~NecroBolt

We spent all day Saturday in 'Da Bronx to celebrate my son, Kenny Jr.'s, graduating from Fordham University.

It was quite the wonderful day. :yes: You couldn't have asked for better weather. The celebity speaker was Charlie Rose, and I believe he said something about with all the Jesuit Priests there combining their efforts, that the weather would have to hold out for the graduation. Sure enough, while it stayed beautiful, it got ridiculously windy AS SOON AS the festivities were over.

My son attended Fordham on a full-ride football scholarship. In his final year, The Rams won the Patriot League. For Division 1AA, that's comparable to Michigan winning the Big 10.

It's been an awesome ride with football. It started when he was only nine years old. He'd been an exceptional athlete from the beginning of t-ball, and other dads kept telling me to get him into football. I was almost adamant about him never playing that particular sport. I couldn't stand football jocks. But he watched football with me and really wanted to play. So what could I do eh? So I signed him up and he was a star player right from the start. He was literally a natural. He was always one of the coach's favorites because he was so easily coachable. He'd take instruction and implement anything he was taught, while finding out what worked best for him.

Soon he was a high school star, starting varsity for three years. He wound up being an all-state safety. He was always better on defense during his pee-wee days, but as he entered high school, he wound up being an exceptional tailback. As a freshman, he had so many touchdowns on BOTH sides of the field, that I lost count. When he went to Varsity in his sophomore year, he was an immediate starter on defense and the backup to the senior running back, who also happened to be the coach's brother. So when the starter got hurt in the third game of the year, Kenny went in and rushed for THREE touchdowns and over two hundred yards in only 3 quarters. I hate to sound cocky here, but I KNEW he could do it. I wasn't shocked at all. I did REVEL in it though. While they didn't keep Kenny as the starter, they did use him a lot more on offense for the remainder of the year. He then started as tailback and safety the remainder of his high school career, racking up incredible stats on both sides of the field.

During the recruitment time, we thought he'd get some D3, D2 and possibly some smaller D1 offers. He was looked at by Maryland, but his grades kept them from making a serious offer. They have high expectations of their students. While Ken's grades were good, they weren't good enough for The Terapins.

We were kindof settling on some local schools that were willing to pull the strings needed to give him a full-ride. It's not legal to give sports scholarships to smaller division schools. Only the D1A and D1AA schools can offer sports scholarships. Then we were contacted by the running back coach from Fordham. We hadn't even sent them a tape. Someone else had sent them a tape of themselves and they seen clips of Kenny on that tape. They then got ahold of a tape of Kenny's QB from high school and they saw a lot more of Ken. After contacting Ken's coach, they contacted us for a meeting. We went through the usual courting that colleges do. They take you to the college for a weekend and treat the kid and his parents to an amazing time. I was sold on the school from the beginning, but I think Ken had his doubts at first. At the end of the weekend, they presented their offer, which was a FULL ride. Fordham is a 40,000 dollar a year school and was way out of my range to even think about for him. We were all thrilled at this offer. Ken gave them a verbal committment and on National Letter of Intent day, he signed his contract with Fordham and became a FORDHAM RAM.

Due to some major injuries, and coaching changes, he never got to realize his full potential as a collegiate athlete. I'm sure he has had some doubts. He was also exceptional at baseball, and yesterday he looked over at the diamond at Fordham's field and made a comment about that might have been what he should have stayed with.

But all in all... he seems happy. He got a great education from a great school and will have no problem parlaying that into great success in the world of business and possibly sports management/marketing. My hopes are nothing but high for him. He is a very determined young man and whatever he sets his sights on, he achieves.

While I'm filled with pride here, my emotions are so mixed. I can't believe that my boy is all "growed up" now. He's on his way into the rat race. I'm sure he'll find his way to the front of the pack, but I don't wish "the real world" on anyone. Least of all, my children. Y'know?

I'm going to post some pictures that we took yesterday here, at DA. For those of you that know me well, or just want to see more pics, I have a full thread with many pics over at The Rush Forum. That thread can be found at [link]

Check it out and see why i'm so proud of my boy. Thanks for the indulgment here.