MADISON, Wis. -- The smile creasing Dallas Jeanty's face refuses to fade, a twinkling light he won't extinguish, as he sits in the Camp Randall Stadium bleachers. He is an 18-year-old linebacker at the University of Wisconsin ready to embrace the wealth of possibilities in front of him: new friends, new surroundings, new start. He laughs while speaking reverently about playing football, eating Oreos, listening to Mumford & Sons and reading Harry Potter.
He's a freshman early enrollee, but it seems as if he has been here for years.
"I outgrew high school pretty quickly, coming from where I'm coming from in life," Jeanty says.