Tom Kaufmann sat in his car outside former Illini fullback Russ Weil’s Minooka, Ill., home, anxiously awaiting the meeting he had been preparing for his entire life.

Kaufmann’s dream had always been to work in sports. After graduating from the University with a law degree, he was turned down by every sports job he applied for, instead choosing a career as an estate planning and wealth management attorney. Twenty-three years later, this was his shot at a chance to represent a legitimate NFL talent.

Weil and his parents welcomed Kaufmann into their home. “Remember what you have to offer,” Kaufmann thought to himself as he readied to make his pitch.

“I was so nervous, this is my first potential client,” Kaufmann said. “I can’t show him I’ve negotiated contracts for Drew Bledsoe, Tom Brady or anybody else for that matter. I got nobody in my stable, so what do I have to offer? Time and dedication that will enable me to focus on his needs all day long.”

The soft-spoken Weil soaked in Kaufmann’s pitch, and before Kaufmann had left Minooka, he was finally a sports agent.

The 241-pound battering ram Weil was Illinois’ primary fullback on the 2007 Rose Bowl team.

“There aren’t too many football players that were great wrestlers and also great football players,” Illini head coach Ron Zook said. “He had great work ethic. He would do whatever was asked of him. He was just a guy that had the God-given ability that brought all the things you need to be a successful team.”

At the end of his senior season in 2008, Weil was on the fringe of a number of NFL team’s draft boards. Still, with no agent willing to take the gamble, Weil looked to Zook for help.

“I asked Coach Zook if he could help me out finding an agent and he said he would see what he could do,” Weil said. “I think it was a day or two later he called me and said, ‘I got a guy for you, do you want to meet him?’”

Until then, Kaufmann had been working as an attorney specializing in wealth management, real estate and estate planning but maintained his passion for sports by handling the accounts of a few former NFL stars. His work with former athletes got him invited to a banquet in Chicago where Zook was scheduled to appear.

“It was just sort of a fluke that I ended up asking Coach Zook when I met him at this event about helping a kid,” Kaufmann said. “I wasn’t originally planning on representing kids right out of college. But when I saw him, I asked him. I’m glad I did because Russ was my first client, my first NFL contract, my first client to play on an NFL team.”

With Kaufmann hard at work calling teams about his first client, Weil was busy preparing for his pro day. The goal from Kaufmann: get Weil an NFL contract.

“By no means was he sure that he would get picked up by a team,” Kaufmann said. “The fact that a team calls you and talks to you, even what they say right before the draft, it almost never pans out that way.”

At Weil’s pro day, Kaufmann stood outside the doors, handing out his business card and informational sheets on Weil to scouts. St. Louis Rams running backs coach Art Valero approached Kaufmann and expressed interest in Weil.

“He said to me, ‘You know what, we really like Russ,’” Kaufmann said. “‘We know that he’s a state wrestling champion, and he knows about leverage. That’s the kind of guy we want playing fullback for us.’”

But after a few weeks and no phone call from the Rams, Kaufmann thought he had misjudged the Ram’s interest. While the Rams seemingly cooled off their pursuit, the Chargers, Redskins and Bears were still locked in conversations with Kaufmann.

But Weil went undrafted.

Afterward, the Bears called Kaufmann offering Weil a tryout. At the time, Ron Turner — who recruited Weil at Illinois — was the offensive coordinator for the Bears. With no other offer on the table, Kaufmann told the Bears his client would be in camp.

The next morning, Kaufmann found a message on his office phone. The Rams had attempted to call him the night before with a contract offer but had the wrong phone number.

“What it came down to was he was being offered a spot on the original 80-man roster,” Kaufmann said. “The Bears were asking him to come in and participate in a beauty contest.”

On Weil’s first day of rookie camp, Kaufmann was in the stands watching his client play out his lifelong dream.

“I’ll never forget how excited he was the first time he stepped on the field at Rookie Camp,” Kaufmann said. “Here he is with all these guys he had seen on TV running around and competing.”

Although he did not make the 53-man roster after training camp, Weil was offered a spot on the practice squad.

Nine weeks into the 2008-09 season, injuries left a lack of depth at linebacker. When one player comes onto an NFL team, another must leave. For the Rams, Weil was on the chopping block.

For four weeks, Weil sat on the sidelines. Kaufmann, scrambling for a place for Weil, found him a spot on the Packers practice squad for the final two weeks of the season.

The following season, Weil continued to workout for NFL teams and had a short stay with the Arizona Cardinals during training camp. But that fall, Weil suffered a minor injury to his hand in a freak hunting accident. The wound became infected, requiring mandatory surgery that would keep Weil out of the 2009-10 season.

Unsure if his football career was over, Weil went home, where he worked as a volunteer football and wrestling coach at his high school.

“He was sitting at home wondering what his future was going to be,” Kaufmann said. “With any of these young guys, they don’t know when the end has come, when they’ve taken their last snap. Fortunately for Russ, that hasn’t happened yet.”

This summer, Weil worked on getting healthy. He came back to the University and worked out in the weight room with Zook, simultaneously finishing a goal he left open-ended three years before.

“The most important thing, as I told him, was he got his degree and he graduated, and that was really special,” Zook said.

Weil and Kaufmann are now working together to find a starting role on a UFL roster.

“The UFL is not going to be the NFL,” Weil said. “But it is going to be a good spot for players that want to get back into the NFL. Instead of sitting at home wondering how they’re going to get better, they get to play in a quality league.”

In three years, Kaufmann has taken his one-client business and turned it into Kaufmann Sports Management Group, which now represents 14 football players — including former Illini receiver Chris Duvalt, who signed a three-year contract with the Seattle Seahawks after the 2010 NFL Draft.

“I will forever be grateful to Russ and his family for putting their faith in me,” Kaufmann said. “I had no background, and they trusted me. I would do anything for their family.”