Anthony R. Caruso, Esq. has had a varied career that included owning a basketball team and representing Miss New Jersey in a case involving blackmail in 2007. The South Jersey native was recently certified as a National Football League Players Association Contract Advisor, more commonly known as an NFL agent. Caruso sat down with The Record to talk about his new certification at a bakery in Manhattan, before he headed to teach a class at New York University.

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Q. You're an attorney, a professor and now an NFL agent. How do you manage?

Time management and technology. Everything seems to be an offshoot of my law practice, which is my main priority. My business clients, my sports clients always come first. When you mix in the NFL agent certification, that's really an added way of assisting my sports clients. Add the teaching, that's a way for me to give back, and it's also a way for me to stay current with research on current topics. You have to keep an eye on making sure that all the priorities are met, and technology helps me do that.

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Q. You used to be an NFL agent from 1994 to 2000. What brought you back?

I have a son who plays football at Boston College. And, while he may not wish to go into the NFL, he has a lot of friends from Boston College who make it into the pros every year, and I thought it might be a good way to help out in that fashion.

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Q. What's the kind of player you want?

One that is excelling in the classroom as well as on the field.

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Q. There are a lot of agents in the NFL, and not all of these agents have clients. There are certain agents that have the majority of players as clients. How do you plan on tackling that?

My advantage is, number one, I'm not just an agent. I'm not going to do things that aren't ethical, because I don't need to have the agent part of my practice to keep everything else in play. The agent certification is an added feature, so I could take my time and do the right thing in cultivating the right student-athlete. Second, I'm focusing on certain schools and certain states. Boston College is one because of my son, and Rutgers University because I live in New Jersey and I went to Rutgers.

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Q. What advice would you have for someone trying to become an NFL agent?

Learn the rules and regulations of the NFL and the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Understand how the sport works. Understand the legal and business aspects of the sport. And, really, take it seriously, because it's a heavy investment now to become an agent — both time and money.

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Q. You've dealt with crisis management in your career. How do you think the NFL handled recent incidents?

They probably could have done a better job from a public relations standpoint with crisis management — to immediately get ahead of the story once it broke. If they made a mistake, say it in such a way where the public really acknowledges it. Those types of things are tough these days, but you really have to be on top of it and catch it before it becomes a tidal wave.

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Q. As an NFL agent, if one of your players ended up in the limelight for the wrong reasons, how would you respond to that?

When something like that happens, make sure you get all the facts right away. What I always require of my clients and my sports clients is I need to know the truth. … I need to know the facts before I can strategize and give the proper platform for my client to present to the public, so it doesn't drag on unnecessarily — which is now what is happening in the NFL.

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Q. As an attorney, what was the hardest case you've dealt with?

The time I represented Miss New Jersey 2007 in a blackmail scandal [over Internet photos]. Not because it was so difficult in the legal or business standpoint, but because I lost 10 pounds in five days. That never happened to me before. (Laughter.)

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Q. Do you play sports? How did you become so involved with sports?

I played baseball for four years. I played a little bit of football until I started getting crushed too much. In college, I rowed crew. Playing athletics is a great way of rounding off your experiences. That carried me through my career. I really got into sports after the first two years of my career by taking on opportunities with friends that needed help, and that's how I learned how to do it. That led me to owning a [minor league] basketball team and led me to be an agent. - See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/business/law-partner-professor-and-now-nfl-agent-1.1098888?page=all#sthash.dp0Dmcvz.dpuf