You hear stories of professional football players who study dance—or you at least hear us talk about how dance and sports need not be thought of as polar opposites—but seeing it with your own eyes is still pretty special. Meet West Virginia University’s Ricky Rogers, a wide receiver for the Mountaineers’ football team and a dance major. He’s constantly finding similarities between the playing field and the dance studio—in fact, getting to perform is his favorite aspect of both football and dance.
Rogers’ future plans? Well, there’s always the NFL—but he also dreams of dancing professionally and opening his own studio.
WVU’s dance major is the state’s first bachelor of arts degree in dance, thanks to the efforts of program director Yoav Kaddar.