It’s not too far-fetched to say that Aaron Rouse’s career took an unexpected turn when the former NFL star decided to dedicate his life to public service. But to the Democrat from Virginia Beach, his quick ascent from his stint as a city councilman in his hometown to his election as a state senator is all part of a greater purpose.
“I think everything has a season, and we’re all on God’s timing,” Rouse, 40, said in a recent interview at his office on the fifth floor of Richmond’s General Assembly Building. “That transition from a local level to state has helped me out tremendously, and it’s been a rather smooth process, I’m not just stepping into this blindly.”
And in Aaron Rouse’s world, football and politics really aren’t all that different; they at the very least intersect.
“There is a tremendous crossover,” Rouse said, easing into the chair behind his desk. “What you find is that your priority goal is to win, it’s the same focus. We all have different backgrounds, different interests, perspectives, duties and responsibilities. But when we step on this field, we’re on the same team, and we are all shooting for the same goal.
“The only difference is, in football I could hit people,” he said, chuckling.
While Rouse isn’t the only professional footballer who sought out a political career after retirement — Napoleon Harris, a former linebacker for the Oakland Raiders, Minnesota Vikings and Kansas City Chiefs, has served in the Illinois state Senate since 2013, for example — his remains a unique story in Virginia.
A former defensive player for the Virginia Tech Hokies, the 6-foot-4 Rouse embarked on his NFL career in 2007, when the Green Bay Packers selected him in the third round of the draft. He later played brief stints for the New York Giants and Arizona Cardinals, as well as the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League, followed by one season for the Virginia Destroyers, another UFL team.
During his four years at Virginia Tech, Rouse started off as a linebacker and later moved to the safety position. Bud Foster, the Hokies’ defensive coordinator during the early 2000s, remembers Rouse as “a big athletic guy” with a bright future.
“Our first impression was this was going to be one of the elite football players in the state of Virginia,” Foster said in a phone interview. “He had a great junior season, and he hit a lull in his senior year, which happens sometimes. But that’s also a little bit of who he is, that’s part of his character. He buckled his chinstrap a little tighter and went to work.”
Foster said that Rouse always was “an everyday guy, he was always taking care of business,” on and off the field. “He was dependable, trustworthy and a guy you could count on. He is intelligent, he has all kinds of physical qualities, and I think these are the kind of qualities that led him toward where he is right now.”
In 2018, Rouse was elected to the Virginia Beach City Council, where he served one term. After ending his bid for mayor during the early stage of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, Rouse announced in the spring of 2022 that he would run for the Virginia State Senate in the 2023 election.
But after Sen. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach, was elected to Congress, Rouse became a candidate to succeed her in the January 2023 special election, during which he narrowly defeated Republican Kevin Adams, flipping the seat.
One year later, as his second legislative session is underway, Rouse chairs the powerful Senate Privileges and Elections Committee, and he has sponsored high-profile legislation, including a proposal that would create a marketplace for adult-use cannabis and another that would establish a regulatory framework and tax structure for skill games in Virginia.
Foster said he wasn’t surprised by his former player’s fast rise in the political landscape. “He made us really, really proud. He is kind of like one of our children, growing and developing, and moving forward and doing great things in the community.”
Rouse, Foster said, is stern and has strong beliefs. “Throw out Democrat and Republican, he will do what’s best for the people. He is going to be open-minded, but whatever he gets his mind set on, he’s going to accomplish it,” he said.
“He is going to do his research, and he is going to be prepared and knowledgeable. I think he has grasped the responsibility of what it takes and the importance of being in this role, and he’s going to do the very best that he can to represent the citizens of the commonwealth.”
Rouse said that his time as a city councilman has prepared him for the job in Richmond. “I understand what it takes to get very important and heavy legislation through all the hurdles,” he said. He added that during his time on the council he was instrumental in helping to pass a pay increase for city workers, to expand the employment program and to pass a multimillion-dollar bond referendum.
Making friends across the aisle
Since his arrival in Richmond, Rouse has also been able to draw on long-established friendships with several veteran lawmakers, including Sens. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, and even with colleagues from across the aisle, such as Sens. Timmy French, R-Frederick County; Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, and Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt County.
“These are all good friends of mine who at one point or another I have been asking for advice, and they have been helping me learn the landscape of our General Assembly, and for that I’m very grateful,” Rouse said. “I don’t know everything, but I’m still willing to learn, I’m still willing to accept advice and counsel, and get it right. Because ultimately I want to make sure that the people are served.”
