Just got word of another player who quit

[DeepSnap]

as hivered said, a walk-on quitting is not at all unusual. a good friend of mine was a walk-on and by the middle of the second year he was done with it. he wanted to focus on school when he realized that he was not going to be one of those "from walk-on to starter" stories. the time investment and the bruises were interfering with the areas of his life where he had more potential, so he left the team.

As for walk-ons deciding to get on with their lives, it happens all the time, regardless of how long they've hung in there or whoever was coaching.

It's not the end of the earth.

As for scholly guys walking, that happens, too, for the same reasons regular students change majors, drop out of fraternities, ROTC, or whatever.

The guy in this article, who OBTW is chairman of the Alumni Association, walked away from a full athletic scholarship after 3 years under Bud Carson. It didn't hurt that he was in the EE Honorary, a member of ANAK, would go on to get his MBA from Harvard, and be credited (cursed?) as being the guy who brought cell phone technology to Atlanta.

Meet a football dropout, Meade Sutterfield, my 1970-1971 roomie:

http://gtalumni.org/buzzwords/apr08/article491.html

DeepSnap
Former walk-on

 

[GTWannaBee]

As for walk-ons deciding to get on with their lives, it happens all the time, regardless of how long they've hung in there or whoever was coaching.

It's not the end of the earth.

As for scholly guys walking, that happens, too, for the same reasons regular students change majors, drop out of fraternities, ROTC, or whatever.

The guy in this article, who OBTW is chairman of the Alumni Association, walked away from a full athletic scholarship after 3 years under Bud Carson. It didn't hurt that he was in the EE Honorary, a member of ANAK, would go on to get his MBA from Harvard, and be credited (cursed?) as being the guy who brought cell phone technology to Atlanta.

Meet a football dropout, Meade Sutterfield, my 1970-1971 roomie:

http://gtalumni.org/buzzwords/apr08/article491.html

DeepSnap
Former walk-on

Thanks for giving us the point-of-view of a former walk-on. It has to be demanding on walk-ons. They not only have to go through the same rigorous schedule as scholly'd athletes, but also have to pay their way to do so. God bless 'em. Here's to the kid going on to better things with a degree everyone respects.

 

[romegajacket]

So if I got this right, the kid was willing to snap the ball but not willing to work his butt off like everybody else.
If that is truly the case......goodbye Zach and hope you find a job you don't have to work at to keep.

And anybody else on that team that's not willing to suffer for his job......more of the same. Game day used to be a breeze compared to practice for me. I hope it's that way at GT too.

Wearing that uniform should be a privilege, not a gimme.

Open appology to Zach and to all the other posters here at Stingtalk.
My last post before this one was totally rude for Zach since I don't really know the reason/s for his decision to quit football at GT. If I could take that post back, I'd do it, but I can't so that's my problem to live with. It was totally out of character for me to make such a crude statement as that one so therefore I also appologize to the readers and posters alike.
I do very much so hate to see a student/player quit at anything he/she takes on but sometimes there are circumstances that dictate otherwise and I'm sure that's the case with Zach.
Zach did come from an outstanding school and received excellent coaching there too, and where quitting is totally unacceptable w/out sufficient reason.
My hopes and prayer is now that Zach will strive for excellence in any endeavor he has in the future, and that he can forgive stupidity in the form of a statement from me earlier.

 

[DeepSnap]

No offense taken....

Open appology to Zach and to all the other posters here at Stingtalk.
My last post before this one was totally rude for Zach since I don't really know the reason/s for his decision to quit football at GT. If I could take that post back, I'd do it, but I can't so that's my problem to live with. It was totally out of character for me to make such a crude statement as that one so therefore I also appologize to the readers and posters alike.
I do very much so hate to see a student/player quit at anything he/she takes on but sometimes there are circumstances that dictate otherwise and I'm sure that's the case with Zach.
Zach did come from an outstanding school and received excellent coaching there too, and where quitting is totally unacceptable w/out sufficient reason.
My hopes and prayer is now that Zach will strive for excellence in any endeavor he has in the future, and that he can forgive stupidity in the form of a statement from me earlier.

No offense taken....

Many on these boards don't understand that S/A's have the same problems and pressures everyone else at NATS has.... For walk-ons, especially those who might be struggling or borderline academically, and toss in dear old dad saying, "Either you get some playing time/your grades up/etc., or I'm not paying XXX a month just for you to practice M-F and not play on Saturday or just to provide a warm body for Ma Tech," it's amplified.

Injuries come into play, too, for everyone. The current Secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, played Frosh Ball in 1970 (Freshmen weren't eligible til 1972), redshirted in 1971 under Carson, started at C in 1972 under Fulcher, then went back to Texas IIRC because he kept having severe stingers/shoulder problems. He finished up his degree in Austin, graduated from UT's Law School, and eventually ended up in the US House of Representatives (took the disgraced Speaker of the House Jim Wright's (D) seat when he got kicked to the curb), yet Pete's a GT "3 & done" scholly player dropout.

Sure, sometimes it definitely is "the guy doesn't want it bad enough," but all I'm saying is you have to know the whole situation for that individual player and judge it on a case-by-case basis. I probably wanted to quit or transfer a ton of times, but somehow managed to play (or show up for practice) all four years, plus a student-assistant year (1972 - there weren't any limits on how many you could have & it served as a work scholarship for me).