Dreams Part 1 of 3

Everybody has dreams. Our dreams give us something positive to always look forward to acheiving. We set goals to try to reach those dreams.

My dream is to be a NFL football player, and I am on the path now trying to get there. It started with flag football, moving on to pop warner and evenutally having a successful high school career. The older I got the more I wanted that dream to become reality. It was in high school when I really felt that I can make this dream happen. I became one of the nations top players and became a U.S. Army All American. 

Highschool

I showed up to highschool as one of the top pop warner players from the area. Freshman year was a big jump. Football was more then just going to the park for practice. Now i had weightlifting, conditioning, practice, team events on the weekends like 7on7 tournaments and still balancing school. 

Sophmore year was a rough time for me. I had knee surgery in the summer going into my sophmore season and I was going to miss the whole season. It would be my first time without football since I had started playing flag. I always worried during that year off would I be able to come back and perform like I always did. All i thought about was my dream of making it to the NFL, so I told myself to take advantage of this opportunity and make my game better. Once I was cleared to train, I began rehabbing and lifting weights, if anything I was gonna come back as strong as i could. The year off flew by and I couldnt wait to get back on the field. I just wanted to play football because I loved the game so much. So after I had a good comeback year as a junior and i started getting recruited, it hit me that football was much bigger then the NFL. Football was going to be my way to college. I didn't know much about the recruiting process, but I knew i had another dream and that was to go to USC. The first time I stepped foot on campus I wanted to be a Trojan, but that was when I was 10 and as a 16 year old now I figured that would never happen. UCLA came in during the spring of my junior year and offered and eventually I accepted it. I thought i was done with everything and looked forward to being a Bruin. The summer came before senior year and I got a call from Pete Carroll and I was in complete silence. The coach I watched on tv for years and dreamed about playing for was on the phone with me. He knew I was commited to UCLA, but he wanted me to come to a camp and workout. With me being a competitive person I took the challenge and decided to go. I trained hard during the weeks leading up to the camp and when the day came I went out and did what I knew how and thats play ball. The coaches loved what they saw and offered me once the camp was over. Now i had a decision to make. Stick with UCLA or switch to my childhood dream school?? It was one of the first tough decisions I would have to make but I went with my dream school and picked USC and signed with them on signing day.

Part 2- My USC Experience