ANDREW'S RECRUITING SUMMER: PROLOGUE

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      Andrew Pearson of Orillia, Ontario, Canada was a normal-sized kid for his  first 10 years. He was even a bit on the small side, even though his father was 6 foot 3 and 230 pounds. He had red hair and blue eyes. His father Chad was one of the Vice-Presidents of a big sports company: Harrington's Sports Suppliers in Barrie, Ontario.

     Chad promised to provide Andrew with a complete home gym when he started growing, which occurred around his 11th birthday(October of 1998), when Andrew was in Grade Five. So Chad kept his promise and bought Andrew a bunch of gym equipment for his 11th birthday. He also got Andrew a guest pass to his company gym and began training Andrew in the proper weight-lifting techniques. Andrew wanted to play in the NCAA one day, so  he wanted to get big for high school football.

       By Grade Eight(Fall of 2001), Andrew had dedicated almost three years to his weight-lifting. The diet his father gave him, combined with puberty, helped Andrew enter Grade Eight weighing 200 pounds and standing six feet tall. He was the biggest kid in school, and his friend Mike Stevenson was almost his size. Mike had been weight-training with Andrew since the summer of 1999. Andrew and Mike both got top marks in gym class and the gym teachers were very impressed. His gym teachers had the high school football coaches come to scout Andrew at recess, when he played football with his friends outside. The high school coaches were very impressed with Andrew and Mike’s performance and they arranged for them to try out for the Varsity football team at ODCVI when they entered Grade Nine. 

        In high school, Andrew and Mike were the biggest kids in Grade Nine so they easily passed the tryouts to join the Orillia District Junior Football Team in the fall of 2002. Andrew now had regular access to the high school gym as well as his home gym. His father Chad had constantly updated his gym every birthday with the latest equipment. Andrew’s mother, Susan, had made a lot of money in a home-based computer business and then as an author, and she was a millionaire. Susan and Chad wanted the best for Andrew and his sister Sarah, who had brown hair and green eyes and played on the ODCVI Girl's hockey team. So instead of buying a big fancy house in an exclusive neighborhood, they invested heavily in their kids’ education. Andrew wanted to go to one of the big football schools in the States, and so did Sarah, so their parents started the RESP investing early, to make sure  they could finance their kid’s education with no trouble, if necessary. Of course, their hope was that both Andrew and Sarah would get athletic scholarships to big sports schools in the NCAA, which would completely fund their college education.

      Chad and Susan also made sure Andrew and Sarah got jobs after Grade 8 and saved their money to buy their first (used) trucks. Actually, Chad and Susan bought the cars and then Andrew and Sarah made monthly payments to their parents.

        By Grade Eleven(Fall of 2004), Andrew was the biggest person in his high school, weighing in at 275 pounds, with a height of 6 feet 7 inches. His friend Mike was a close second at 6 foot 6 and 260 pounds. They had been starters on the Offensive Line of the Varsity football team since Grade Nine. Andrew regularly broke through the opposing team’s front line in football games, sacking the quarterback before he could throw the ball. Then he showed great sportsmanship, helping the players up with an outstretched hand after he had knocked them down. When he served as Middle Linebacker on the defensive line, Andrew also jumped to intercept the ball, and smashed through the opposing players who tried to touchdowns. He simply  ran over anyone who tried to stop him. Many opposing players left the field on stretchers that season thanks to being knocked out by Andrew, which he never intended.

       Andrew had a major shy streak however, which became evident whenever anyone praised him for his athletic achievements. He was tremendously admired and respected for his athletic gifts and sportsmanship. He was truly the ‘Big Man’ at his high school. Andrew felt guilty about all the people he had accidentally hurt on the field, so he visited them in the  hospital after the games to make sure they were all right. Once they told their teammates about Andrew visiting them in the hospital, even the players of opposing teams greatly admired and respected Andrew. He didn't want to ruin that good reputation, so he slowly worked on controlling his great strength so that he wouldn't knock out any more opposing players. By the end of the 2004 football season, he had managed to get through the last few games without knocking anyone out. 

     Andrew was respected for his academic gifts as well. He took a school IQ test in Grade Seven and the results came out to 150. Andrew didn’t want everyone to think of him as some kind of genius, so he begged his parents and the IQ testers to keep the results quiet. They agreed, but told him that he would need great marks to qualify for a full athletic scholarship to an American football school. So Andrew studied hard, even when he didn’t need to, and regularly got 90s in the last years of public school. He even won a math  award at Grade Eight Graduation.

     In high school Andrew's academic excellence continued, and he won at least one academic award every year. He also tutored a lot of football  players in math and science, subjects he regularly got 90s in. Andrew also acted like a sort of mentor to the kids who were just starting to work out. Some of those kids helped him in return by tutoring him in subjects he found difficult, like Physics.

       Andrew also got a part-time job in his father’s company, using his great strength to lift heavy boxes and skids. He managed to get his bench-press to 700 pounds by the time he entered Grade Eleven; it had increased by about 100 pounds each school year. Andrew’s coworkers were amazed by Andrew’s awesome strength and how he always offered to help them out without having to be asked. Andrew acted mostly out of shyness or guilt, but everyone assumed he was just being helpful and kind.

     The only person who knew Andrew’s hidden feelings of shyness was his girlfriend, Carrie Peterson. She was Steve’s sister, but even though Steve was not friends with Andrew, he knew that he had no chance of taking Andrew on in a fight. So he kept his mouth shut about Andrew dating his sister. He knew Andrew would treat her like a lady anyway, so he didn't worry that Andrew would ever hurt her. Carrie knew how shy Andrew was and how he overcompensated by acting like a cocky jock on the football field. She also  knew how guilty Andrew felt whenever he hurt people on the football field, even though it was just part of the game. She was the one who helped Andrew control his great strength, by advising him to treat people as respectfully and gently as he treated her. 

     So Andrew followed her advice and began helping up the people he knocked down, and visiting them in the hospital, if he had knocked them out. Later he managed to knock them down more gently, so that they could actually get up and play again. Most people saw Andrew as just a big jock, but Carrie  knew better. 

     In the spring of 2005, the coaches from Division 1 schools in the NCAA began calling Andrew to invite him down for football camps. His Head Coach, Coach Everson, had put together highlight tapes of Andrew's football performances since Grade Nine (Freshman Year) and had mailed them out to all the schools. It helped that Andrew had gone as a guest on the Official Visits of his older teammates since Grade Nine.

       So, on Canada Day Weekend 2005, Andrew decided to visit the first four schools that had invited him down for Unofficial Visits. But first, since he had spent Canada Day in Ottawa, he decided to spend Independence Day in Washington DC at the National Mall. He invited his girlfriend Carrie and best friend Mike to go with them, hoping that they would attract some NCAA attention like he had. He never anticipated that he would make a new friend in Washington DC, nor that the connections from that visit would allow him to attract the attention of more NCAA football schools in the Deep South.