This NC high school football star reached his NFL dream. Now he has another: singing
When Blake Proehl was three or four years old, long before he starred at Providence High School or reached the NFL, he told his mother that, “music is in me.”
It just took awhile for it to come out.
While playing at East Carolina a couple years ago, Proehl, now 22, brought a guitar and a keyboard and he began singing. And to his mom’s surprise, Proehl was great.
Right now, Proehl is away from football, rehabbing from surgery on his knee. He’s on injured reserve with the Minnesota Vikings but is recording music — mostly covers of songs from artists like John Mayer — that he puts on YouTube. He’s also writing and thinking of releasing some original stuff soon.
“We’ve been mesmerized and a little mind blown,” his mom, Kelly Proehl said, “because no one in this family can sing. I mean no singers. This is straight from God.”
Proehl said some of his friends would often hear him sing and would remark that he had a good voice. But he was shy about it.
“I never listened to them,” he said. “Growing up, especially in my family, football is what we did. I never took it seriously.”
Well, until now.
A football family
The Proehls are and have always been a football family. Blake’s brother was also a star at Providence who played at North Carolina. In 2018, he got into the NFL with the Bills. He’s now with the Chargers.
Blake’s father, Ricky, had nearly 9,000 receiving yards with six teams, including the Panthers and he won Super Bowls with St. Louis and Indianapolis.
“Blake was kind of a late bloomer, and I could tell that he was going to be long and he was going to be kind of tall, like his dad,” said Justin Hardin, who coached Blake for two seasons at Providence HIgh. “I would see Ricky and Austin and Blake on the field at Providence throwing routes every Sunday for hours. I knew he would have a chance (at the NFL). I thought ECU got a steal when they got him and the kid hardly dropped a ball in college. I expect him to have a 10-year career in the NFL with the work he’s going to put into it. He’s a special kid and he has hard working family that supports him.”
Blake was picked up by Minnesota this year after being undrafted coming out of East Carolina. By most reports, he was having a tremendous camp with the Vikings until he suffered a severe injury to his right knee in August, during a joint scrimmage with the Broncos, that ended his season.
Four years ago, just before what would’ve been his freshman year at East Carolina, Proehl had a similar ACL injury in his left knee. He came back from that in the 2018 season and went onto start 22 of 31 games at East Carolina, and left with a 24-game streak with at least one catch.
He is planning for a similar comeback in the NFL.
“I tore some stuff in there and I had surgery,” Proehl said from Los Angeles last week, where he was working with his trainer. “It was tough but I have been through this before. Minnesota could’ve released me, but they told me they decided to keep me. I was having a great camp and they put me on IR and I get to sit in on meetings, go to practices and I’m really blessed to learn from the best.
“And we’ll be back, stronger and faster.”
What to do with my free time?
Proehl was training in Los Angeles before the draft when a longtime family friend, Landon Klick, came to visit and brought a recording microphone. They did a few tracks, for fun, and showed a few friends.
The reaction?
“It was a consistent blown-away reaction,” Proehl said. “Inspiring people is one of my favorite things on this earth and do that through music is such a dream and it’s a feeling I couldn’t let go of.”
So Proehl sang more and recorded more. He had done some songs while in college, but he wouldn’t let many people hear them. This was starting to be different.
“He limited me to four songs,” his mother, Kelly Proehl said. “One of them is a worship song and we love worship music and we listened on repeat. And in LA, he and Landon worked on music a lot and it kept growing and finally Blake put it out to the world. He was nervous. He was worried about how it would be perceived.”
Mom is really happy to see her son find another outlet he enjoys.
“I love and thank God every day that my boys are living their dreams,” she said. “Of course, they have much higher goals. They both want to play and be on an active roster. I love that for them but as a mom I probably worry more than I ever have about...their physical health. But I also know they love it and this is what they always wanted to do. But I also love that (Blake) has an outlet like this, that is so healthy. It’s really good for him to use that other side of his brain.”
Her son has no plans to stop singing anytime soon.
“I just started posting on social media platforms and having fun with it,” he said, “and I’m doing that while doing football at the same time. I mean, I’m in Minnesota by myself. I get home to an empty house. Nothing there besides me, my instruments and my TV, and I do that (sing and write). I handle my business at work and then I get home and do my music stuff.
“That’s how I’ve taken the next step.”
And fulfilled on a long-ago promise.
This story was originally published October 25, 2021 at 5:30 AM.
