“Serious. I want to see how far I can go. My goal is to play professional baseball someday.”
I explained about my trip to LA and what the coaches and scout thought. I told him about my potential opportunity to play for the Under-18 team.
“And you obviously want to play football at a high level?” Coach Fletcher asked.
“Yes, sir.”
I guess my calling him ‘sir’ shocked him, but I’d been brought up a certain way. Coach Fletcher told me about himself. He was in his late 20s and had gone to school at Oklahoma, where he’d worked with their training staff as a grad assistant. He also had gotten a certification with NSCA, the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Once certified, Coach Fletcher had been an assistant trainer for three years at Florida State. He’d just moved to our area to take care of his mother, who wasn’t doing well. He wanted eventually to be the head trainer at a P5 school (Power 5 or top-level university sports program).
“Priority one is to build you up so you don’t get injured. Next will be arm strength, followed closely by working towards explosive speed. Let’s work you out and take some measurements, and we’ll see what we can do for you.”
Coach Fletcher spent the rest of PE watching me. He wanted to see my usual routine. His goal was to put ten to twenty pounds of muscle on me without hurting my speed, flexibility, or endurance. It hadn’t been easy for me to gain the weight I had, even though I’d been pudgy when I was in middle school. The amount of running and other activities I did burned a lot of calories.
I’d also changed my diet dramatically. I ate a lot more protein, fruits, and vegetables than I had before, and didn’t eat as many processed foods. In the good old days, I could polish off a bag of chips or cookies without even thinking. My two guilty pleasures were pizza and cookie butter with ice cream.
◊◊◊
Before our workout with Cassidy, Coach Hope asked to meet with the upcoming seniors. We met in one of the large conference rooms.
“Now that David’s back, I wanted to touch base with you all. I understand you’ve all met with Coach Fletcher, and each of you will be following a strength and conditioning program he created specifically for you.”
We all nodded.
“Good. Next, we need to do some bookkeeping. Saturday is the SAT. You can send your score for free to four universities. The good news is that it’s free. The bad news is they’ll be sent out at the same time it’s sent to you, so you won’t see the score before it goes out. If you decide to go the free route and plan to try to get an athletic scholarship, you need to enter 9999 for the scholarship code. That way it’ll be sent to the NCAA Eligibility Center.
“Of course, you sent in your initial application to the NCAA your freshman year,” Coach Hope said.
“I’m not sure if I did or didn’t, Coach,” I said.
“You would have gone online and submitted your application,” Coach explained.
I was clueless.
“Anyone else not sure if they started their eligibility process?” Coach Hope asked.
Everyone else had.
“I’ll talk to you after this meeting,” he said to me. “Any questions about sending out the test scores?”
Tim raised his hand and Coach pointed at him.
“What do you recommend? Should we go ahead and send out our results?”
“I would take advantage of the free option. If you choose to send them out later, it’s twelve dollars per college, so it’ll save you nearly fifty bucks.”
“Coach, what if we have to retake it?” Jake asked.
“The twelve dollars is a onetime fee. You can send your results multiple times to a college.”
“I hate to imagine what David will have to pay. How many colleges have made you offers?” Wolf asked.
“David, I would only send out the four, well, three, since you have to send one to the NCAA. When you cull your list of schools is when I would send your scores. You can always send them a copy of your score since you’ll get one. But for the official application, you’ll need one sent from the College Board, the organization that administers the SAT,” Coach Hope advised.
“My dad said I have to send them from the College Board,” Tim said.
“Check with each university to see what they require. What I was talking about is if you’re being recruited, you can send a copy to the athletic department to let them know you have a qualifying score. When you make your official application is when you must follow the process,” Coach Hope said.
Coach checked to see if we were okay with what we needed to do Saturday and then moved on.
“We’re going to put together seven-on-seven teams this spring. I need to know who wants to participate,” Coach Hope said.
“I’ll do whatever you want, but I plan to play baseball,” I said, more for the group than Coach Hope.
“David, why don’t you tell them what you may get to do?”
