I just like I got up here and I love the environment um the people up here really made it for me , great coaching staff , uh , really seem , you know , tight knit like a family , um , my position coach , uh , did a really great job selling it and everything and then , you know , obviously very , very thankful because all that is proven true , um , very tight knit community up here , um , a town that's cares a lot about football and this university and then coaching staff who is gonna put you in the best position to win . Some stuff just like to help that I would have told myself in high school uh to help with recruiting like do a really good job marketing yourself um you know it's preached a lot but it's true they look at everything coaches do , um . So you know , like something like I was a really big like school guy like grades or something that was really important to me that my parents really preached with us um so thankfully that wasn't a huge issue for me um but you know , making sure your grades are good , all that's gonna help you you know if they look at you and they see your grades are good that's just another , you know , thing that's gonna market you as a better recruit , um .
You know , if you're not necessarily as big as other guys and maybe under size and stuff , um , having a specifically a linebacker like really really good eyes , um , you know , known playbook defense really , really well so you can react fast , um , know what the offense is doing , you know , and then . You know , little technical stuff , um , great hands , stuff like that , just really great footwork , no wasted steps so recruitment's process for me was a little bit different , um , for a while in high school , like up to my junior year , um , I was kind of back and forth between football and lacrosse , um , didn't necessarily know which way I was gonna go , um , and then kind of decided towards the end of my junior year , um , I was gonna focus on football , um , so you know I had a little bit of a later process , um , I didn't end up committing to Youngstown until . About 2 or 3 weeks before signing day , uh , my senior year , um , you know , super thankful this opportunity came along , obviously , uh , just took a little longer than some other guys , um , but you know .
Some stuff just like to help that I would have told myself in high school uh to help with recruiting like do a really good job marketing yourself um you know it's preached a lot but it's true they look at everything coaches do , um . So you know , like something like I was a really big like school guy like grades or something that was really important to me that my parents really preached with us um so thankfully that wasn't a huge issue for me um but you know , making sure your grades are good , all that's gonna help you you know if they look at you and they see your grades are good that's just another , you know , thing that's gonna market you as a better recruit , um . Other than just relations you have with people , um , you know , a big part of it is you're gonna come visit , talk to coaches and stuff like that , um .
So you know , like something like I was a really big like school guy like grades or something that was really important to me that my parents really preached with us um so thankfully that wasn't a huge issue for me um but you know , making sure your grades are good , all that's gonna help you you know if they look at you and they see your grades are good that's just another , you know , thing that's gonna market you as a better recruit , um . Other than just relations you have with people , um , you know , a big part of it is you're gonna come visit , talk to coaches and stuff like that , um . And you know just making an impression and forming good relations with whoever it is you're talking to .
Younger me would be looking at those guys and seeing how they behave stuff like that just obviously do something impactful um I'm a really competitive person I'm a little bit of a perfectionist um you know and I'm sure it'll happen naturally in a sense , uh , but you know just pursue something whenever football might be done in my life , um . That gives me the same feeling as football like , you know , right now I love just working my tail off towards a goal and chasing something every single day and I wanna have it be the same exact way when I enter , you know , whatever career I should take , um , you know , whatever life looks like down the road if you're really passionate about this , make this , you know , your number one priority , um , you know eat sleep and breathe a little bit , um , I've had coaches , you know . Who've really preached to me , you know how much you can improve in this game if you really put the time in , um , you know , fall back on them , fall back on friends and family , you know , at the end of the day it's just a game , so you know , love it , uh , fall back on your faith and you know just trust the process and just keep working and keep improving .
