Former Notre Dame football player Phil Jurkovec was arrested over the weekend after allegedly stealing a rental box truck from the parking lot of a Pennsylvania hospital.
Jurkovec, 26, was hit with a pair of felony charges for theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property, according to court documents viewed by Us.
The alleged incident occurred on Friday, September 18, at Wexford Hospital in Allegheny County just outside of Pittsburgh. Police were called to the hospital’s valet lot, where an employee of equipment rental company Rental Time said he was about to start loading tables and chairs into the truck when it was stolen.
“He heard the doors open and close and all of a sudden the truck just took off,” Rental Time owner Deborah Clager told CBS News. “I thought he was joking. There’s no way this is happening.”
She added to WTAE, “He had just gotten there, he was about to start loading. Luckily, nothing was in the back of the truck or it had been flying down Route 19.”
Police were then able to track the truck using its GPS to nearby Cranberry Township, where police stopped it and identified the former quarterback as the driver.
“It’s easy to spot,” Clager said, adding she was “shocked” when she learned who the alleged thief was. “It’s not a sports car that’s easy to zip in and out. It’s a huge, 18-foot box truck.”
Court records show Jurkovec was unable to post the $25,000 bail and he is being held at Allegheny County Jail. He has a preliminary hearing scheduled for September 30.
“I just hope he gets the help he needs,” Clager said. “Obviously, something’s going on and I don’t know what, but hopefully he just gets the help he needs and can turn his life around.”
Jurkovec is a former four-star recruit who came out of high school as the No. 2-ranked quarterback in Pennsylvania and the tenth-ranked QB in the country. He began his career at Notre Dame, where he played from 2018 to 2019, before transferring to Boston College and eventually playing at Pittsburgh.
His best season came in the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign with the Eagles, where he started 10 games, throwing for 2,558 yards and 17 touchdowns.
After college, he was invited to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ minicamp in 2024 but did not make the team. He later worked as a legislative aide for Pennsylvania state representative Josh Kail, but a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania House Republicans said his employment ended in November 2025.
