I have some huge news to share with ya'll. This is a bit long, but it involves CFB.

A few months ago, with graduation from college looming, I found myself re-assessing what I wanted to do with my life. For most of my young adult life, I'd planned on working in law enforcement for my career. I had worked with the Oregon State Police as an intern for a summer job and will graduate in June with my degree in Criminal Justice.

The minor I'll graduate with is in Sports Leadership, which required a plethora of interesting courses and credit hours. And after taking one class in particular, Coaching Youth Sports, I began to think about the possibility of trying to make a name for myself as a coach.

After talking it over with my wonderful girlfriend and my family, I began to talk with my old high school football coach about coming back to the program as an assistant coach. I explained to him that I wanted to try and make a career out of coaching. I talked to him about my experiences with coaching youth teams over the past year, and how it only solidified the passion that I felt. In our first conversation together, my high school coach told me that if I came back, there would be a spot for me.

Now obviously that was very exciting for me! I immediately made plans to move back home in the spring to coach spring ball while taking an online class concurrently to finish my graduation requirements. I got everything arranged and was set to move in April/May. My plan, while working as an assistant in my HS program, was to enroll in the grad program at my current university and earn my Masters in Education, opening more coaching doors for me down the line.

Here's where the story changes. At the time I spoke with my old HC, I also had been talking with my family about what my goals were for my coaching career. And what I kept coming back to was that I wanted to be a college football coach and how being a grad assistant at a program would be just about the best thing I could imagine. So, after a few more conversations with my coach and my family, I decided to make contact with some programs, more so just to get my name out there, but hoping that someone, somewhere, had an open spot.

I sent out approximately 90 letters to forty different programs across the country. The first 40 were typed, with my signature at the bottom, and the remaining 40-50 were handwritten letters. I sent out these letters to programs and coaches that I had a great amount of respect for, each one tailored specifically for that school. I received some awesome feedback back from a few of these schools, most notably being Coach Ed Lamb at Southern Utah, Coach Mark Richt at Georgia, and from the Alabama football program. Unfortunately, I kept being told the same thing over and over, "Thank you for your interest, we will keep you on file."

With no other jobs imminent, I progressed in my preparation for a return back home to my old high school program. On the morning of the day that I was to call in the athletic office and provide my information for a background check, a minor miracle came down the pipe in the form of a phone call.

The phone call I received was from Northern Arizona University, offering me a volunteer student assistant/coach position. After over three months of "Sorry, but no."'s, someone had told me yes! I quickly had very excited conversations with my family, my girlfriend, and my old HC, all of them encouraging me to take this opportunity. I accepted the offer a few days after the phone call.

I wanted to share with all of you my good fortune. I've been given a great opportunity to make my dreams come true, and it's an opportunity I plan to capitalize on. Although I've never been to Flagstaff, AZ and I have no one I know in the area, I'm taking a leap. I feel like this is something, regardless of how it turns out, I'll be proud I did when I look back.

So, lesson of the day is to be persistent. I spent over 30 hours on letters, and probably another 20 or so researching programs. I'm proud that with my hard work, and one person saying yes to me, that I'll be able to follow my dreams.

I feel like there's so much more I can write, but it's all mushing together in my mind at the moment. It turns out that Flagstaff is really really cold, something I did not anticipate.

That's all I got at the moment. I'm so excited to be moving forward with a coaching career. If anyone has any questions or anything, fire away! I love talking about this, clearly.

Have a good day and GO JACKS!