Post by Bornthrilla on Feb 7, 2007 8:40:34 GMT -5
Football recruits set futures in motion
By Robert Bell
Staff Writer
GREENSBORO — Early this morning, as usual, Dashaun Graham will eat a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, check his MySpace.com page and send a text message to his girlfriend — this part of his day will remain private — before driving to Page High School, where he is a senior.
By the last school bell, things will never be the same.
Graham is one of thousands of high school football standouts across the nation who today will sign a national letter of intent, a rite of passage between adolescence and big-time Saturday sublimity.
And while sports pages, online chat rooms and television shows will obsess over a few hundred players committing their skills to the Floridas, Penn States and Michigans out there, the overwhelming number of players who quietly sign the NCAA's standard three-page contract are like Graham.
They weren't blessed with natural skills — they earned their edge by working harder and longer than others. And for many, college might not have been an option were it not for those skills they developed on a football field.
Graham, a defensive back, will sign with N.C. A&T , just five miles from his home as the crow flies but a world apart for a 17-year-old, even one who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds.
"I can't wait for college," Graham said. "It's like you're starting all over and you're on your own."
There were times when Graham's family wondered if this day would come.
There never was a question about his work ethic in football — he always was the last one off the field after practice. It was his work in the classroom that always seemed to trip him up.
When Graham barely passed sixth grade at Mendenhall Middle School, his mother, Tiffany Trotter, decided to teach him a lesson. With the help of the school's principal, Trotter duped her son into believing he failed sixth grade. She went so far as to hold her son back the first week of seventh grade, hoping to scare him straight.
"I wanted him to know what life was like if you failed to get an education," Trotter said. "He was goofing off and needed to wake up."
These days mom isn't the least bit worried about sending her son off to college. Graham is not your average high school senior. He had to get a worker's permit from the state when he was 15 so he could get a job stocking shelves at the Eckerd Pharmacy on Pisgah Church Road. With the money he earned at Eckerd, Graham bought a 1990 Chevy Cavalier for $500 when he was 16. With tinted windows, a new paint job, CD player and subwoofers, Graham has put another $1,500 into it.
"He showed me with that car how responsible he can be," Trotter said. "He's never asked me for anything. ... He's very independent. That's why I know he'll do great in college."
Trotter, a medical coder in Greensboro, took some college courses but never graduated. Years ago, mother and grandmother promised each other that Dashaun would go to college. "I didn't know how he would go, or how we would pay for it, but he was going," Trotter said.
When coaches from Delaware State called Graham in December and said they wanted to offer him an athletics scholarship, "I just closed my eyes and said, 'Thank you! Thank you! My son's going to college,' " Trotter said.
In the end, Graham visited two schools: Delaware State and A&T. One weekend on the A&T campus, and Graham knew where he was going to college. The school is nearby. The family is impressed with the degrees the school offers (Graham wants to major in computer science). And despite the Aggie football team's dismal record in recent years, Graham believes the program is on the upswing.
"Just watch," he said. "We may not be tough next year, but two years from now we'll be back."
College — and everything that word represents — has consumed Graham in recent weeks.
"It's going to be amazing," he said. "Middle school is like bringing two elementary schools together. You put two or three middle schools together and you get a high school. College is like bringing 60 high schools together."
On his visit to the A&T campus last month, he met other high school seniors who have committed to the school's football program.
"There were guys from Mississippi, California, all over the country there," Graham said this week. "It was fun hearing about where they live and what kind of music they listen to. That's a big part of what I've always envisioned college life was like — meeting people who come from all different walks of life."
It works both ways, of course. This fall, those young Aggies recruits will learn about a local kid with pretty good speed and a weakness for Cinnamon Toast Crunch. A young man who struggled early in school before setting himself straight.
Dashaun Graham is going to college. And it starts with a signature today.
By Robert Bell
Staff Writer
GREENSBORO — Early this morning, as usual, Dashaun Graham will eat a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, check his MySpace.com page and send a text message to his girlfriend — this part of his day will remain private — before driving to Page High School, where he is a senior.
By the last school bell, things will never be the same.
Graham is one of thousands of high school football standouts across the nation who today will sign a national letter of intent, a rite of passage between adolescence and big-time Saturday sublimity.
And while sports pages, online chat rooms and television shows will obsess over a few hundred players committing their skills to the Floridas, Penn States and Michigans out there, the overwhelming number of players who quietly sign the NCAA's standard three-page contract are like Graham.
They weren't blessed with natural skills — they earned their edge by working harder and longer than others. And for many, college might not have been an option were it not for those skills they developed on a football field.
Graham, a defensive back, will sign with N.C. A&T , just five miles from his home as the crow flies but a world apart for a 17-year-old, even one who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds.
"I can't wait for college," Graham said. "It's like you're starting all over and you're on your own."
There were times when Graham's family wondered if this day would come.
There never was a question about his work ethic in football — he always was the last one off the field after practice. It was his work in the classroom that always seemed to trip him up.
When Graham barely passed sixth grade at Mendenhall Middle School, his mother, Tiffany Trotter, decided to teach him a lesson. With the help of the school's principal, Trotter duped her son into believing he failed sixth grade. She went so far as to hold her son back the first week of seventh grade, hoping to scare him straight.
"I wanted him to know what life was like if you failed to get an education," Trotter said. "He was goofing off and needed to wake up."
These days mom isn't the least bit worried about sending her son off to college. Graham is not your average high school senior. He had to get a worker's permit from the state when he was 15 so he could get a job stocking shelves at the Eckerd Pharmacy on Pisgah Church Road. With the money he earned at Eckerd, Graham bought a 1990 Chevy Cavalier for $500 when he was 16. With tinted windows, a new paint job, CD player and subwoofers, Graham has put another $1,500 into it.
"He showed me with that car how responsible he can be," Trotter said. "He's never asked me for anything. ... He's very independent. That's why I know he'll do great in college."
Trotter, a medical coder in Greensboro, took some college courses but never graduated. Years ago, mother and grandmother promised each other that Dashaun would go to college. "I didn't know how he would go, or how we would pay for it, but he was going," Trotter said.
When coaches from Delaware State called Graham in December and said they wanted to offer him an athletics scholarship, "I just closed my eyes and said, 'Thank you! Thank you! My son's going to college,' " Trotter said.
In the end, Graham visited two schools: Delaware State and A&T. One weekend on the A&T campus, and Graham knew where he was going to college. The school is nearby. The family is impressed with the degrees the school offers (Graham wants to major in computer science). And despite the Aggie football team's dismal record in recent years, Graham believes the program is on the upswing.
"Just watch," he said. "We may not be tough next year, but two years from now we'll be back."
College — and everything that word represents — has consumed Graham in recent weeks.
"It's going to be amazing," he said. "Middle school is like bringing two elementary schools together. You put two or three middle schools together and you get a high school. College is like bringing 60 high schools together."
On his visit to the A&T campus last month, he met other high school seniors who have committed to the school's football program.
"There were guys from Mississippi, California, all over the country there," Graham said this week. "It was fun hearing about where they live and what kind of music they listen to. That's a big part of what I've always envisioned college life was like — meeting people who come from all different walks of life."
It works both ways, of course. This fall, those young Aggies recruits will learn about a local kid with pretty good speed and a weakness for Cinnamon Toast Crunch. A young man who struggled early in school before setting himself straight.
Dashaun Graham is going to college. And it starts with a signature today.