A 2025 team captain, Rams defensive end Kobie Turner is accustomed to speaking in front of large groups, whether it be his own teammates or children at a camp.

Preparing to give a speech in front of about 840 graduates at your alma mater, though? That's a little bit different from breaking down a pregame huddle of 48 NFL players.

"I don't know that I've really done public speaking like that," Turner told theRams.com. "I went to a high school and talked to their kids, or something like that, or I talked to people at a camp, but I don't recall ever doing anything like that.

"That was crazy," a smiling Turner added.

Crazy, but well worth it.

Turner last weekend returned to the University of Richmond as the commencement speaker for the school's main commencement ceremony on May 10, in what was a full-circle moment personally and professionally.

Richmond marked a pivotal time in Turner's life in both facets, and that chapter informed the contents of his speech "a lot." Besides lessons shaped by those experiences, Turner also emphasized to graduates that "you are enough" – something that spoke to him directly with all that he juggled and was able to still accomplish while in college.

Turner, who studied music and mathematics and sang baritone in the school's Schola Cantorum choir at Richmond, talked in his speech about walking on to the Spiders' football team, and effectively having a year to keep his earn a scholarship and keep his football dream alive or be forced to go the community college route, as an example of work being the separator when everyone is just as talented as you are. That "walk-on mentality," he said in his speech, "became my superpower and my separator." He used it as analogy for graduates entering the job market, asking them: "What will your separator be?"

"It kind of put me back in that mindset of being at Richmond, because everybody I feel like here thinks of Wake Forest, and I'm so grateful for that opportunity," Turner said. "But Richmond is where I grew up, and Richmond really poured into me, like I got the most that I could out of that experience. Teachers would make exceptions so that I can go and play ball because they knew that I was serious about what I wanted to do, and I would come back and get the work done. Coaches would make exceptions so I can go and do the things, whether it be music or things that I would need to do math-wise, to be able to get those things done. And so it was really a community that poured into me, and because of that, I came out the other side knowing that I can be exactly who I am. They gave me the confidence to just be me, and I feel like that's one of the main reasons I've been successful here (with the Rams)."

Turner said Richmond reached out to him during the season about doing the commencement address after he had done some marketing work for its athletic department. After that, Rams PR suggested to the university that he'd be a great candidate to give one of those speeches down the road. Little did Turner know the request would be the following spring instead of two years in the future.

Turner began preparing and organizing the speech in March, shortly after he and his wife Alissa welcomed their first child, a baby girl named Rowan, juggling that with parental duties.

"And then it was like juggling those two things, juggling being a father every three hours and not really having much of a break and getting that out," Turner said. "But (Rams senior manager of communications) Chase (Isaacs) was such a huge help. I was bouncing ideas off of him the entire time. I sent him the (final) draft, like late at night on Saturday, right before Sunday. So he was instrumental in helping me write that. And, yeah, probably took about a month or so, just jotted out some ideas, and then finally got it down."

Turner added that being at such a special place to him alongside his wife and their newborn daughter was a "super powerful thing."

"Alissa has been there a lot, of course, us being long-distance throughout college, and it was cool to even see some of the people that she remembered, and then some of the professors that she remembered as well," Turner said. "Really, mainly, (Professor of Music) Dr. (Jennifer) Cable, she was my biggest mentor in college and helped out tremendously. There's a couple professors that we weren't able to see, who are on sabbaticals and taking trips and stuff like that, that we wish we would have been able to, but to be able to bring Rowan to a place where it really felt like I grew up, and it felt like who I am was validated there and cemented (that) I can step out into the world, it was a super powerful thing."

Besides Turner's own journey, he also drew inspiration from the messages Rams head coach Sean McVay delivers in team meetings, the friendly competition amongst the Rams' defensive front, as well as being back on campus starting the Friday of that weekend.

In his time since Richmond, Turner became a third-round draft pick by the Rams in 2023, appeared on FOX's reality singing competition TV series "The Masked Singer," and even released a cover of "House of the Rising Sun" in December 2024 – all while establishing and maintaining his role a key contributor along the Rams' defensive line.

Ultimately, he wanted to leave the graduates with this: Success is still achievable by being true to oneself.

"I thought about, obviously, a lot of the messaging that we have here, a lot of what Sean says, like he gives a good message every single team meeting," Turner said. "So I used a lot of what's really stuck with me from here, and then as I went back – it was really helpful for me to go back early on Friday and to be able to meet up with everyone, and it reshaped my whole thinking process on the whole experience. Because it was five years ago, but to remember that ... there's inner circle and personal life, but (also) the people that you allow to affect change in your life. And for me, that was my teachers, and they truly poured into me to be the best that I could be. People in my acapella group poured into me to be the best – like nobody was mad that I missed a rehearsal because I had a game. But when I was done with the homecoming game, I went right over to the chapel and we had our concert. Stuff like that, that's just really cool and yeah, it informed everything.

"My biggest takeaway from being at Richmond was that I was enough, and that I can show up in this world and have success and accomplish great things by being exactly true to who I am, and that's really the main message that I wanted to leave with them, because that's what I got from Richmond."