When Middle Tennessee State football player Leighton Gasque returned from a summer internship at NASA, some of his teammates saw an opening to poke kindhearted fun at him.
'I still get a few jokes about it now,' Gasque said during preseason camp. 'They'll say, 'How did you miss that play? Are you still on the moon? Have you not gotten off your spaceship yet?''
Gasque, a senior linebacker, has led the team in sacks the past three seasons, and he's in range of the program's career record. But off the field, the speedy 6-foot-2, 202-pounder nicknamed 'Leigh-Lo' is an analytical aerospace major with a 4.0 grade-point average.
'I'm not that smart,' Gasque said with a smile and shoulder shrug. 'I've just got to work that hard.'
NASA researcher Richard Mogford, the football player's internship mentor, thinks Gasque is being a bit too modest.
'Leighton had a lot of capabilities in terms of software and hardware. He was very bright and very motivated,' said Mogford, a research psychologist in the Human Systems Integration Division at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.
'And if I might comment on his demeanor, Leighton was just a really nice guy, very pleasant to be around.'
Mogford, who visited MTSU's nationally renowned and NASA-funded aerospace program, said he did not know Gasque was a college football player until he arrived at the internship in June.
'Well, once he got here, he talked about it. And he's obviously in great physical shape,' Mogford said.
Gasque had to skip MTSU summer workouts to participate in the internship, and he thought that would create a snag. But coach Rick Stockstill and defensive coordinator Tyrone Nix told him the decision was a no-brainer.
'I'm not that smart. I've just got to work that hard,' says MTSU senior linebacker Leighton Gasque, who has a 4.0 grade-point average.(Photo: Steve Hardison / Gannett Tennessee)
'(Gasque) was worried that he would miss workouts this summer, but I said, 'No, man, that's too good of an opportunity to learn and gain experience to pass that up.' I trusted him that he would work out while he was there,' Stockstill said. 'I feel sorry for any player if they have a coach that says, 'No, you can't do that. You have to wait until after your senior year of football is over.'
'No player should play for a coach like that. That's just wrong. You don't do that to a kid. You never hinder a kid who has a chance to help himself further his career after football.'
Gasque, a native of Hiram, Ga., spent two months in California at one of NASA's 10 facilities in the United States. He shadowed NASA researchers and even participated in some aviation experimental programs.
Gasque said the jokes from teammates about the moon and astronauts ignore the fact that he earned his bachelor's degree in aerospace and now is pursuing his master's degree in aviation administration.
'People sometimes don't realize the first 'A' in NASA stands for Aeronautics,' Gasque said about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Senior defensive lineman Max Ugboaja, a former Hillwood standout, is among MTSU teammates in the know about Gasque's internship.
'(Those jokes are) probably from a couple of guys that didn't understand what he was doing out there,' said Ugboaja, who is pursuing his master's degree in aviation management. 'I knew what he was doing out there, and I checked in with him a lot about it. It sounded like a pretty neat internship, if you ask me.'
Gasque and Ugboaja are among a handful of MTSU football players and athletes in other sports who study in the aerospace program. Many of them spend their offseason racking up flight time in university planes both to earn their pilot's license and meet requirements in their field.
The department's direct ties to NASA helped pave the way for Gasque's internship.
The MTSU aerospace program houses a state-of-the-art airline operations center, funded by NASA. Dubbed FOCUS, for Flight Operations Center - Unified Simulation, the lab provides real-life simulations that few facilities in the nation can mimic.
Gasque and MTSU graduate student Cody Evans were instrumental in installing the FOCUS software and building the lab at NASA's Ames Research Center during their internship, among several other duties.
MTSU senior linebacker Leighton Gasque is 6.5 sacks shy of the school record.(Photo: Bradley Lambert / MTSU)
When Gasque takes the field for the Blue Raiders' season opener against Savannah State on Aug. 30, he will stand 6½ sacks shy of current Indianapolis Colts linebacker Erik Walden's MTSU career record of 22½ sacks.
Whether or not he becomes MTSU's all-time sack leader, Gasque said his post-football life carries positive prospects after his summer spent at NASA.
'I either want to go into the research side of NASA or look into human factors - which is like engineering for humans, looking at how humans deal with automated technology,' Gasque said. 'I am just excited about what I got to see and learn.
'I just didn't want to be the athlete that doesn't make it because he doesn't have a plan beyond football. But because of Coach Stock and Coach Nix, I actually got a lot of support to go do that. And a lot of my teammates are actually supportive of it. I still get some jokes about the moon, but not that many.'
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