• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I COULD NOT HAVE PICKED a better time to start at Ole Miss, if for no other reason than they had just opened the Indoor Practice Facility next to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. I know that might sound silly, but if you've never practiced football in the mugginess of a Mississippi summer, you have no idea what a difference it makes to have a field that is shaded and has some climate control. There was also a brand-new weight room. Basically, it was a long way from the empty lots where we used to play football back in Hurt Village.

There wasn't any time for me to get used to things, though. I started as a true freshman instead of having a Red Shirt year to learn how it all worked. So all at once, I was doing two-a-day practices, learning a whole new playbook, and getting ready for college classes.

I decided to major in criminal justice. I was interested in a communications degree so that I could go into broadcasting someday, but I was also interested in the law and definitely had grown up around a lot of crime, so criminal justice was a good fit. It was also more practical because the classes worked better with my football schedule. My life suddenly was just a blur of workouts, classes, practices, homework, and then back to the dorm for a few hours of sleep before getting up to do it all again.

Dorm living wasn't as big an adjustment for me as for some students. I was used to living in a small space with a lot of other people, so that wasn't a problem for me at all. In fact, I loved it. I enjoyed being a part of a community, surrounded by friends and bonding together as a team. I would end up making some lifelong friends, including football teammates like Jamarca Sanford, who is the most loyal person I have ever met and is still one of my best friends. But the one thing that did take a lot of getting used to was meeting a ton of new teammates, coaching staff, and students around campus. Being a naturally shy person, this was the scariest thing of all.

It made such a difference for me, though, having a great support system around me--not just tutors like Miss Sue but a couple of high school friends and Collins and some of her friends. They made me feel like I belonged.

I also looked around and saw lots of kids who, like me, were the first people in their biological family to ever go to college. So many of them seemed really lost, since they didn't have anyone back home who understood how overwhelming that first semester can be, or to warn them about all the temptations that college life can bring. Many colleges now have programs in place to help students in that situation, but it's still tough when you can't call home and talk to someone who understands. I was lucky that all those hours around the Tuohys' dining room table after football practice taught me a lot about time management, which is so helpful when you have no parent around telling you to put down the PlayStation and finish your homework!

I AM PROUD TO SAY that thanks to my tutors, my family, and a lot of hard work, my freshman year was a success. Despite the people who worried that I wouldn't be able to deal with all of the pressures on my own, I had a pretty good season. My first game was on September 5 against the University of Memphis, playing right tackle. The next week, I started for the Rebels in our game against Vanderbilt, where we earned 400 total yards of offense (our highest of the season). When we played Alabama, we lost by three points, but the offensive line managed to not allow a single sack and I was awarded the Rebel Quarterback Club Trench Player of the Week Award. The very next game the offensive line didn't allow any sacks, either. All in all, it was a rough season for Ole Miss, but it was clear that we were growing as a team. I loved that Collins was on the sidelines with the cheerleaders, rooting us on, and that my family--the Tuohys as well as sometimes one of my brothers or my mother, which was a nice surprise--would come to the games and yell for me, too. At