It’s never too late to jump on the Deestroying bandwagon. However, traditional sports diehards who are unfamiliar with his work may have to catch up with the more than six million fans who follow him religiously on YouTube. The platform has been instrumental in allowing the athlete and influencer to build a massively successful and profitable creative outlet over the past decade.
Deestroying—real name Donald De La Haye—has consistently proven that sports can be even more entertaining than what you’re used to seeing on game days. In his videos, he’s both challenged and collaborated with an All‑Pro lineup of athletes and influencers on his YouTube channel, staging uniquely entertaining, highly athletic competitions. His success has also afforded him the luxury of traveling as far as New Zealand to train with that nation’s top athletes.
A deeper look at De La Haye reveals that the former University of Central Florida kicker helped change the game of college football as we know it. His decision to forgo his college scholarship to pursue his then‑fledgling social media channel helped usher in the current NIL era, which has allowed college athletes to score massive paydays.
“I think my life is amazing,” he says. “Everyone has their own trials and tribulations and struggles, but I have so many positive, great things going on for myself. I’m happy, extremely blessed and extremely just lucky overall.”
The success of his channel has allowed Deestroying to get a real taste of pro football as a kicker. But last September, both old‑school and social media‑savvy football fans got their first real taste of Deestroying as an NFL sideline correspondent for the league’s YouTube‑exclusive broadcast between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil.
His popularity has extended his brand beyond sports. Deestroying has gone from hitting field goals to hospitality entrepreneur, becoming a partner in a pair of Phoenix‑area Fat Tuesday restaurants.
“I have the blessing of just showing up, obviously, promoting, helping with marketing, and using my brand,” he says.
And although it’s highly unlikely the cameras will stop rolling on the recently engaged social media star anytime soon, the growing demands away from content creation may have him quietly thinking about what comes next for the 29‑year‑old. After announcing that he and his fiancée are expecting a child, Deestroying could be quietly plotting his social media exit strategy in order to spend more time at home. It would also open up some additional time for him to pursue his newfound passion for golf a bit more.
“It’s kind of ironic, because the older I get now, the less interested I am in having my whole life on social media,” he admits. “So I think the biggest challenge is keeping everything going, keeping the fire and the passion going for social media and content, which I love. But at the same time, I’m a grown adult. I’m engaged, so real life is coming out.”
While many of his YouTube drops are over‑the‑top fun to watch, Deestroying still slips in not‑so‑subtle hints of his intense training routine that allow him to keep pushing his body physically while evolving as a successful businessman. As part of a recent Allstate campaign, he kicked 1,000 40‑yard field goals in less than 24 hours—a task that highlighted the athleticism required to be a kicker.
Behind the scenes—whether in his decked‑out home gym, on an athletic field, or in a hotel gym—Deestroying continues putting in the work in order to continue showcasing his skills for his millions of fans. That, he says, won’t end anytime soon.
“I’m obsessed with just exercise and fitness. I’ve been that way since I was 14. So if I go two, three days without the gym, I don’t feel like myself.”
Deestroying
Inside Deestroying’s Garage Gym Grind
A day in the life of Deestroying, he says, makes it nearly impossible to maintain a set schedule. From constant flights, to late nights of filming, to waking up and reading and responding to a massive amount of emails, to planning the next athletic challenge to be filmed—and still finding time for family—sticking to a routine has become as challenging as covering Tyreek Hill one‑on‑one.
“I usually plan the night before, depending on what I got coming up,” he says.
Finding time to get in a workout, though challenging, has become a non‑negotiable part of Deestroying’s success blueprint. While you see the final product on social media, you don’t always see the work behind the scenes—and that starts in the weight room.
Lately, Deestroying has been proud to show off his newly designed and fully equipped garage gym to his YouTube fans. Nike barbells, dumbbells, and kettlebells, along with a Tonal smart gym, fill one side of the space, as he walks viewers through what it takes to maintain a hectic, unpredictable athletic schedule. “You just got to keep the machine going, man.”
He says he normally sticks to a five‑ to six‑day split routine: upper body on day one, lower body the next, followed by a rest day. While his videos are cutting‑edge, his weight‑room work relies on tried‑and‑true basics. He’ll cycle through bench presses, dumbbell shrugs, chest flys, skull crushers, and plenty of rows.
He emphasizes keeping each rep slow and controlled to increase time under tension. He says that approach helps build power and durability—enough to withstand a full day on the field. The results of the grind, he insists, are worth the punishment in the weight room.
“It’s just the worst day of the week, but the best day of the week,” he says of leg day. “I just do those and rotate and take a day break and then start it over.”
