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Maryland TE leaving football after 2015 for Wall Street job

Maryland tight end P.J. Gallo realized his professional goal wasn't in football. And when he got the opportunity to achieve it in the near future, he decided to chase it.

After a 10-week internship over the summer with Goldman Sachs, Gallo was offered a job on Wall Street as a security analyst. He could start working in July of 2016, too. But there was a catch. He'd have to give up playing football to take the job.

So the junior told Maryland coach Randy Edsall he was leaving after the 2015 season. From the Washington Post:

“It was actually an easier conversation than I thought it was going to be because he was very supportive of it,” said Gallo, who is on schedule to graduate from Maryland in the spring and move to New York shortly after. “I made the right decision for myself, for my future. Hopefully, five years from now, I can still look back and say it was the right decision.”

Balancing the internship and football over the summer was a juggling act. He worked out alone at NYU while other teammates were back in College Park, Maryland going through group workouts.

His decisions certainly isn't unprecedented. Many athletes have chosen to put their non-sports careers ahead of their playing careers. And Rice defensive end Brian Nordstrom said in February that he wasn't going to play in 2015 to take a job in the energy sector.

But Gallo still has one more season to double his career touchdown total. He got the first two catches of his career in 2014 and one of them went for a touchdown.

“He has contributed a great deal for us, and while he was here, he also got himself ready for life after football,” Edsall told the post. “Not everybody is going to go to the next level, but eventually everybody has to go to work and make a living.”

For more Maryland news, visit TerrapinSportsReport.com.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!