And the funniest part was that this was 2015, when they were coming off the national championship, so I don’t even have a good excuse. I was like, “Mom? Ohio State? Really?” I almost took it as punishment. You’re gonna have to go to the Ohio State camp.” Then eighth grade rolls around, and my mom is like, “Hey listen, we can’t make it work this year. I just remember being so hyped when I made the ALL-SABAN team in sixth and seventh grade. When I got to middle school, we had a family friend who was a walk-on at Alabama, and I got invited to go down to Tuscaloosa to play in Bama's summer camp every year. He was just some kid on vacation and I was out there trying to take his soul. I’m looking at this dude in the picture like, “Dang, he’s 85 pounds?” I really thought he was Little Peyton Manning. I really made it.” I didn’t realize until I was looking at the pictures years later that I was just at Disney World with a bunch of regular kids. I need it with the little cucumber slices, like the pros.”Īt the end of the camp, they gave us the free ESPN T-shirt and I was like, “I’m so elite, man. That was the first time I’d ever seen cucumber water, and I was telling my mom for months afterward, “Listen, I can’t be drinking normal water anymore. I’ll never forget, my mom took me to the ESPN Wide World of Sports camp when I was eight or nine, and I thought I was literally at the Youth NFL Combine. My dad played in the NFL, and he was still in my life at the time, so my only mission since I was five years old was to play in the league like him. If anything, we were a Miami (Ohio) family. But honestly, I didn’t even really watch college football like that. And I really wish I could tell you that I had my little Troy Smith jersey and my Ohio State franchise on NCAA Football and everything. Being from Cincinnati, people assume that it had always been my dream to play at The Shoe. Growing up, I never saw myself as a Buckeye. So before I explain to you how much this place means to me, I really have to come clean. In my journalism classes, they always tell us that the truth comes first.
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