It was 1999. I sat in the library at Chico Senior High School during third period Monday through Friday as a “library aide.” My duties consisted of sliding the sections of the day’s newspaper into the bamboo scroll and placing it in the rack for students and faculty to read, replacing books according to catalog number, and meticulously searching the internet using Netscape or Lycos for anything and everything to do with high school football recruiting. Anything.

I can honestly say that this was where my obsession with the world of sports recruiting began. Although I played four varsity sports in high school (football, basketball, baseball, track), and didn’t have much time to breathe considering I maintained a 3.86 GPA, I made time to find out everything I could about other players across the country so that I could compare myself to them in every way imaginable.

Camps? Nope. Never went. We couldn’t afford it. Being on virtually every team at school resulted in my being forced to listen to stories of shaving cream fights, nightly pranks and awesome college players and coaches that my teammates got to experience at football and basketball camps. This fact helped fuel my desire to succeed even more. I told myself that I was going to make it regardless of what I “did not” have, and I have lived according to that principle ever since.

This is the beginning of the story that led to the dream and creation of the CollegeLevelAthletes.com site. Follow my blog and look forward to stories like this and pretty much anything else that sparks my interest at the given moment. Talk to you later. AP