Rams punter Riley Dixon on playing baseball and football growing up, studying accounting, camaraderie among Rams’ specialists

3) Your Syracuse bio mentioned pursuing an undergraduate degree in accounting. Why did that field/occupation appeal to you?

“That’s an interesting story. My uncle was a CPA, and he went on – now he runs a hotel. He’s been doing that for quite a long time. And I had a good conversation with him about it. He said, ‘You know, accounting is kind of the foundation of how businesses run, where they make money, how everything’s allocated. And once you know how it runs, it makes it a little bit easier to figure out ways to improve it.’ And I thought that was pretty cool. I kind of had an engineering mind growing up, my dad’s a contractor, so I always was interested in how things worked, and surprisingly, I got to do that kind of a little twisted, but how businesses work and run and how everything’s allocated for. I found it super interesting. I don’t know if I was going to be a full-blown accountant, but I figured it would have been a gateway for me to find my way into other business opportunities if football didn’t work out.”

4) Will that tie into your post-retirement plans when that time comes (which is hopefully very far down the road)?

“Yeah, I’ve always thought about it. I’m halfway through my master’s in accounting. I haven’t been back to that since I left school – I started it when I was there – but I’m 15 credits away from my masters. I don’t know. Like I said, I haven’t gotten that far yet. But yeah, that was where I was headed.”

5) How would you describe the camaraderie between you, kicker Matt Gay and longsnapper Matthew Orzech?

“These guys are like brothers, man. I mean, probably two of the best people I know. I don’t take that lightly, because I think it takes a long time to get to know somebody. But these guys, who they are as athletes, who they are as people, their faith, just awesome dudes. You know, I think they gel with just about anybody, but it’s been a really, really smooth transition getting to know those guys. We spend a lot of time together. So it’s been it’s been great.”