Becoming a Cardinal

The decision to play football at Wesleyan University was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I have played sports since I was 5 years old and playing in college has always been a dream of mine. My path was somewhat unconventional, however. I came from a public high school in Massachusetts with just above 300 students and my football team only had about 25 players. I did not start playing tackle football until my sophomore year of high school and my junior season was canceled due to COVID.

I had a very successful senior season, breaking the record for most receiving yards in a single season in the greater Newburyport area and earning team, conference, division, and state-wide awards and recognition. These various awards recognized my academic and athletic achievements, in addition to my character as a thoughtful, ambitious, and hard-working leader. Receiving all of these accolades was a huge accomplishment, but my biggest accomplishment of my high school career was being a 5-time captain in football (1), basketball (2), and baseball (2). Serving as a leader of my team and acting as a model student-athlete to my teammates was what made me the most proud. 

The college recurring process was a stressful, challenging, yet exciting time. I was constantly reaching out to college coaches, sending them my grades, film, and other information in hopes that they would be interested in recruiting me. Additionally, I attended college recruiting camps to showcase my talent to coaches that would hopefully want to recruit me. I began this process early in my junior year of high school, and it was not until the end of my junior year that I received interest from schools. I had long text conversations and phone calls with coaches, visited many schools across the Northeast, and had many difficult conversations with my parents about what I wanted my future to look like. These conversations were perhaps so difficult because I had to balance the academics, athletics, location (i.e. distance from home), and many other factors in deciding what school I wanted to attend. I wanted a challenging school that would push me academically and athletically, that was not too far from my family. 

I am blessed to say that I had offers from three different schools to play football, including Kenyon College (OH), Case Western Reserve University (OH), and the University of Rochester (NY). Attending a NESCAC school was a dream of mine, though, and so I pursued these schools relentlessly. However, I did not get a lot of interest at first and this was very discouraging. This lack of interest stemmed from a lack of film that I had available; I had only played 2 seasons of high school football, so coaches may have been concerned about my ability to play at the next level. However, I kept at it and trusted that all of the hard work that I put in would pay off. When Wesleyan offered me a roster spot, I knew that this was where I wanted to be for the next four years of my life. I talked extensively with my parents and in October of my senior year of high school, I committed to play football at Wesleyan.