Utah
How Jaren Kump used extra eligibility to earn a master’s degree that he hopes will help retiring college athletes
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Jaren Kump is a rarity in the modern age of college sports.
The former Utah offensive lineman spent six consecutive years with the Utes, playing every spot on the offensive line along the way.
Kump was a staple on the offensive line from the beginning, starting all five games during the COVID-19-shortened season in his freshman year. Over the years, he played wherever he was needed, and by the 2024 campaign, locked down the starting center job — a position he held through his senior season with the Utes.
Kump credited the positional versatility he experienced during his college career for helping him become a better lineman.
“It helped me a lot, especially playing center, having to be the quarterback of the offensive line, having to communicate every single play, having to read defenses and make adjustments based off what we see, based off game plan, based on whatever play we’re doing, situation,” Kump said.
“And then knowing exactly how my other guys, how their technique and what they’re seeing, knowing exactly what their game is also like, having done it myself, helped a ton.”
Kump, one of the oldest players on Utah’s roster, originally committed to the Utes back in 2017 out of Herriman High.
“I felt like it was the best place for me in terms of football and whatnot. When I told Utah I was going to come there and I signed my letter of intent there, it was important to me that I kept my word,” Kump said.
After serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brazil, Kump arrived back in Salt Lake City ahead of the 2020 season, which, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, would be a season like no other.
Over half of Utah’s games were canceled. Due to the circumstances, every player that was on the roster for that season received an extra year of eligibility.
Kump’s career would hit another bump in the road in 2021. After starting in every game in 2020 at right tackle, Kump started four of Utah’s first five games before suffering a season-ending injury.
Over his next four seasons, Kump was a key part of Utah’s success along the offensive line, and remained loyal to the Utes, even as offers from other schools came.
“Throughout my time at Utah for six years, of course, there was opportunity to go somewhere else and maybe make more money. And me and my wife, of course, we had conversations about that,” Kump said. “I think being responsible adults, there is room for conversation in that.”
In the end, Kump and his wife, Sydney, decided they’d only consider leaving Utah if Kump wasn’t getting enough playing time.
“Leaving for NIL purposes or stuff like that, we felt like that wasn’t the right thing to do. Plus, Utah did a good job at taking care of us anyway. We fell in love with Utah and we wanted to stay because we wanted to keep our word. That was the right thing to do,” Kump said.
Staying at Utah gave Kump the opportunity to be part of some of the highest peaks in Utah football history, including back-to-back Pac-12 championships in 2021 and 2022. Kump pointed to Utah’s 43-42 win over USC in 2022 as one of his favorite moments as a Ute, saying he had never heard Rice-Eccles Stadium as loud as it was when Cam Rising scored the game-winning two-point conversion.
Kump’s final game at Rice-Eccles, a 51-47 comeback win over Kansas State, is another memory he’ll cherish from his Utah career.
“That was another moment I heard Rice-Eccles Stadium erupt in the way that it’s known. Those are two moments I will never forget,” he said.
A high school coach gives Kump direction
As he began college, like a good chunk of university students, Kump didn’t know what he wanted to do post-football. He called his high school strength coach for advice, and in a lengthy conversation, he suggested that Kump could become a strength coach like him.
“Leaving for NIL purposes or stuff like that, we felt like that wasn’t the right thing to do. Plus, Utah did a good job at taking care of us anyway. We fell in love with Utah and we wanted to stay because we wanted to keep our word. That was the right thing to do.”
— Utah center Jaren Kump
“He explained to me, ‘You love training. Every time you come in, you’re passionate about what you do, you’re passionate about learning why you’re doing things, so why don’t you go and study for that?’ I’m like, ‘That’s a great idea,’ and so strength and conditioning is the kind of motivation to pursue kinesiology,” Kump said.
While some, including this reporter, might have thought that Kump’s extensive experience with strength and conditioning, injury management and personal training from college football would give him a leg up in the classroom, he said that it was actually the reverse.
