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Message: [QUOTE="Cuseregular, post: 723404, member: 185"] Since you ask...normally try to avoid this here...anyway was a gangly 6'1" 195 out of WGHS. But was second team all state, 1st team All County, local player of the year along with none other than Tim Green (which remains my claim to fame getting the better of him one on one...of course he was a jr. and me a sr. but lets not let that get in the way of a good story:-)) Those things got me noticed some with partial scholly offers from Bucknell and Holy Cross. Was recruited but never offered by SU, Pitt, PSU, NCSt., Maryland and offered by all those to walk on. A ton of Div. III schools came knocking and for some reason I loved the everything about Hamilton College. This though I always loved the Cuse I really at the time didn't think I was good enough not knowing how things would turn out athletically being called the div. 1 kid playing div. 3. But what I did know it was a fantastic academic school and I could start all 4 years, be close to home, catch some Cuse games at the end of our season and it seemed a no brainer given the circumstances and my mindset then. It was cheap back then too so with the aid/scholarship package they came up with it was the same at the end of the day than if I went to the partial scholly schools. Anyway as the program grew so did I physically to 6'2" 235, OLB/DE, 4.7 forty. 4.45 short shuttle time (those from my pro day tryout which as it turned out were div. 1 caliber numbers but who knew early on this would be the case, certainly not me). I wore #99 to answer your question as the sack thing was my thing, and who better to emulate then other than the sackmaster himself Mark Gastenau. Anyway we sucked big time my first 3 years something like 3-26, but evolved to a championship program by my senior year ending up 7-1-1 beating the #2 nationally ranked team in the end. That got our program notice and (braggadacious alert continuing now) we we're the div. 3 team of the year, I got Conference player of the year, All-Conference, All-East and finally All-American, broke all the defensive records for my position which I believe is still the case today (this in 3 years as for some reasons on Hamiltons records page they omit one of my years, thus the numbers would actually be higher the conceited bastid says...). That got pro notice and a tryout but strength was issue as in HS in my era, or at my school at least, there was no formal weight lifting program. Same too for the first couple years at Hamilton believe it or not and I didn't find a weight room regularly until my junior year. Some of the schmucks then found roids but I wouldn't get near them. That was a huge detriment during the tryout as clearly I was behind the 8 ball strength wise vs. most of the rest except athletically. I was encouraged to hit the weights hard for a year and come on back but by them the Hamilton post grad pipeline had hooked me up with a good job and career stuff took over. Thankfully in retrospect with the amount of post traumatic orthopedic injuries I now deal with I can't imagine how I'd feel today if I went the div 1 route and did pro time. Stayed connected for years with the program, did some recruiting in the process, made a large amount of coaching contact connections from this experience with a lot of past teammates coaching at all levels so it kind of keeps one in the loop right up to today. Anyway that was probably more than you were asking for....so you see "Stella, I coulda been a contenda......" Thanks for asking, havent thought about all that for a long while and considering the shape I'm in now it seems like someone else lived that experience! See you at a tailgate soon Shenexon. [/QUOTE]

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