Leunissen, the realization of his dream, a dream he's carried since he was just a kid, means the realization of many dreams. That's not something most people can say, but Leunissen, one of the lucky few to work in an industry that will someday allow him to say it, has pursued his own goal for that very reason. Only, Leunissen isn't quite in the dream-making business just yet.

But he's getting there.

Leunissen had just taken a red-eye back from a recruiting trip to one of the nation's biggest collegiate football programs, the sound of sleep still heavy in his voice, when he spoke to Headlines & Global News recently for an exclusive interview. For most, a 3 a.m. flight, scrambling, not to pack an overnight bag - you'll be homeward bound before the sun touches the horizon - but to gather materials for your pitch, which you'll make almost as soon as the wheels touch down, or whenever your prospective client decides they're ready to hear said pitch, sounds like a nightmarish hassle.

For Leunissen, it's just another aspect of life as an NFL agent that gets him excited.

Learning The Ropes

For an agent, a representative to NFL players, your clients are your top priority. Whatever they need, it's your job to, something like a genie or "Pulp Fiction's" The Wolf, make it appear (or disappear, as it were). When you're a wet-behind-the-ears NFL agent like Leunissen with only two years of experience in the game to your name, the opportunity to sign a player and turn him into a Leunissen guy, an Enter-Sports Management guy, is an opportunity to grow, to learn more about an industry that chews up and spits out aspiring player reps at an alarming rate.

Leunissen, who got certified just last year and has only two clients at this point, is still getting a feel for the game, still figuring out how to treat Player A as opposed to Player B.

"Learning a little more every day," he deadpans.

Player A in this instance, the guy Leunissen and company had traveled to meet and hopefully woo, represented, like most endeavors do these days for Leunissen, another learning experience. Only Leunissen's lessons didn't just start when he and his business partner, Daniel "Kuni" Kuniansky, joined Hadley Engelhardt at EMS two years ago. Leunissen's been learning the game since his days hanging at West Campus Apartments on the Louisiana State University campus.

Making Connections

"One of my friends I grew up with played football, and when I went to LSU he was one of my best friends. I started hanging out with him, networked through him and the whole football team, got to know a bunch of guys," says Leunissen.

Shockingly, Leunissen's sports agent education actually goes back even further than those heady college days. Not many kids know what they want to be when they grow up, let alone what industry in which they want to work. According to his mom, Leunissen's mind was made up somewhere around fifth grade.

"I knew I wouldn't be big enough to play professional sports, so my dad said, 'Look, this is the best way to stay in it and be around it,' if not play," he says.

Leunissen brought that desire, that inherent "want-to," with him to LSU, where, through casual connections, through his own networking, he was able to hook up at West Campus with football players like former Arizona Cardinals first-round pick Patrick Peterson.

"The athletes all live there and I was always over there, and they kind of had the party house I guess," Leunissen admits, laughing a little. "And everyone would come by that house every weekend and hang out and they got to know me as Kyle. I would always be around and it was mostly just the football team and me."

Leunissen wound up living with two football players, one of which was LSU's All-American placekicker, Josh Jasper, and other players simply seemed to flock to the house. Leunissen used these casual connections to "sit in" on the various Tigers players' meetings with agents, providing him his first real glimpse, his first real taste of what recruitment for Player A, Player B or Player Z may entail.

Business First, Last, Always

Don't think for a second that it's all parties and hangouts, though. It's business first, last and always. NFL agents must possess a law degree, a masters degree or hold seven years of contract negotiation experience. Leunissen, who grew up just outside New Orleans in the town of Mandeville, La., and graduated from LSU in 2012, pursued an MBA in sports management from Concordia after focusing on sports administration as an undergrad.

But for all the learning that Leunissen has done in his short time on the job, it all comes back to one thing - his love of the sport.

"I played almost every sport growing up from golf, tennis, soccer, baseball, basketball football and I just love being around it, love being at games."

Some lessons in his two years in the field have been harder to learn than others. Leunissen wanted to strike out on his own initially, to find investors and make a go of it with Kuni. But he realized pretty quickly that he needed a "backbone" in the industry. Enter and Hadley have been that, and more.

Refine Your Pitch

For all the learning though, Leunissen has a few tricks of his own at this point. Being as young as he is - Leunissen is still just 27 - he can speak a language these college-aged players understand. Leunissen thinks this is where he has a chance to separate himself from other agents out there. His youth isn't inexperience - it's his gateway to connecting with young athletes who are less interested in their future profitability margin and more in what their immediate material future holds.