“Being able to understand why we’re doing things really helps a lot when undergoing training and having to make adjustments based off of, say, injury or, say, tweaks here and there,” Kump said.
Though his first two years at Utah were anything but ideal on the field, he turned a negative situation to a positive one off the field, deciding to pursue a master’s degree with his two years of extra eligibility after graduating with his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology in 2023.
“I’m already here. I got a couple more years left. Might as well shoot for a master’s degree because if I don’t try to shoot for it, I know I’ll regret it for the rest of my life,” Kump said.
‘Be where your feet are’
In an era of college football where players are making big money and the sport is more and more professionalized with each passing year, it’s easy to forget that the players are full-time students as well.
Combining essentially a full-time job in college football with the intensive nature of a master’s program isn’t easy. According to Utah health and kinesiology associate professor Tanya Halliday, just 3% of Division I athletes pursue a graduate degree.
Kump segmented his two lives in his mind, which helped him manage his time well.
“Being where your feet are is something I learned while being a student-athlete as well. When I’m in school, when I’m doing my graduate studies, I’m working on my thesis, I’m not a football player. I’m 100% a student, I’m 100% a graduate student or whatever that entails,” Kump said.
“I’m not thinking about football, I’m not thinking about the mistakes I made in practice, I’m not thinking about how I can correct them, I’m 100% a student. And the same goes for football. You be where your feet are.”
With his background as a football player, Kump’s master’s degree thesis fittingly focused on the health and wellness challenges that Division I athletes face as they retire from sports.
“There’s a lot of data out there to suggest that student-athletes, as they retire, especially on the Division I level,” Kump said. “They’re experiencing a typhoon, a lot of negative health consequences and those include things such as lower rates of physical activity and even fitness compared to their nonathletic counterparts, a lower quality of nutrition and knowledge, an increased effect on their injuries, on their prolonging injuries as they continue into retirement and even increased rates of obesity.”
There’s also the mental health aspect, including a decreased sense of self-identity and mood.
Over the course of his master’s degree, Kump was able to survey hundreds of student-athletes to find out more about these health outcomes.
“A big piece that we saw is current student-athletes are anticipating the challenges of retirement very accurately based on the lived experiences of former student-athletes,” he said. “That would tell us that these student-athletes are kind of seeing these challenges coming. It’s not like they’re experiencing anything drastically different versus what they expected.”
Another big finding for Kump was the decline in self-efficacy of retired athletes.
“I would say the biggest challenge of what they saw was their self-efficacy in different areas, especially in self-efficacy and being able to manage their sport-related injuries. That was a huge piece that we saw as a challenge to them,” Kump said.
That showed up in other areas, like maintaining a physical health program and managing their mental health.
According to an article from University of Utah Health, this project is just beginning. Later, another student will build on Kump’s findings, using the data to “develop a deeper qualitative study and continue the work.”
Continuing his football dream in Chicago
Ahead of the NFL draft, Kump had a busy month. He trained for and participated in Utah’s pro day in front of NFL scouts, spoke with NFL teams and even got in some training sessions with Utah offensive line coach Jordan Gross and offensive lineman Isaiah Kema.
Just days before the NFL draft, Kump received his master’s degree in kinesiology — a major achievement.
“The thing that I found probably most rewarding was honestly getting it done, feeling relieved of getting it done, doing what I knew was going to be very, very difficult, but I knew that I could do it if I really put my mind to it,” Kump said.
Over the three days of the NFL draft, Kump experienced a roller coaster of emotions.
“Anywhere between excitement, anger, frustration, a little bit of sadness,” he said.
Though he was not selected in the seven-round draft, he was the first Ute to sign an NFL free-agent contact, inking a deal with the Chicago Bears.
“As soon as we made a deal with the Chicago Bears, it was just a sense of relief. It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders and just washed away down the river. I’m super relieved and I’m excited for the opportunity now that we have an exact pinpointed place that we’re going, I can kind of focus on that now,” Kump said.
