Senior earns full-ride scholarship to Division 1 football

The chances of earning a Division 1 football scholarship are remote. Thinking realistically is important.

If you don’t have the size, speed, and skill to play at the D1 level, all of the odds are against you. If you do acquire the size, speed, skill, and desire to play D1 football, the odds of you receiving an athletic scholarship are better than what people may lead you to believe.

With roughly 1.5 million high school football players, the odds are less than 1 percent. But what is not taken into consideration is a high school football player is not competing against every other high school football player in America. He is competing against a couple thousand athletes of the same age who possess the size, skill, and speed to play at that level.

The number of high school athletes that actually go on to play college and pro sports is limited, and that is putting it mildly.

The 6’7” 303 lb senior Tristen Taylor is apart of the 1 percent that has acquired the opportunity to attend a Division 1 program. He will be attending Eastern Washington University on a full-ride scholarship.

“I know I’m going to miss my family and friends, but this is what’s best for me,” Taylor said. “So, I guess you could say I’m happy and not happy.”

Exposure is as equally important as a player’s build. It’s exposure at the right level that will help you get recruited. However, no amount of exposure will make up for the lack of size, speed, and skill, especially at the D1 football level or any level for that matter.

College coaches don’t read your local newspaper and they probably don’t attend your high school football games. Roughly, only the top 1 percent of high school athletes are sincerely noticed. In fact, 98 out of 100 high school athletes never play collegiate sports of any kind at any level.

Taylor leaves early August of 2015 to set out on his new journey in Washington. “It’s going to be more intense and faster,” Taylor said. “I’m excited to play on T.V. and get better.”

The fame and fortune of being a professional athlete can be very attractive to an athlete in high school or college who is trying to figure out what to do with their life.

Taylor is aspiring to major in sports science or criminal justice.