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ORLANDO, Fla. — Fifteen months ago, Roman Macek was an all-conference offensive lineman at Duquesne and a student in the law school, with one more football season ahead of him. The future was bright.

Today, he’s putting that law knowledge to use, carrying a briefcase everywhere and arguing his case. But he’s not in a courtroom. He’s in a WWE ring, under the name Luca Crusifino as a wrestler/lawyer character.

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In April 2022, Macek participated in a WWE tryout in Frisco, Texas, aimed at current and recent college athletes. Macek performed well and was offered a contract. He left Duquesne, despite having a year of football eligibility left, and took a leave of absence from the law school, all to chase his dream.

He’d never taken part in professional wrestling before. In just about a year, he slimmed down, created a character and literally learned the ropes. In May, Crusifino won his first match, when he used his briefcase to distract a referee, poked his opponent in the eye and rolled him up for a three count. He has won his past three matches.

“It’s unbelievable,” Macek said. “It’s a dream come true. It’s tough to describe it in words.”

Macek is one of the numerous college athletes from that tryout or from WWE’s name, image and likeness path who already is making his impact in the company. Former Northwestern defensive lineman Joe Spivak, wrestling as Tank Ledger, has been on TV for several months and competed in a No. 1 contender tag team match in June. He and Macek have been wrestling for only a year.

The same goes for Alexis Amrhein (now wrestling as Dani Palmer), who was on Baylor’s national championship acrobatics & tumbling team, and former South Alabama baseball player Caleb Balgaard, who were at that same Texas tryout. Balgaard is appearing on two TV shows: “WWE NXT” and “The Bachelorette.”

“I didn’t expect it to be as painful as it is, but it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” Balgaard said of pro wrestling. “I can’t see myself doing anything else in the world right now.”

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On June 7, WWE hosted nine recently graduated college athletes who have been in WWE’s NIL program. That group included Haley and Hanna Cavinder from the Miami (Fla.) women’s basketball team, Stanford edge rusher Thunder Keck, Illinois tight end Luke Ford and Arizona State fullback Case Hatch. They’ll return in late July for an official tryout.

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Many of the most famous pro wrestlers played college sports, like The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin, but they only got into wrestling if they knew about it. A few years ago, WWE changed its developmental strategy, making a major push for college athletes in and just out of school.

Now, the tangible proof has begun to arrive on screen.

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Duquesne coach Jerry Schmitt admits he was a bit conflicted at the news. Macek was allowed to miss a spring practice to go to the WWE tryout last year. When Macek told Schmitt of the offer to join WWE, he was thrilled for Macek, of course. Schmitt also realized it would be a key loss for the team. In 18 years as Duquesne’s coach, it was not a typical way to lose a player.

“I tease him all the time about it, but I’m extremely happy for him,” the 62-year-old Schmitt said.

Macek was a bit undersized for an offensive lineman at 6 foot 2 and 280 pounds, but he had tremendous footwork and strength, Schmitt said. Those skills were evident at the tryout last year. There was no contact, but participants had to run the ropes, roll and learn how to fall correctly. They also had to talk on the microphone and show a big personality, which is just as important in pro wrestling as athleticism. It’s entertainment, after all.

Macek moved to Orlando in June 2022 to train at the WWE Performance Center, a set of warehouses at the corner of a back road. When he arrived at his apartment complex and was told he couldn’t move in for another month, he pushed back and got two free months of rent and a $1,000 gift card.

“I used my legal brain,” he said. “I know what I can do here.”

In the ring, he “felt like a lost puppy” at first. But he started to figure it out, and his body transformed from offensive lineman to pro wrestler. He has dropped 50 pounds since arriving last summer and lost 10 percent body fat.

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“The training is similar to football, but it’s a whole different type of shape,” he said. “It’s so much more cardio intensive.”

Macek began to figure out the athletic part of things. The character side was another journey. He pitched a lawyer character, a classic wrestling villain, but he wasn’t sure what to do with it. At his character’s first appearance in December, he wore normal wrestling tights and boots. It didn’t click. When he came back in January, he’d spent “copious amounts” on suits, bought a website domain, 2,500 business cards, yard signs and notebooks on his own. The next time he went out, he felt something. He cried after his first TV appearance, joy for finding his way and for the supportive coaches around him.

The Legal Eagle soars to his first victory! ⚖️🦅 pic.twitter.com/rfnyLBoeO8

— Luca Crusifino, Esq. (@LucaCrusifino) May 20, 2023

“We’ve created something I love and think can go a long way,” he said.

Duquesne coaches and teammates call Macek when they see a match. He still goes through his law school books, too. Partly for studying, partly for character. What’s more cartoonishly villainous than a professional wrestler threatening to sue another wrestler for assault and battery?

