"I'm never going to go to Central."
That's what I told my mother when I was a sophomore in high school. My sights were set on somewhere bigger. Notre Dame, Boise State, Tulane, South Carolina... anywhere that wasn't po-dunk Mt. Pleasant, MI.
I cheered for God's Team growing up, as was my Catholic Duty, and had an attachment to the Carolina Gamecocks from my time living in Beaufort, SC, so I had big dreams.
Visits to Staples Hall, the music building on campus, where I competed in state choir my sophomore year, and a visit to Dow Hall, the science building, my junior year as a forensic speech competitor certainly didn't help the cause.