Editor’s Note: This special article is written primarily from a first-person point of view.
BOYNTON BEACH – Something that you have been working hard for almost all of your life is in front of you right now.
It’s a chance to play sports at the collegiate level.
This is your reasoning for getting up in the morning. This is your reasoning for getting good grades. This is your reason for even coming to school, and now you’re trying to figure out how the process will pay you back in return for your commitment.
You ask yourself the following questions:
“How did I slip through the cracks?”
“If only I was a couple of inches taller, I wouldn’t have to worry about this. Why is this happening to me?”
“How am I a two sport athlete and I still have no offers? I don’t get it.”
“My coach isn’t helping me get recruited. Why am I not getting help?”
High school student athletes all over the world are probably asking themselves these four questions and making these kind of comments right now as National Signing Day is approaching.
This year National Signing Day it will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 7, just nine days away from now.
I found myself in a similar predicament in 2011 at Boynton Beach High School. I was the captain of the football team and weightlifting team, earning All-Area honors in both sports.
Heck, I was even a captain for the 2010-2011 Lytal, Reiter, Smith, Ivey and Fronrath Law Firm All-Star Football Game in Palm Beach County. I had a cumulative 3.5 GPA, decent ACT and SAT test scores, no criminal record, and I never got in trouble in high school.
When you are a young adult and going into your complete adult life – which pretty much happens right after you graduate from high school – you will find yourself in situations that you have no control over. As a student athlete, getting recruited is one of those things.
For example, I had a Bowling Green State University coach sit in front of me and my high school head coach Rick Swain and tell me, “I like you. I like you a lot, and I want to put an offer on the table. But I will have to take my film back to Bowling Green and see if myself and the other coaches can go to a consensus and offer you a full ride scholarship.”
This was something that I could not understand because I thought if a coach likes you, it only takes one coach to like you and then you were good to go. But when you don’t meet the coaches’ measurements or playing style, the school will not offer you, no matter how much one coach may like you.
I had another situation where FAU legendary quarterback Jared Allen and the coaching staff came out to my high school to recruit another student-athlete. I was invited to the meeting, but I was overlooked and quite honestly ignored by Allen due mostly to my height.
Every coach will not like you. Every coach won’t know how big your heart is.
Every coach won’t care to hear your story.
But all it takes is one coach, one university or one college to give you a shot.
February is a very big month for student athletes all over the world because it is National Signing Day, And all eyes will be on student-athletes who are putting their name on the dotted line to continue their academic and athletic careers in college.
Student-athletes can feel the pressure of wanting to celebrate with everyone else or wanting to simply prove their worth as one who could potentially excel in college.
I had interest from colleges all over America, but I was only able to get three offers. And two of them were for full ride scholarship.
My offers came from Miles College (Division II), Benedictine College in Kansas (NAIA), and Bethel University (NAIA).
I signed my academic and athletic scholarship with Bethel University on April 13, 2011.
It happened after the Palm Beach County Recruiting Fair, which was some weeks after the beloved National Signing Day. But I still felt the same love that everyone else feels on National Signing Day.
I had a great two-year stint at Bethel University before transferring to FAU and trying out for the team. I eventually made the team and finished out my academic and athletic career at FAU.
Although I had little to no playing time at FAU, there’s something to be said about a five-foot-five, 250-pound walk-on defensive tackle that could go toe-to-toe with six-foot-five, 300-pound offensive linemen and win battles over them.
Sometimes it’s really not about how you start. It’s about how you finish.
Throughout life things will happen to you that you can’t control. But how you react and move forward towards your goals will say a lot about you as both a student-athlete and person overall.
Play the hand you were dealt, chase your dreams, and leave nothing to chance.
