Getting Old

Following my surgery, I advised the company I was supposed to intern with that I would not be able to participate due to a summer full of physical therapy and the commute to downtown Atlanta. This was hard because I knew that I had to come up with a new plan. A few days later, an insurance company spoke gave a presentation to my sales class about potential career opportunities. Luckily, I had a copy of my resume in my bag and gave it to the associate after the presentation. Three weeks later, I accepted a job with them as a summer intern handling car insurance claims. I was able to manage hours that would keep me full time, and still be able to complete my physical therapy. This was a significant moment that ties everything together in my college experience. A few days after the presentation from the insurance company looking for claims adjusters, another insurance company spoke to my class. This time, the presentation revolved around business to business sales, as well as informatio...

Losing the national championship game was hard for me. As an extremely competitive person, I was very disappointed. But like everything else that has happened to me, I used this as a learning experience. After going through a great deal of adversity I began to realize that the importance of tough situations is about how one responds to them. A few weeks after losing the championship game, we were back into off-season training. I was determined to be the best version of myself physically and mentally for the second semester of my junior year, which would allow me to head into my summer internship with momentum. I was once again feeling on top of the world, until something stripped it away in seconds. One cold February morning at a 5:30am team run I tore my ACL and meniscus for the second time in my life. This was a tough time for me because I knew I was going to have to miss my senior season, and not be able to spend my summer in Atlanta working due to physical therapy. I was o...

After a rough two years at Reinhardt, I was determined to make my Junior year my best yet. I was tired of standing in line behind other people and started taking initiative in my life. After going what I had gone through leading up to this point, I had a sense of rebellion that I was going to get what I wanted. My junior year of college was by far the best. I went from being a back up on the football team, to a starter and team captain. I started feeling the way I’ve wanted to feel my whole life, taking care of business. I started making more connections with people at my school and in the community, and accepted an internship in Atlanta to be a carrier broker for a logistics company. In addition, my football team was ranked number 2 in the country, and we were back to back conference champions. Our season ended in the national championship, where we lost to St. Francis in Daytona Beach, Florida on ESPN.

That second semester I did not skip a beat. I was the strongest guy on the team, in the best physical shape of my life. I was working hard in football and in the classroom with a 3.9 GPA. Everyday I worked as hard as I could to be the best version of myself. I felt unstoppable in every way possible. The only thing that could be better at this point in time was to have an internship lined up. Around March I started creating a resume with the Reinhardt Career services. Soon, this resume would be added to 300 job applications for internships that summer. Out of the 300 counted applications I only had one company reach back out to me, which I attended 3 interviews for in Buckhead. I was on my high horse wearing a suit and tie that I borrowed from a friend, only to find out that the “internship” I was offered was being at the bottom of a pyramid scheme. I refused to get into something like this with people I did not trust, and ended up being a handy man for an engineering consulting compa...

            My sophomore year the Reinhardt football team went 13-1. We were conference champions and lost to St. Francis in the semi-finals. This was a fun but tough year for me because I was expected to be in the starting rotation. One week before the first game, our team got an All-American transfer; a previous NFL prospect who ended up replacing my spot in the starting rotation. This was another time that I had to dig deep and stay true to my vision since in my head I felt like quitting. Because I was not in the starting rotation, I had to find a way to make myself useful to make the travel team.           Due to my size and strength, I was put in a special package for goal line or short yardage situations. My only job was to "kick out" the last man on the line of scrimmage to create a lane for the running back to score. I did this every game, and never missed a block. This one block to make took up every fiber of my exist...

            After the summer came my sophomore year of college when I began taking my classes even more seriously, trying to soak up every bit of knowledge I could. I was always the kid in the front row taking notes, while others would be on their phones or asleep. My friends never really cared about their grades, but I did. I knew that if I had a good GPA coming out of college as a student-athlete, an employer would recognize that. My desire to make good grades was inspired by the fact that it could help me in the future, but I also wanted to make my mother proud. My mother is an elementary school teacher and takes academics to heart. My GPA coming out of high school was 2.8. This drove my mother crazy because she knew that I could do better, and I did too. All I cared about was hanging out with my friends and winning football games on Friday nights.             One night, in particular, changed the way I felt about my...

            That summer, I worked for the local lawn service company. Although I did not feel like I was living up to my potential, I was making good money as a 19-year-old kid. On top of my work as a technician, I was also making sales to people in the community. All of my friends were making minimum wage, while I was making close to $20 an hour from my efforts in sales and lawn service production. This was because almost every day I was the first person to show up to the office in the morning to collect my orders and the last one to return in the evening. I remember my boss was always so confused with my drive to work and make money, compared to the other men twice my age I was working with. The significance of this summer came from my development and growth as a young adult. It did not go my way, but I kept a positive attitude and made the most of every day and never complained to anyone but myself.              I...

            All of my life I couldn't wait to graduate from college and get my dream job. It is surreal that the time has come, and I will graduate in May 2019. It seems as if everything I have done leading up to this point has prepared me for my future endeavors.             When I first got to Reinhardt University in August of 2015, I felt like I had a lifetime's worth of school and football ahead of me. Waking up at 5-6am everyday for weight training and football practice made time pass extremely slow. My 18-year-old self felt as if I would be living this life forever, and I would never have to grow up. The only thing I was worried about was my performance on the field, in the classroom, and hanging out with my newly acquired friends. The hardest decision in my day was trying to agree with my friends on what we would eat for dinner and who's dorm we would be hanging out in that night. As my freshman ye...