Germany knows ex-Giants player Markus Kuhn for a slice of NFL history. He's helping the league grow

MUNICH — From touring U.S. colleges with a highlights DVD to scoring a historic touchdown in the pros, Markus Kuhn blazed a trail for German players in American football. Now he's helping the NFL to catch on in his home country.

Kuhn felt like a fan whose dream came true when he became the first German to score a touchdown in the NFL a decade ago. It's what he's best known for to Germany's growing NFL audience.

The touchdown was a surprise for everyone, including Kuhn, who was a defensive tackle with the Giants when he returned a fumble 26 yards against the Tennessee Titans on Dec. 7, 2014, to help snap New York's seven-game losing streak.

"I played quarterback in Germany at a very different level and so I scored a few touchdowns but never dreamed of doing it at that level,'' Kuhn told The Associated Press. ''Imagine you're the biggest football fan ever and you dedicated almost your life to the sport at that point. And then all of a sudden you get to score a touchdown in the NFL. That's what it felt like to me.''

A decade on, Kuhn is mulling how to mark the 10-year anniversary next month of his touchdown in the 36-7 win over the Titans. For now, he's busy.

He's an ambassador for the Giants ahead of their first game in Germany on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers, works with the NFL on its international expansion and is a well-known face on German TV coverage of the league. It makes for a full schedule.

It's all very different to how Kuhn started out in football. He first played the game at age 15 in Germany's amateur club scene and got into North Carolina State after touring colleges with a highlights DVD of his games in Germany. Explaining his new unpaid status as a student-athlete to his grandmother was tricky.

"She was kind of shocked, like, ‘Wait, you're doing all this, but you're not getting paid?' It didn't resonate with her that it looked like I'm a professional athlete now, but I'm not making money.''

Kuhn was drafted by the Giants in the seventh round in 2012 and played four seasons in the league. He had 48 total tackles and 1 1/2 sacks and two fumble recoveries over his 39 career games. His history-making touchdown was his only score. Kuhn suffered a knee injury in December 2015 and joined the New England Patriots as a free agent for the following season, but didn't play again.

Since retiring as a player, Kuhn has promoted the Patriots and Giants franchises as an ambassador, consulted with the NFL Players Association on international issues and worked as an occasional international correspondent for the league.

The arrival of players like Kuhn and Sebastian Vollmer, a Super Bowl winner with the Patriots, helped to spread the word in the U.S. that there was football talent and passion in Germany, and to grow the game's audience back home.

''Some things seem more impossible if nobody has ever done it," Kuhn said. "But now there's actually people to look up to, there's stories you can follow, there's certain paths that have been built that makes definitely coming to America and playing American football in the U.S. a lot easier.''

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