{"id":463958,"date":"2026-09-15T01:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T01:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/463958\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T01:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T01:36:12","slug":"justin-buzzard-california-father-of-3-freshman-defensive-end-for-san-jose-city-college-jaguars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/463958\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Buzzard, California father of 3, freshman defensive end for San Jose City College Jaguars"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California father of three is proving age might be just a number after all, making his college football<\/a> debut at 48 years old.<\/p>\n

Justin Buzzard, who also happens to wear a No. 48 jersey, is a freshman defensive end for the San Jose City College Jaguars.<\/p>\n

“I feel good,” Buzzard told<\/a> ABC News’ Danny New after his first game. “I mean, I’m sore all the time.”<\/p>\n

“I haven’t hit anyone in a football game in 30 years, so that felt good to do,” he added.<\/p>\n

Buzzard previously registered to play football for Whitworth University in Washington 30 years ago, but was redshirted and sustained an injury before he could start playing.<\/p>\n

Decades later, Buzzard’s son encouraged him to return to the field when he heard stories of other older men playing college sports in their later years.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: Sources: LSU completes roster without adding ex-NFL players<\/a><\/p>\n

“I came up with the pro-con list. The pro list was super long. The con list was, ‘What if I got hurt?'” Buzzard recalled of his decision-making process.<\/p>\n

San Jose City College was also open to giving Buzzard a chance, so he said he immediately went to work, weightlifting and putting on 10 pounds of muscle.<\/p>\n

“I’m just sprinting all the time, so my hamstrings are on fire,” Buzzard said now of his exercise routine.<\/p>\n

Today, Buzzard said he and two of his sons, who play high school football, like to trade tips and techniques with each other.<\/p>\n

Buzzard is also already making an impact three weeks into the season and recorded a pass breakup over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Even though practice sessions have been harder than he initially anticipated, Buzzard said he has realized he can achieve what he puts his mind to.<\/p>\n

“At the same time … I just realized I can do this,” he said.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ABC News Internet Ventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California father of three is proving age might be just a number after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[182736,7,9,8],"class_list":["post-463958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-182736","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}