Law Student Pulls A 4.0, Makes Law Review, Summers In Biglaw… And Walks On To The Football Team

Most law students count it as a win to get through 1L year with their sanity and GPA intact. Connor Carrera, a second-year student at SMU Dedman School of Law, did that… and then walked on to an ACC football team.

You are not reading this incorrectly. According to a press release from SMU, Carrera is playing his final year of eligibility as a defensive back for the Mustangs while serving as a staff editor on the SMU Law Review. He’s also on the Dean’s List and pulled a 4.0 GPA this past spring.

And it wasn’t supposed to happen at all. A fractured spine knocked Carrera out of the game during his senior year of high school, and he figured his playing days were over. He headed to Texas A&M’s Mays Business Honors Program in 2022, finished two majors in three years (because of course he did), and followed football strictly as a fan. When he got to Dedman in 2025, he locked in on his coursework while keeping up a rigorous training program as a release valve from law school (which, for most 1Ls, is a phrase that describes happy hour). By the start of his 2L year, with his eligibility clock running down, Carrera decided he’d rather try than wonder.

“I knew I would carry a lifelong regret if I did not at least make the attempt to play football once again,” he said.

So he walked on, and made the team.

As for which half of his life is more stressful, Carrera has an answer that should flatter every law professor in Dallas:

“Competing in an academic environment as demanding as law school, where performance is measured against some of the most capable students in the country, has prepared me to remain composed when the stakes are highest,” he said. “The pressure of game day feels familiar precisely because I navigate high-stakes evaluation every day.”

So, per someone who has experienced both, the cold call is the more harrowing experience than a Saturday in the ACC. Honestly, no notes.

Off the field, Carrera is aiming for energy law. Family friend John Childers, a partner at Childers Hewett Slagle, had him clerk at the firm the summer before law school, and this past summer he worked in the Energy and Infrastructure practice group in Hunton Andrews Kurth’s Dallas office. His ambitions don’t stop at partnership, either: “Ultimately, I hope to build a career distinguished by leadership in both the legal profession and my community, with the long-term goal of leading a company or law firm as a senior executive,” he said. Firm management committees, consider yourselves on notice.