Austin said that he first met Rouse in September 2016 at Pillion’s house in Abingdon, from where they went to the Virginia Tech game against the University of Tennessee at the Bristol Motor Speedway. While the Hokies lost 24-45 that day, Austin still remembered it as a fun evening.
“We had dinner and socialized, and I got to know Aaron pretty well,” he said. “After that day he came up to me and Senator Pillion during session here in Richmond, and he implied that he had an interest in politics, so I took him to meet some people from Virginia Beach. And I encouraged others in the political arena in Virginia Beach to help him, and they did. Then he got on the city council, and he’s done very well.”
Since his election to the state Senate, Rouse has continued to work with and seek advice from his Republican colleagues.
“Senator Rouse is a really good man, a very good individual. His cup is where it should be in his life,” Austin said. “We’re good friends, and I am proud that he calls me a good friend, and he has done very well as a senator.”
David Richards, a political analyst and chair of the political science program at the University of Lynchburg, said that in the current political climate it is rare to hear about legislators working with members of the opposing party, and even rarer to hear about socialization across party lines.
“State legislatures are a bit more informal and low key than say Congress, so informal socialization is easier,” Richard said, adding that state legislators usually live locally in their districts and are more involved in their communities, unlike members of Congress who often spend much of their time in Washington.
“This affords more opportunity for Virginia legislators to run into other politicians at local events. These types of friendships at the state level are thought to make state legislatures more efficient than Congress, although some studies suggest otherwise,” Richards said. “Someone like Senator Rouse can utilize his friendships to be a more effective legislator. Plus, I would imagine it just makes doing the work of the Senate that much easier when you get to know the people you are working with instead of merely viewing them as enemies.”
Rouse’s cannabis bill has emerged as the main vehicle
For Rouse, his play in politics is as much about collaboration and a good ground game as was his previous career in professional football.
“What I try to bring back into politics is a sense of humility,” Rouse said. “I don’t need my name on the bill, I don’t need to do a press conference to be out front, as long as we are winning. And to me winning is making sure that the people of our commonwealth are winning.”
Being able to communicate with colleagues from across the aisle is an important part of that ability to deliver for Virginia, Rouse said.
“You have to make sure you communicate, whether you are a supporter or opposition, but for me it’s being transparent, being direct,” he said. “I think a lot of my colleagues appreciate that. And it is also showing that you have the ability to compromise, to be on the team. You recognize that you can’t necessarily get a piece of legislation done without working with other people. That’s what I have learned.”
One of the most watched pieces of legislation currently before the General Assembly is Rouse’s SB 448, which would legalize cannabis sales starting in 2025, and allow all medical marijuana companies already operating in Virginia and new businesses to begin retail sales at the same time.
While the proposal passed in the Senate on a 21-18 party-line vote last week, Rouse said he is open to working with lawmakers from both parties to refine the measure before sending it to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk.
“When we talk about cannabis or any issue that we strongly disagree on, my strategy is to take it head on, to speak very directly so we can find where that middle ground is,” Rouse said. “When I talk to my Republican colleagues it comes with a sense of respect, trying to understand where they are and how we can get to a point of agreement.”
Rouse said that his cannabis bill is merely “the framework and the structure to get everyone on board,” and that negotiations between advocates and skeptics from all sides of the political spectrum are ongoing.
“We have talked to members from both sides of the aisle and asked them, what do you like or don’t like? What would you like to see in the bill?” Rouse said. “This has been a great compromise to try and regulate and anchor this industry. We’ve heard from all stakeholders, from policing to the farmer to the hemp growers and those that have been affected in the criminal justice system. But understandably, in a good compromise no one is truly happy, but it’s a good start.”
Rouse’s proposal had been competing with a rival measure in the House of Delegates that ultimately shares the same goal but takes a different approach. HB 698, sponsored by Del. Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax County, sought to issue licenses to allow up to 60 micro-businesses that currently are not among the state-sanctioned sellers of medical cannabis to start cultivation by July 1, in preparation for retail sales beginning Jan. 1, 2025.
But Krizek’s proposal would have given the six medical marijuana companies in Virginia an earlier start date to begin retail sales — a non-starter to Rouse, who draws the line at giving the “big medicals” an advantage over small businesses.
