Oct. 9, 2013
By Jon Cooper
Sting Daily
Sean Poole is polling well in his final season on The Flats.
The redshirt senior punter from Tallahassee, Fla., is off to the best season of his career, booming kicks at career-high 44.7 yards per kick (five yards better than his best previous season), including a career-best 66-yard missile on Sept. 14 in the win at Duke. He also is netting 41.6 yards per punt, also a career best (something to which he gives props to his teammates on the punt team).
Poole led the ACC in punting earlier in the season and is hoping to become the second punter in Georgia Tech history to lead the conference in punting. The first, Durant Brooks in 2007, parlayed that feat into national renown, as he was voted the Ray Guy Award, as the nation’s top punter, then was a sixth-round pick of Washington in the 2008 NFL Draft.
While Sean would like to follow in Brooks’ footsteps, he appears set quite likely to follow in the footsteps of his father, Van, a career politician, who was a state senator in Florida, Chairman of Florida’s Republican Party and later a lobbyist.
He’s already done an internship as a lobbyist in D.C. and worked in the Georgia Governor’s office as an intern in the Health Policy Department where he worked under Policy Advisor Katie Rogers on bills reforming T.A.N.F. (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), EBT cards and on an autism mandate for the state of Georgia.
Sting Daily talked with Poole about his political aspirations, why he’d make a good lobbyist and his display of diplomacy during last year’s ACC title game.
Poole Significant Facts:
Games Played: 38
First Game: 9/4/10 vs. South Carolina State
First Punt: 9/18/10 at North Carolina (34 yards)
Longest Punt: 66 yards, 9/14/13 at Duke
Longest Average: 52.5 (2 punts), 9/14/13 at Duke
Most Punts: 7, 9/3/12 at Virginia Tech
Most Punts Inside 20: 4, 10/16/10 at Middle Tennessee State
Most 50-Plus Punts: 4 times, latest 9/21/13 vs. North Carolina
FIRST DOWN: You come from a political family and have a couple of internships that are political in nature. Do you see politics in your future?
POOLE: It is. One of these days I aspire to hopefully be a lobbyist or something along those lines in a political career. I’ve been kind of dipping my feet in it, both public and private sector. I’m kind of weighing my options, trying to see where the jobs are when I get out, just trying to line something up in the political side of things because it’s what I love doing.
SECOND DOWN: What aspects of your personality will be most beneficial to your career in that field?
POOLE: One thing is honesty. It goes a long way. It speaks a lot about your reputation. Honesty and being personable, being open to everybody and willing to take the extra second to talk to anybody and just giving back to the people.
THIRD DOWN: Would you consider LACK OF honesty one of the biggest misconceptions about lobbyists?
POOLE: That can be a misconception, but that comes back to your morals. The people that have good morals and are honest are generally the most successful people in the business. People want to surround themselves with good character and if you can uphold that then you’ll get more people around you.
FOURTH DOWN: Being a Tallahassee native, what was it like playing against Florida State in last year’s ACC Championship Game?
POOLE: It was a lot of fun. I played with a lot of those guys in high school, either on the same team or surrounding schools so it was good to get over there and get a little competitive spirit back. Give them a shot. There wasn’t a lot of talking. We’re all really good friends. We’ve been close, being from Tallahassee. But as soon as you strap it up you’re in it for your team to win.
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