SCANTLING Garrett

General
AMERICAN FOOTBALL
After finishing fourth at the 2016 US Olympic Trials, he decided to step away from athletics and signed for National Football League [NFL] team the Atlanta Falcons in April 2017. He had not played American football competitively since high school. After training with the Falcons he signed with another NFL team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, but left the Jaguars during their preseason training camp. "I came in fourth at the Olympic trials, and after that, I sat down with my family and we just went over my options at the time. I was graduating and we were kind of wondering what was next. Track had kind of taken a backseat to all the other things I wanted to do at the time, and one of my dreams was to play football. It was great being in an NFL locker room with some of the most famous athletes in American football history, with so much success and so many people behind them. I learned a lot about life while playing football. Football taught me that if you don't put in the work, if you don't do what you're supposed to do, someone else will come in and take your spot." (worldathletics.org, 13 May 2020; georgiadogs.com, 15 Apr 2020; redandblack.com, 28 Jun 2020; flotrack.org, 10 Apr 2017)

COMEBACK
After his stint as an American football player, he began working in financial planning, but later decided he wanted to return to athletics. In 2019 he moved from Jacksonville, FL, to Athens, GA, where he reunited with his University of Georgia coach Petros Kyprianou. "I had my job, my house, my dog and I was doing really well. But one day I realised that I was sick of sitting at a desk. I wanted to run. I wanted to jump. I wanted to pole vault. But it was a harder decision to come back than it was to leave in 2016. I'm more aware now, more in control of every aspect of what my body does. I'm stronger, and I'm smarter about how I take care of it. I'm ahead of where I was in 2016. It's been a lot easier for me coming back just being older and wiser." (worldathletics.org, 13 May 2020; georgiadogs.com, 15 Apr 2020; redandblack.com, 28 Jun 2020; flotrack.org, 10 Apr 2017)

COACHING
He is an athletics coaching intern at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, United States of America. (redandblack.com, 28 Jun 2020; LinkedIn profile, 26 May 2021)