The whirlwind is just beginning for Kump. He’s packing up and moving to Chicago, where the Bears will hold rookie mini-camp at the start of May. At the end of May, the Bears will have team OTAs, followed by team-wide mini-camp in June.
This time period is critical for Kump, who is trying to make the active roster.
“I’m very excited to go and just work my tail off and to be able to hopefully make a name for myself to get a roster spot,” he said.
Kump arrives in Chicago with a wealth of experience from his six seasons in college, and he feels like playing at Utah has set him up well for the NFL experience.
“I would say from what I understand, how the NFL structures practices and layout of everything and coaching styles and how decisions are made, a common theme I keep hearing from older guys that come back and talk to us is that it’s very similar to how Utah runs things and it helped prepare them in ways that they didn’t understand, they didn’t know at the time when they were in college,” Kump said.
Kump hopes he will have a lengthy NFL career, but when his time to retire from football comes, he plans to still be around the sport, putting his degree to use as a strength and conditioning coach or a position coach.
“After my football career, hopefully that lasts for some years, but whenever that is, either strength and conditioning or I’ve even thought about being a position coach. … I do know that having a master’s degree does help with that as well, having that on your résumé,” Kump said.
In case you missed it
Former Ute offensive tackle Spencer Fano was selected by the Cleveland Browns with the No. 9 pick in the 2026 NFL draft, while fellow offensive tackle Caleb Lomu was selected by the New England Patriots with the No. 28 pick.
From the archives
Extra points
Three firefighters were killed Saturday while battling two wildfires near the Colorado-Utah border, the U.S. Wildland Fire Service announced.
Emily Barker, 38, was from Michigan; Nick Hutcherson, 27, was from Arizona; and Sydney Watson, 26, was from Alabama.
Loved ones and friends started sharing tributes on social media, and FOX 13 News spoke to the loved ones of Emily Barker.
It all started when Sarah Brubeck was looking for a roommate in Colorado.
“Emily answered a random Craigslist ad,” Brubeck said. “We didn’t even know we had so much in common, so we had multiple hockey bags in our garage and multiple snowboards.”
Little did Brubeck know, she was getting a lot more than just a roommate.
“Grew to be more sisters than friends,” she said.
3 firefighters killed in wildfires
Just a couple of states over, Barker had touched the life of Kayla Lindsey.
“I met her when I was doing my interagency fire season with USFS and BLM Idaho,” she said. “You cannot see Emily and not want to talk to her.”
However, both friends’ worlds came crashing down when they heard the news that three firefighters did not make it while responding to the Knowles Fire along the Colorado-Utah border.
“One of our teammates was like, ‘Hey, Emily, let us know you’re safe,’ and she didn’t respond,” Brubeck said. “I just assumed she was out of service, and she would respond when she could, but she couldn’t.”
“I saw it first on Facebook,” Lindsey said. “I just kept reading it over and over, like, ‘That’s not the Emily Barker, I know that’s not my Emily.’”
Barker had died during a burn-over incident, something that hits close to home for Lindsey.
“I remember my first state fire, we pulled our shelters, and that’s never a good feeling. You never want to have to hear the words, ‘Get to your safety zone,’” she said. “I couldn’t imagine as strong as Emily was, how scared she must have felt when that happened, because that’s a terrible way to go.”
“She was more than life itself,” Lindsey added through tears. “She took so much interest in every person she met. She loved her job.”
While the world is getting to know Barker as a hero, her friends said it’s who she’s been all along.
“Showing up to house sit for free while we’re on our honeymoon or offering to carry someone’s hockey bag — she just gave of herself constantly,” Brubeck said.
“Didn’t matter how much she didn’t have in her cup, she always tried to fill everyone else’s,” Lindsey added. “I just wish we had more Emilys in the fire service.”
