Football, Focus, and Faith

A powerful story of purpose, connection, and values.

LONG READ
PURPOSE AND CALLING

Ness Mugrabi was born in July 1998. An Orthodox Jewish boy from Brooklyn, by the time he was in the sixth grade, Mugrabi had become a diehard fan of the Dolphins and obsessed with football. In 2011, Miami had six straight losses to start the season, and Mugrabi was devastated. He found a 1-800 number for the Dolphins’ stadium online, and when no one answered his call, he left a message, asking to speak with Coach Tony Sparano.

He called a few more times, persistent. He needed to talk to Sparano. Exasperated, a Dolphins receptionist went to Reginald Sperling, the Dolphins’ guest services director, and told him: “There’s a kid that keeps calling, saying he wants to talk to Coach, and I don’t know what to tell him. He’s called so many times.” So, Sperling told her to transfer the next call to his office. Sure enough, Mugrabi called again, sneaking away to the bathroom in the middle of a school day to make the call.

Sperling says, “I remember it was mid-morning and this little voice goes: ‘Hi, my name is Ness. I just wanted to talk to Coach for a minute. I’m just calling because I want to tell him to keep his head up. These are challenging times, he’s getting beat up and I just want to tell him he has support.”

Sperling called Ness back after school, when he was with his parents, and invited the family to the Dolphins’ game at MetLife against the Giants. That Sunday, Sperling greeted them at the gate with field passes and Ness met players and coaches— Sparano included — and got a signed football. He met Stephen Ross, the Dolphins’ owner, and the family sat with the billionaire owner in his suite.

Sperling became Ness’s mentor and later that season, Mugrabi visited him at Sun Life – now called Hard Rock – Stadium, the Dolphins’ home stadium, where he got a tour of the facility. That’s when Mugrabi really started daydreaming about his future.

“He was just a very young, humble, and kind young boy, who had a dream,” Sperling said. “It’s funny…during the first couple of times meeting him, I was like, ‘Ness, one day you’re going to be working in the NFL.’”

Mugrabi’s immigrant parents knew nothing about football, but loved watching him pursue his passion. He’d watch the games on Sunday, write his own mock drafts, study college prospects, track free agency, and write down the contracts players signed. He read up on the league’s general managers and “read every single book on an agent you can find,” he said. At 16, he convinced his father, Rafi, to fly him to Indianapolis for the NFL combine. “I told Ness, if it’s something you love, we have nothing to lose, only to gain,” his dad said.

“He just let me follow my dreams,” Mugrabi said.

In Indy, Mugrabi walked up to everyone notable that he recognized — he had studied what GMs, coaches, agents, personnel directors, and scouts looked like — and introduced himself: “Hi, I’m Ness Mugrabi, I’m 16 years old, I’m just here at the combine trying to meet people and build a name for myself in the business.”

One night, Mugrabi and his father had a late dinner at a mostly empty Italian restaurant. When they were seated, Mugrabi spotted an agent he admired who had some notable Dolphins clients at the table next to them. Mugrabi walked over and asked, “Are you David Canter? I’m a huge fan. I know all about you and know all of your clients.”

Canter was skeptical. “I thought that somebody had put him up to it, that it was one of my friends, like a general manager or reporter, and that he’d be pointing at me from the window, laughing,” Canter said. “I’m a sports agent. I’m not famous. That’s not humble pie; I don’t ever expect to be recognized.”

Mugrabi asked for advice about breaking into the business. Impressed, Canter instructed him to reach out after the combine. Quickly, a back-and-forth turned into a working relationship. At first, Mugrabi was just an intern “helping get free product for guys,” Mugrabi said. In the first couple of years, Canter let Mugrabi listen in on negotiations with general managers.

Today, Canter calls Mugrabi his “co-pilot”, and says his three-man operation, which also includes Brian McIntyre, Canter’s director of analytics and contract research, wouldn’t be as successful without him.

Canter also educated Ness on the importance of treating their clients as family. Mugrabi took that to heart. When Marlon Tuipoluto was in New York for an appearance on “Good Morning Football,” he stayed at Mugrabi’s house for the night. Mugrabi showed him around town, the first-ever trip to New York for a kid from California.

“That’s the type of person he is. If I need something, he’s there,” said Tuipulotu, drafted by the Chargers. Browns offensive lineman Michael Dunn has been to barbecues with Mugrabi’s family. Mugrabi has even been on vacation with some clients, like Cody Barton from the Commanders. Many of Mugrabi’s clients attended his recent wedding in Brooklyn, and most of them know his mother as well as they know him.

“He cares so much. He’s always there, no matter what for whatever it is,” Barton said. “We don’t just work together. We’re friends.” Tuipulotu called him “genuine.” Dunn called Mugrabi “mature” and “intellectual” to the point that he often forgets how young he is — until a year ago, he was younger than most of the NFL Draft prospects he was representing.

“His work ethic and how he really just grinded to get to where he was from such a young age, it’s really a remarkable story,” Dunn said.

Throughout Mugrabi’s rise, he was going to school, working first to earn a bachelor’s degree in person from LIU Brooklyn, and a master’s degree online through Texas A&M. He’d do his agency work until 1 or 2 in the morning, finish his homework for a couple of hours — “That was my free time,” — and then sleep until 6 a.m. He got both degrees and became officially certified as an agent in 2021. He saved the e-mail he received about passing the exam and the message he forwarded along with it to his father:

“Thank you, God.”

Interestingly, every Friday at nightfall, Mugrabi turns off his phone. As a practicing Orthodox Jew, Mugrabi can’t work on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, so his phone goes in a drawer until Saturday afternoon. “He works 24/6,” said Rafi Mugrabi, his father. His family prays together, eats, and together they catch up, for hours, often past midnight. “I love every minute of it,” he said.

That recharge, he said, is crucial. His clients all understand and respect him for sticking with it, even as his agent profile has increased and his responsibilities have become more vital to the operation of Canter’s agency.

Canter, also Jewish, marvels at Mugrabi’s commitment to his faith. “He has had hundreds of excuses to not be a practicing Jew, to use an excuse to say: ‘Just this one time, it’s just too important, I got to skip Shabbat.’ He never, ever, ever, ever, has taken the easy way out. He has never not kept kosher. He never has just crossed into the gray zone once. And that’s the greatest compliment of the man that Ness has become that I can give.”

“My faith is my faith, and it honestly helps me,” Mugrabi said. “That’s what makes me what I am. Shutting my mind off for 24 hours is such a blessing to me, that I’m able to work so hard during the week, then Friday to Saturday, it gives me the time to communicate with my family, to be around everybody, to tell stories and get that time I don’t get on a random Tuesday night because I’m on the phone all the time.

“For me, I love my faith. I love the way it challenges me as a person, spiritually, physically, mentally. It starts with being a good person. That’s how I try to live my life.”

Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.

BILL BRADLEY