His training routine is another extension of the substance-over-style work required to excel over the long term—a message he tries to hammer home to younger athletes and wannabe influencers. Put in the work, no matter the challenges, and good things follow.
“My problems are different than everybody else’s problems,” he says. “It’s just about how you handle it. It’s about how you show up every day and don’t let life beat you down and just show up with a positive attitude.”
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Once an Outcast Kicker, Deestroying Became a Record-Setting Influencer
While it’s estimated that in 2026 Texas quarterback Arch Manning will earn up to $7 million, he’s just one of many college athletes benefiting, in part, from the path Deestroying helped open when he chose YouTube over college football. The NCAA ruled him ineligible in 2017 for refusing to demonetize his channel, which then had fewer than 100,000 followers.
He now sits in the heart of Sun Devil country in Tempe, AZ, at one of his two Fat Tuesday locations—the other located in nearby Glendale, where his influencer success has allowed him to invest $1 million into the popular nationwide cocktail chain after meeting with company CEO Alex Monahan while in New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX. “Alex and his group are amazing, he says. “It made things super easy for me.”
With his brand at an all-time high, it’s easy to forget that before the early controversies, Deestroying was a standout kicker in the Sunshine State. After his career was cut short at UCF, he went on to a short stint with the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts and played two seasons with the UFL’s San Antonio Brahmas. For a moment, he showed glimpses of what could’ve been—drilling a 55‑yard field goal in the second quarter against the Michigan Panthers that traveled another 10 yards beyond the uprights. But a broken neck on a tackle in his first season, followed by a groin injury the next, effectively ended his pro career.
“It’s been a little bit of a unlucky professional career, but at the end of the day, man, I’m blessed and lucky,” he says. “I’m happy I get to be here enjoying sports.”
Ten years into his YouTube dominance, Deestroying is still finding new ways not only to create unique content, but also to show off his kicking expertise. A recent Allstate campaign set the bar: 1,000 field goals from 40 yards in 24 hours. The volume, he says, demanded mobility and patience, and it gave him a chance to show that all the work in the weight room helps dispel the notion that kickers aren’t elite athletes.
“It’s very groin heavy, it’s a lot of just groin movement all the time,” he says. “So your groin, hip flexors, they are definitely going to get sore.”
True to his style, he built an experience around the stunt—from grills for a midday meal to blow‑up mattresses, portable cold tubs, and massage tables—to break up the mental monotony of, well, 1,000 consecutive kicks. “Just mentally realizing that it’s gonna be very redundant and very repetitive, I just had to find a way to distract myself somehow.”
A spin wheel added extra entertainment for fans but extra punishment for him: gassers, push‑ups, even barefoot kicking. As the hours piled up, so did the pain: sore groin, tight hip flexor, back pain, leg cramps, blisters, swollen feet. Being ambidextrous helped; he switched to his left foot when the right became too painful.
By night’s end, he finished with 1,001 field goals. In the end, he says, mental prep was as important as leg strength. “I’d be pretty mad at myself,” he says of a bad stretch. “I’d just have to take a breather, step back for a second, just kind of regroup myself and keep telling myself: ‘You’ve done this for how many years now? This is easy. Just lock in and handle business.’”
One Golf Duel More Important than Viral Views
His YouTube channel has accumulated more than 1.6 billion views. Since launching it over a decade ago, he’s collaborated with a host of NFL stars including Cam Newton, A.J. Green, Marquette King, and this year’s No. 1 draft pick, Travis Hunter. In New Zealand he’s trained with top rugby star Ardie Savea, while back home in the U.S. he has toured the locker rooms of nearly every major college football program.
His greatest athletic challenge, however, may be sitting across from him at Sunday family dinner. With his recent engagement, Deestroying isn’t only gaining a life partner—he’s also inheriting an avid golf‑loving father‑in‑law who is more than happy to beat him on the course whenever they get the chance.
It’s a task he takes as seriously as matching up against other influencer athletes, such as Logan Paul, whom he beat in a 2019 race, running a blistering 10.8 in the 100 meters.
“We’d go out to golf, and I was terrible,” he says. “It didn’t feel good to see this man every time and just be trash at something he cares about so much. So I put a little bit of time in it. I bought some clubs, went out there, and I got bit by the bug. I was addicted. I was golfing like 10 hours a day at one point, and the bug is real.”
The obsession has been equal parts fun and frustration, but if you’ve seen the work Dee puts in, and the results that keep coming from it, you know there’s no quit. While going from Topgolf to the PGA seems like a reach—for now—it’s not completely out of the question. And maybe that’s Deestroying’s ultimate strategy. “I always joke around and say, I’m gonna go pro in five years,” he says. “But who knows if that joke might be a reality?”