"I had one player tell us, 'man, I don't allow many agents to sit face-to-face with me like this,' and it's kind of cool because we can relate to them. I was just in their situation five years ago, graduating college and I have more in common to talk to them about," he says.

The world of player representation is built on immediacy. Player A wants to talk, you catch the next flight to Player A's school. Player B says he needs some time to mull it over with his family, you give him a couple days. But you don't disappear. Immediacy, visibility - always working, always hustling.

"You're trying to work for them so you're trying to show them whatever it takes we'll be there," Leunissen explains.

Spot Top Talent

But even before the recruiting comes the targeting - the identification of players Leunissen believes will be stars down the road. Watch some tape, catch a game or two, let that player's skills tell the story, determine whether Player A will someday be the NFL player that Player B simply can't.

"It kind of comes down to I've always had an eye for talent at football," the agent says.

One of Leunissen's two clients is Carolina Panthers running back Brandon Wegher. If Wegher's name sounds at all familiar, it's because the Panthers ballcarrier appeared on NFL Network's "Undrafted," a show which highlights the struggles of a handful of fringe NFL players trying desperately to extend their professional football dreams.

Wegher is one of only a select few success stories to come out of the program.

"I got a call from Brandon, and it was through another friend, and he said, 'Hey, I've got a crazy story, and I want some representation, some help to the next level,' so he sent me a highlight tape, and I looked at it, and within 30 seconds of this 9-minute highlight tape I was like, 'OK, no doubt,'" Leunissen recalls.

Wegher originally went to Iowa as one of the top running backs in the nation. He played in the Orange Bowl, where he had more than 100 yards rushing and the game-winning touchdown. But Wegher got in what Leunissen deemed, in classic agent parlance, "some trouble," and tried to transfer to Oklahoma. He couldn't get in, and football kind of went on the backburner for a little more than a a year, almost two, and then he realized he wanted to play again. Wegher made the jump to an NAIA school called Morningside in Sioux City, Iowa, and there he set nearly every NAIA record of note including points scored in a season, along with single-season records for rushing yards, touchdowns, rushing touchdowns, yards per carry, and all-purpose yards per game.

"You could just see talent," Leunissen says, almost breathless still at the thought of what he'd first seen on Wegher's tape.

Leunissen arranged training for Wegher, got him into a Pro Day, and ultimately, though he didn't get Wegher drafted, landed him with the Panthers.

"He had probably the best preseason of any running back in the NFL and ended up making the 53-man roster, and he's still on the team; now he's going through that crazy year with the Panthers," his agent says. "I couldn't be happier for him. It's just cool. You get to see it, you get to know these guys, and it becomes more than just, 'Oh, we're going to represent you.'"

Be A Big Brother, Build A Football Family

This is a big selling point for Leunissen, Engelhard and ESM. As a "boutique" firm, meaning a smaller firm with more limited resources competing against the "monsters" like Drew Rosenhaus, it takes a different tact to land talent. The love for the game isn't just about Leunissen - it's about seeing these players succeed, to realize their dream as he realizes his.

"It becomes like they're part of the family and we're going to do whatever it takes to help them live out their dreams," he says.

Some guys want the big guys, some players need the "monster." But for many, for players like Houston Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins and Matt Jones of the Washington Redskins, EMS represents a familial atmosphere that means they'll be the No. 1 priority of a rep like Leunissen.

"We have five agents in our firm, and it's kind of more of a family atmosphere, and we're not like 15, 20-to-1, players to agents," says Leunissen. "That means something to a lot of people."

To Leunissen, his age and the EMS atmosphere engenders itself less to a parent-child relationship, and more like a sibling dynamic.

"You know, they're looking of course for us to get the business done, but it's cool that they can call and talk to us about anything and feel like we're their big brother."

Keep Dreaming

But don't think EMS is small or that Leunissen doesn't dream big. It's just that recruiting, targeting that talent, putting together your pitch, is specific to each player. It takes a feeling-out period, and EMS, as a boutique firm, presents specific attributes that are going to draw in some but repel others.

To realize his dream, to realize the dreams of others, Leunissen takes it all in stride and is willing to work. He'll catch those red-eyes, he'll fight for clients like Wegher and current free agent and former Atlanta Falcon Xzavier Dickson.

But it's no cakewalk.

Thinking of making a run at becoming an NFL agent? Get ready for late nights and early mornings. But in the end, you'll be able to say you realized a dream, for yourself, and for others.