But on Thursday, Democrats in the House of Delegates and the state Senate agreed to a compromise, merging the two rival measures and using Rouse’s bill as a framework that would set the start date for all cannabis retailers — big and small — at May 1, 2025.
“One of my biggest factors is not allowing pharmaceutical companies to get their head start to monopolize the industry, because if that were to happen, you would lessen that social equity part that is so needed,” Rouse said. “You would actually leave a smaller piece of the pie for those who historically only fed on the crumbs.”
Social equity provisions, which have been a sticking point for many Republicans, would benefit historically disadvantaged and over-policed communities with larger populations of Black Virginians who have been impacted by the war on drugs.
According to a 2020 JLARC study, between 2010 and 2019 the average arrest rate of Black individuals for marijuana possession was 3.5 times higher than the arrest rate for white people — and significantly higher than arrest rates for other racial or ethnic groups. Black people were also convicted at a much higher rate — 3.9 times higher than white individuals, the study found.
“Social equity is a huge part of this particular legislation, but it is not one that we need to walk a line on,” Rouse said. “This is very direct, this is very important to me, it is very important to my constituents that we have this in our commonwealth. Not even from a racial standpoint, but from a geographical standpoint as well.”
Whether it is from a criminal justice perspective, or the lack of capital among future entrepreneurs in these disadvantaged communities, all these factors need to be considered, Rouse said.
“When we talk about a brand new industry, and one that has strong implications not just five or 10 years from now, but 100 years from now, it’s important that we do this in a manner that everyone has the same start,” he said.
Rouse said he is less concerned about Youngkin’s open hostility towards cannabis legislation.
“What I’m more interested in is doing the work and putting something on his desk, and then he has to make his decision,” he said. “Right now, my job is to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get a vehicle to the governor. One thing we have learned also in sports is you go to work each day, you practice, so when game day comes you’re all prepared. That’s more what I’m interested in, doing the work.”
Rouse’s ‘skill’ game bill garners bipartisan support
While the fate of Rouse’s cannabis bill remains uncertain, especially after Youngkin told reporters at the beginning of this session that he wasn’t interested in considering marijuana-related legislation, Rouse managed to rally bipartisan support for his proposal to allow the “skill” games industry to restart the machines on July 1 without waiting for a permanent regulatory structure to be put in place.
SB 212, which is co-sponsored by French, the Republican senator from Frederick County, passed in the Senate on a 32-8 vote last week.
Rouse said that despite his effort to create a legal framework for skill games, he has no problem with casinos seeking a foothold in Virginia after the state approved a minimum of four.
“It’s not that I’m against casinos, but they have their place,” Rouse said. “Sports gambling, charitable gaming and lottery playing has its place. It’s about fairness and making sure you also create that lane where you can structure and regulate it. The issues are here because of the fact that it has not been regulated. It wouldn’t do the people of the commonwealth a service if we said we don’t want skill games.”
For Rouse, skill games and cannabis have more in common than one might think. “Both areas have crossover pertaining to small businesses and making sure that those who may want to start a business and begin in an industry so they can take care of their families and build wealth for themselves have a true voice and stake in that,” he said.
And both industries would be particularly beneficial for the state’s rural communities in Southwest Virginia and Southside — areas that Rouse said he relates to, despite his upbringing in the asphalt jungle of Virginia’s biggest city.
“Going to Virginia Tech, I spent a lot of time in Blacksburg and Roanoke,” Rouse said. “And my grandfather, who was an Army veteran, grew up on a farm, and he talked to me about using a mule and a plow, so I’ve always had this respect for that type of work.”
Rouse said that he’s hoping to visit French, the co-sponsor of his skill games bill, in Woodstock soon.
“His insight and what he does on his farm is incredible to me,” Rouse said. “I told him I want to bring my family out and I just want him to let me drive the tractor around a couple of times. We can still learn a lot from getting your hands in the ground and working the ground, and raising a crop that you have actually sweated on. To me, that’s the values that I would like for us to continue.”
The outdoor cultivation of cannabis, which would be allowed under his legislation, would create new revenue streams for farmers, Rouse added. And skill games could be an economic driver in smaller rural communities that might have one convenience store in a 20-mile radius.
