The boy is the oldest of our clan.

He is sixteen years old and stands a good four inches taller than me and is at least that much wider. I give the amazon people on his mother’s side credit for his stature.

He was always a big kid growing up. So big in fact that he was cautioned when playing sports not to hurt anyone too badly. Fast forward several years to a cool Friday evening, early in the fall season, and you can hear cries from the stands for the boy to crush whoever is opposing him. Oh, and you’ll also see a dad grinning ear to ear with pride amid those hollering hometown fans.

This year he is a Junior in High School and scouts from colleges are looking at him. His High School football career has been pretty good. He started on Junior Varsity his freshman year and was also invited to go with the Varsity team to the state finals. He has since been contacted by a few Division III schools and a couple of Division II. His grades are pretty good too. He finished out the last year with a 3.2 GPA which didn’t come easy. This is evidence of his solid work ethic.

We visited one of the D2 colleges recently, our first time doing this type of thing, and were very impressed with the coaching staff and facility. The visit came as an invitation to recruits from the athletic program. The school learned of the boy over the summer because he attended a camp at their facility. It seems they liked what they saw.

While we toured the campus the boy would occasionally reach out and lightly hit my gut or arm with a big grin on his face. Later he would tell me that he is actually doing it. That he is really going to play football in college.

The boy had been saying for a few years now that he would play ball in college and maybe even the pros. While I have cautiously encouraged this dream, it has only been the last year or so that I have started to fully believe it myself. When your kid shares these lofty goals you can’t help but see red flags popping up all over the place. Most of them around keeping the kid just as interested in academics as sports and imagining the conversation that has to take place when the dream doesn’t turn to reality.

I’ve failed to mention that there is not a strong history of college graduates, or attendees for that matter, on either side of the boys’ family. This reality makes the recent activity all that much more exciting.

We will do our best to navigate these unfamiliar waters together, trying to remember to stop and enjoy the process every now and again.

This should be interesting.