Pole Tim: You're highest level of football played

Ooo, ooo, ooo, one more that just came to me: The one day I was a "big time college football recruit."

Back then, I was completely unaware of the whole TBSing industry. Our small time coaches didn't know shit about it either and did nothing to promote their players. I got a few letters from small schools like UPS and whatnot because of our team camping there, but by my junior year I was already four knee surgeries in and still hadn't experienced that late 6" growth spurt, so I knew being Al Bundy was the pinnacle I could hope for.

But a couple of guys were being recruited and were invited to the northwest big time recruiting camp at some high school field near Seattle. Can't remember which. One of these guys was a linebacker who was going to be a junior. Lambo wanted him, but Rick didn't, so he ended up at Idaho. The other was the receiver in my class who ended up at Eastern.

A group of our core players decided to roll down with these two in support and watch the camp, as we had no idea what it would be all about. My dad had a big 15 passenger van, so we rolled down as a pretty decent sized group, myself and the three other senior captains, the junior linebacker, and the incoming sophomore Amon, who hadn't left the team yet. On the way, we stopped at a gas station and picked up big boxes of gas station fried chicken, little chocolate donuts (Belushi breakfast of champs), and Gatorades. I pigged the fuck out, eating the whole box of donuts and a couple pieces of chicken, as it's not like I needed to run a 40 anytime soon.

WRONG.

We got there and hung out with our invited buddies in line, got to the front, and the lady at the table tossed us all T-shirts and said, "Okay, sign in."

Ho. Lee. Shit. I was going to be working out in front of coaches from every school in the PAC-10! With nine pounds of chicken and little chocolate donuts in my stomach! And a size-XXX T-shirt drag racing parachute, as that's all they had!

I ran the slowest 40 of my life, as if I were being pulled back from my belt the whole way. I caught more than I dropped in receiver drills. I vaguely recall a decent 3-cone time. Bench press has always been my weakest lift, so I think I managed to get up 225... none times. On the bright side, top-10 in the whole camp with vertical jump (I think it was 34", tied with another of my uninvited teammates).

Suffice it to say, no big time scholarship offers came out of it, but a free novelty T-shirt and a lot of self-deprecating laughs were had.

Funniest part was Amon. He wasn't even a sophomore yet, so coaches weren't supposed to contact him. Watching that dynamic was interesting. He was THE most popular guy at the combine with all of the coaches. They all knew exactly who he was, and they all found ways to accidentally bump into him and chat.

Good Tims.