A wildland firefighter who knew the victims in Utah released the following statement:
“It’s times like these we’re reminded how truly dangerous our jobs are. Fire is the only natural disaster we ask men and women to stand in front of and stop. While we are often successful, sometimes the power of fire overtakes us, despite our best efforts and safest decision making. As we see so much criticism online about how we do our jobs, please remember our ultimate goal is to get every firefighter home safely. Saturday, we failed. The loss of Emily, Nick, and Sydney is burned in our souls. Our agencies and firefighters are hurting. We appreciate the public support now. And we hope that continues long after this has been forgotten for most of you. Because, for us, it is never forgotten. Every decision“It’s times like these we’re reminded how truly dangerous our jobs are. Fire is the only natural disaster we ask men and women to stand in front of and stop. While we are often successful, sometimes the power of fire overtakes us, despite our best efforts and safest decision making. As we see so much criticism online about how we do our jobs, please remember our ultimate goal is to get every firefighter home safely. Saturday, we failed. The loss of Emily, Nick, and Sydney is burned in our souls. Our agencies and firefighters are hurting. We appreciate the public support now. And we hope that continues long after this has been forgotten for most of you. Because, for us, it is never forgotten. Every decision, every pause in action, is because of a lost firefighter. To our fallen comrades… we’ll take it from here.”
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A part-time wildland firefighter is asking Utah leaders for more job protections after he said he was told he would lose his full-time job for accepting a call to respond to the Iron and Cherry fires.
Israel Justice has worked as a part-time wildland firefighter for 22 years. For the past seven years, he has also worked full time for an Ogden-based mechanical company.
Justice said his employer had previously accommodated the emergency nature of wildfire deployments, but that recently changed.
“This job requires, you know, last-minute, kind-of show-up-and-go,” Justice said. “They call you, and you have to leave immediately and respond to these incidents.”
MORE | Wildfire
Justice is currently assigned to the fire line. He said he does not know whether he will have a job to return to when his assignment ends.
“They were recently bought out by a larger corporation, and they’re not willing to work under the same terms we had before, where I would be free to leave and come back,” Justice said.
2News reached out to the company to ask about its unpaid leave policy, what has changed and whether Justice will have a job to return to. The company did not respond.
Justice said the uncertainty has forced him to choose between job security and answering a critical call for help.
“I don’t believe it’s asking much that these companies make a small sacrifice so we can come out here and serve,” he said.
Justice said he wants wildland firefighters to receive employment protections similar to those provided to National Guard members and certain volunteers.
“We’re out here doing the same job, putting our lives on the line to help others,” Justice said. “We’re out here serving and doing our part for the country, and all I ask is that we get a little protection so that when we get back home, we know we’ll still have a job and can continue to care for our families.”
Justice said the pressure of fighting a wildfire while not knowing whether he will be able to support his family when he returns makes an already dangerous job even more difficult.
He has written to Gov. Spencer Cox and Rep. Blake Moore asking for stronger employment protections for wildland firefighters and informing them of his situation. He said he has not heard back.
Rep. Moore provided the following statement:
“Our office hasn’t heard from this constituent about his situation, but we would encourage employers where they can to allow their employees to go fight the fires. I’m grateful to the many firefighters and first responders working to keep our communities safe, and I’m praying for their safety during this time.”
____
COVE, Scotland – A Utah couple is renovating and restoring a castle in Scotland.
David and Chelom Leavitt are documenting this massive project on social media, which has attracted more than 1.4 million followers.
Now, after years of work, the finish line is in sight.
KSL recently traveled to Scotland to get a look at the renovation and talk to the Leavitts about their experience.
Historic castle
In a village called Cove, along a body of water known as Loch Long, sits Knockderry Castle.
The nearly 175-year-old structure stands out as a prominent feature of the Scottish peninsula.
Murdo MacLeod lives just beneath the castle.
“It sits on this outcrop of rock,” he said, looking up at the towering turrets, “and the views from the rooms up there would be absolutely stunning, looking down the loch on a windy night.”