“That’s why it’s important we make sure that large corporations are kept in line and not drown out the small business folks or farmers,” Rouse said. “It’s important to support the little guy, and as someone who comes from humble beginnings and a single-parent household, I’ve been working since I was 11 years old, and we also must have a voice. And that’s why I continue to fight.”
‘Don’t end up in jail and live to 18’
His childhood in a single-parent household, where his grandmother helped raise Rouse and his three siblings while his father was incarcerated, keeps him grounded, despite his material successes later in life.
“My grandfather was born in 1918, he served in the U.S. Army in the time of the Jim Crow South and when African Americans were lynched throughout our country, and he still served our country,” Rouse said.
“When my grandmother died from breast cancer at the age of 49, he came to me and said, ‘You’re the man of the house now,’ and he put a lawn mower in my hands and showed me how to cut grass, and he told me the principles to live by: Keep God first, you work for everything that you want, and your word is your bond. And from that moment on, that is how I’ve lived my life.”
Rouse also credits his schoolteachers for helping to keep him on the right track. “I would not be who I am today without our public educators who instilled so much in me about having a good attitude and care about learning,” he said. “They enforced my mother’s message while she was gone to work and she told me to make sure to go to school.”
College wasn’t even up for discussion in the Rouse household then. “I’m a first generation college student, but it wasn’t something we talked about because I couldn’t afford it,” Rouse said. “My mother would just say, ‘Don’t end up in jail and live to 18. Stay away from the gangs and the streets, don’t be like your dad.’”
In order to give back to his community, Rouse has launched his own foundation, Rouse’s House, with a goal to foster the importance of a good education.
“I wanted to have more of an impact in my community. I wanted to be in public office, and I wanted to show the youth that you can be doctors, teachers, coaches, first responders, entrepreneurs,” Rouse said.
And when organizing fundraisers, food giveaways or mentorship programs through his foundation, Rouse rarely invites any of his “celebrity friends” to attend. “I don’t want them to be impressionable on the kids. I invite the teachers, principals, and other elected officials. That’s how I serve now. It’s not about having a headline or a profile, it’s about, are we making a real difference here?”
What’s most important to Rouse isn’t his fame as a football star or his state Senate seat, but his family. Rouse and his wife, Jennifer, who succeeded him as a Virginia Beach city councilor, have a 10-year-old daughter, and he has an older son (“with my high school sweetheart”) who is 20. “I remember driving back home from Tech to Hampton Roads every other week to make sure our family was together,” Rouse remembered. “I was a full-time dad, and an athlete in college, which was very, very heavy.”
At home in Virginia Beach, Rouse prefers to keep a low profile. “I’m just very laid-back. Growing up in a single-parent household, I taught myself how to work on cars,” he said, proudly mentioning his Chevy El Camino and a recent acquisition, a 2001 Corvette. Rouse also likes to read books, preferably about history, and he is slightly obsessed with the TV series “Air Disasters” on the Smithsonian Channel. “It goes back to human error,” he said, flashing a grin.
And as much as Rouse considers himself “somewhat of a nerd” who is fascinated with artificial intelligence, his interest in the latest technology also helps him to keep perspective.
“It makes me love our humanity even so much more. What’s more beautiful than seeing the Grand Canyon with my own eyes? That’s something that my wife and I have done — we drove across the country and we saw it with our own eyes,” Rouse said. “Virtual reality can never beat the experience of going to Blacksburg in the fall, and the leaves start to change, and you’re out in Southwest Virginia and you see the hills and you know at times you can’t take the back way to Radford. There is nothing that can beat what God has made, and I always cherish that.”
Despite his fame and fortune, Rouse prefers to keep his private life simple. “I consider myself a country boy,” he said, laughing. “Give me a T-shirt, jeans, a nice jon boat, and I’ll do some freshwater fishing. I know I live in Virginia Beach, but I’m not going out there in the ocean. Give me a nice little waterway where I can relax and have a good time.”
As for his future political aspirations, Rouse prefers to remain focused on the present, while keeping his options open — kind of like one does in professional football.
“I always say, the game that we have in front of us is the game that we play. For me, as a state senator, I am looking forward to this job, in this role, and the best that I can be in being effective. That’s what it is about,” Rouse said. “I don’t want to be in a position if I’m not being effective. If other opportunities become available at a point in time, sure, I’ll definitely look at them. But now that I am in this position I want to be the best senator that I can be.”