Mark Moseley once needed 10 teammates to become the NFL’s Most Valuable Player. Now the former Washington Redskins kicker has Five Guys to thanks for his business success.
Moseley has turned the popular local hamburger chain from five stores into more than 100 in just three years with another 900 franchises sold nationwide. It is a stunning post-football comeback for Moseley after bad luck and poor partners cost him a thriving travel company and restaurants.
“I didn’t know what I had at first,” said Moseley of franchising Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries. “Everything was telling me it was a good opportunity to be successful.”
Said Five Guys founder Jerry Murrell: “Mark said he could sell 100 stores the first year. I’m thinking this is just another football player talking. I crossed out 100 [on the contract] and wrote 20. He sold something like 350. Mark’s been a really big asset for us. People trust him.”
Life after football has mirrored Moseley’s playing career. Little has come easy and hard times have often followed, but there has also been grand success.
Moseley played 12 years with the Redskins while becoming the only kicker ever to take the MVP award in 1982. He split 1986 with Washington and Cleveland before retiring with 300 career field goals.
Moseley, 58, can still make a 50-yarder when practicing on school fields. Two decades since playing, he misses the game.
“Football was great to me,” he said. “I’d play forever if they let me … but it doesn’t do me any good to hang around.”
Moseley tried to convert that competitiveness into business. He found it a different game. After an uneven run, Moseley closed several businesses while also working as a sports TV analyst.
“I probably made more mistakes my first five years out of football than I did rest of my life together trying to prove I was more than a football player,” he said. “As long as you don’t repeat them you’re all right.”
By chance, Moseley met one of the Five Guys — five brothers who followed their father into the burger business — and soon struck a deal with Murrell.
Indeed, Moseley was so impressed with the company that he opened five franchises in Virginia and South Carolina.
“I’m putting my money where my mouth is,” Moseley said.
Moseley has moved to Front Royal, Va. where plans to raise “some horses and cows. The older you get the more you go back to your youth. We all get away from it for awhile.”
Fortunately, Moseley has found the success to relive that down home feeling again.
Rick Snider has covered local sports for 28 years. Contact him at [email protected].