The castle has quite a history. Built in the 1850s, it has been renovated many times. Knockderry Castle has been visited by some rich and famous people, including philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
In 2023, the castle was sold to a couple from – of all places – Utah. Chelom and David Leavitt are now overseeing the castle’s complete renovation and restoration.
“We’re trying to find the balance,” said David, “between restoring what was and making it ours.”
Who are the Leavitts?
The Leavitts live in Orem, Utah. David is a former county attorney in Utah and Juab counties. Chelom is a family life professor at Brigham Young University.
“I have been looking at castles for decades, and just for fun,” Chelom said. “When this came up, we both thought this is the right thing to at least look into.”
The timing worked out. David was just out of office after losing his bid for reelection as Utah County Attorney; both he and Chelom said they were looking for something new and different.
They ended up buying the castle for a reported $1.4 million after the prior owner was evicted.
“Something kind of spoke to both of us,” Chelom said. “This is a really peaceful place.”
It was a dream come true – but also, sort of a nightmare.
“If we had any idea what we were getting ourselves into, there’s not a way in the world that we would have done it,” David said. “Not a chance.”
Major problems
The project quickly revealed problems, particularly with the wood inside the castle. Much of it had rotted.
“The fact that this castle is still standing is pretty amazing,” Chelom said. “Another 10 years and it would have been falling.”
That made the renovation much more complicated as workers needed to shore up the structure inside and out. David thinks of it like an Oreo cookie.
“We have completely restored both sides of the cookie,” he said, “and we’ve completely replaced the cream filling with 21st-century technology.”
That includes brand-new plumbing, heating and electrical. In the kitchen, a countertop charges cellphones. There’s also a very smart oven with many computerized features – and a faucet that instantly offers boiling, freezing or sparkling water.
When the renovation began more than three years ago, the Leavitts started a blog to chronicle their progress. But when they moved over to Instagram, things exploded. Knockderry Castle now has followers from around the world. The Leavitts post regular videos about the project, sharing their journey with strangers.
“Now we get stopped in stores and in airports” by fans who follow the castle renovation online, David Leavitt said. “That’s a really nice thing to be stopped for.”
Castle features
There’s a lot to see in the castle. Wood carvings are everywhere, along with roughly two dozen fireplaces. There are also little reminders of Utah, like a beehive on a stained-glass window.
Some rooms even have their own theme, such as the Japanese room or the Viking room.
There are also several rooms that would be difficult to find without knowing where to look. One of them is hidden behind a bookshelf. Another is secluded behind a bathroom mirror.
“Some are hidden, which means we’ll show those to people,” Chelom said. “But some are secret, and they won’t be shown.”
There’s something else that’s secret – how much this castle renovation costs.
“We get that question all the time,” David said.
The couple would only say they’ve spent more on the project than what they initially paid for the castle – and more than what they planned on.
The Leavitts acknowledge they’re in a unique position to be able to pay to restore a castle. They recognize many would love to do this – and they want to give something back to those who follow them.
“We feel this need to share it,” David said, “because we’re no different or better than anybody else that doesn’t have the ability to do that. We just … had the circumstances that would allow us to do that.”
The castle will be used as a family home, the Leavitts said, but they also plan to open it up to the public by hosting conferences, seminars or other events there. They hope the interior will all be finished by the end of this year.
This project hasn’t been easy. But the Leavitts say it’s kind of a metaphor for life.
“The person you want to be is on the other side of what you don’t want to face, and this is really what it was for us in this castle,” said Chelom. “Things that are worth doing in life, if you knew what you were getting into, you wouldn’t do them. But things that are worthwhile, they’re hard.”
‘A good thing’
Back below the castle, Murdo MacLeod looked up at the work in progress and called it a “good thing.”
He’ll be watching as Knockderry Castle enters the next chapter in its long history.
“At least it’ll be sound when it’s done,” MacLeod said, “and it’ll be here for, I think, quite a long time.”
He added, “I’m glad somebody’s come along and done it.”
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