2011.01.18 Dinner with a Football Player

We went to an out-of-town dinner and met a fine young man who has played football in his high school years. He aspires to play at college and maybe even the NFL if he is good enough in college. Anyway, he was very bright, having graduated high school early. He is academically ambitious based on the courses he mentioned taking and ones he is planning to take. We wish him well in everything he does and look forward to following his football career, no matter where it leads. He is interested in International Business courses and has taken Spanish, is taking Portuguese, and plans to add Chinese to his language skill-set. I believe China is expected to be an expanding market for business so knowing some form of it should prove helpful.

I asked him whether his college teammates and he live in the same quarters or if they are scattered around campus. He said he chose to room with other players as do most of the players at school. This is due to having such different hours than those not on the team. The team has early practices and would possibly disturb other students who do not have to get up early and also other students might stay up late and disturb the rest the players need in order to put forth the effort required in practice. He also told me the players often go around campus on mo-peds which is quite a sight when they go somewhere as a group. I bet it does draw some attention as these guys are a bit larger than your average fellow.

I told him I go to lots of games and sometimes fans can be quite harsh especially on the road. He said Tennessee was the worst this year as they threw beer and wine bottles AT THE TEAM during the game. I have never seen anything like that at a game but am happy no one got hurt as a result of it.

I asked if his parents support his efforts to play ball and his ambition to go to the NFL and he told me his father supports him in everything he has ever wanted to do. I would say there must have been expectations too as this guy was very polite throughout the dinner and appears to have a very good work ethic.

We enjoyed spending the evening with him very much.