“I did always say he’d make a great attorney,” Schmitt said.

Spivak quickly has become the face of WWE’s NIL program. He signed an NIL deal with the company in December 2021, meant as a way to jump-start relationships, and he even began preparing for wrestling by taking back-bumps on the field turf at Northwestern. He worked out with the Chicago Bears in the spring of 2022, but when football opportunities went quiet, he finished a master’s degree, went to Orlando for a tryout, performed well and started with the company last summer.

He adapted quickly. His first match came in October, and by May, he had become a regular on NXT as a tag team alongside Hank Walker. Since the beginning of April, Spivak has wrestled six times on weekly TV shows, plus numerous other appearances and matches on non-televised shows.

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“From the very first conversation we had with Joe, you could feel it through the phone, the charisma, the ‘it’ factor,” one WWE official said. “He has a bright future.”

Tank Ledger loses teeth on #WWENXT 😬 #WWE #NXT pic.twitter.com/yrg5zGckIo

— The Wrestle Debate (@wrestle_debate) May 10, 2023

Spivak’s character plays up to his size, the “tank” of NXT, but it’s a different kind of shape than a defensive lineman. Again, there’s a lot of cardio, and Spivak doesn’t necessarily have to hit a certain weight, but he has to make sure he looks good, too. Outside the ring, Spivak gained WWE’s trust to become the poster boy for the NIL program. He has done all kinds of interviews to promote the company, including a “Good Morning Football” hit on NFL Network during WrestleMania this year. At the NIL event with college athletes in June, he led a question-and-answer panel to answer their questions.

“I’ve always been someone who loves to talk and get a crowd going, be the center of attention,” Spivak said. “I wasn’t afraid to do that in promo classes. I’m here to wrestle, and I’m here to entertain, what this company does.”

Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald has caught a few of Spivak’s matches and said his former player always had the gregarious personality and drive to make it happen.

“I’m jealous,” Fitzgerald said of Spivak’s NIL partnership. “That would have been cool to have in the ’90s.”

The NIL athlete visit in June was about pitching recent college athletes on that same future.

Nine athletes visited the Performance Center for a wholesale look at the process. The day included a media training session, a promo class during which athletes came up with speeches to the camera on the spot, photo shoots and a video shoot, and they watched NXT trainees go through workouts.

The Cavinder twins were the biggest stars and were even brought out on TV the night before for a celebration at the end of the NXT show.

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“You see it on TV, and it’s amazing,” Hanna Cavinder said. “Then you get here, see the roots of it, all the physicality and skills you have to have behind it.”

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The twins, who are social media influencers, have no timeline for a possible decision to join WWE. The other athletes, however, have their eyes on the July tryout.

Keck found the WWE NIL program through a social media consultant at school. He signed up for INFLCR and connected with WWE. Despite having only 12 tackles in his Stanford career, he got an NIL deal because WWE’s program is about finding potential future wrestlers. Keck shined in the promo class, with a burst of energy and intensity when talking trash into the camera. He’s asked Spivak and others for advice on the July tryout and planned to spend a month preparing — once he finished his final exam at Stanford for his master’s degree.

“This was one of the most fun couple days I’ve ever had,” Keck said. “In life sometimes, you get into a rhythm, and this has broken up that rhythm and got me outside my comfort zone. It’s led me to investigate parts of myself I don’t necessarily get to investigate in football. It’s been dope. I’m super excited.”

At Arizona State, Hatch’s claim to fame was breaking face masks as the starting fullback — either his own or an opponent’s. His agent pitched the WWE NIL idea last year, and after Hatch visited the Dallas tryout last spring, he joined the NIL program. Spending a day inside WWE only made him more excited about the possibility.

“Physicality is what gets my energy out, gets my emotions out,” Hatch said. “In the ring, it can be the same thing. You can be a different person in the ring than you are in life. It was cool to see the hard work and physicality because I love all that stuff.”

It’s not just football. WWE has found early success with athletes from all kinds of sports, like wrestling, track and field, and especially acrobatics and tumbling for women. WWE envisioned its pitch as a way for athletes to continue to have a professional career, just in sports entertainment — even in the rare situations when that means cutting a college career short and putting law school on hold.

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On the night of the Cavinders’ appearance on NXT, Macek was dressed in a suit backstage, preparing for a pre-tape promo. He had multiple pages written out in his notebook, and he was memorizing them. A smile on his face, he never could have imagined what the past year has brought him.

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“I just want to get 1 percent better at one thing every single day. By the end of your career, you’ll be something special. That’s my focus,” Macek said. “If someone sees me and says, ‘Oh, that’s that attorney guy,’ I’ll know I made it.”

(Photo of Roman Macek / Luca Crusifino courtesy of WWE)

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