06-01-2015, 04:04 PM
I played High School football for Franklin (OH) and college football at Carson-Newman College, a D-II school in east Tennessee. I never really played much in college and was only there a couple of years, but they had some great coaches. Their head coach was Ken Sparks. He is the winningest coach in D-II history. He won 5 National Championships when they were NAIA and has played in the D-II Championship game 3 times. He has made the playoffs 24 times in his 34 years as a head coach.
I was successful at football in high school because I loved the game so much and worked so hard at it. But in college I just didn't have the skills to play. What they did at Carson Newman was take undersized guys from high school and plan on them getting bigger for a couple of years before they played. It would have been a long hard grind for me, and I had to also make good enough grads to get in grad school. So I abandoned my football career, changed schools, and started partying all the time.
Also want to add that I have played with a few guys that went on to the NFL. In High school I played with Alan Wenglikowski. He was a safety/FB on the football team, wrestled at 195, and ran the 300M hurdles in track. He was a really good all around athlete, but he was no big football star at Franklin. He went to Pitt, gained 25 lbs and started at DE opposite Chris Doleman. They went to some big bowl games with Marino at QB. Alan only hung on a few years in the NFL as a special teams player for the Bills. At college I played with RB Boyce Green, the Browns leading rusher in 1984, and Van Williams who also hung in the league a few years as a KR and special teams player for the Bills.
I was successful at football in high school because I loved the game so much and worked so hard at it. But in college I just didn't have the skills to play. What they did at Carson Newman was take undersized guys from high school and plan on them getting bigger for a couple of years before they played. It would have been a long hard grind for me, and I had to also make good enough grads to get in grad school. So I abandoned my football career, changed schools, and started partying all the time.
Also want to add that I have played with a few guys that went on to the NFL. In High school I played with Alan Wenglikowski. He was a safety/FB on the football team, wrestled at 195, and ran the 300M hurdles in track. He was a really good all around athlete, but he was no big football star at Franklin. He went to Pitt, gained 25 lbs and started at DE opposite Chris Doleman. They went to some big bowl games with Marino at QB. Alan only hung on a few years in the NFL as a special teams player for the Bills. At college I played with RB Boyce Green, the Browns leading rusher in 1984, and Van Williams who also hung in the league a few years as a KR and special teams player for the Bills.
