Nothing Will Be Handed | #2676 | The Trials & Tribulations of Chris Graham

[beast10]

Quote: Originally Posted by shipfb21

loving this story. that injury was crippling to chris, it seems as if he has fell completely off the radar. a monster game but maybe too late in the season to attract any big time programs. great job as always.

Things are going to get really interesting with the recruiting.

Hopefully I can finish the high school stories by tonight (probably like two-three more) and get to college. Thanks for the comment, glad your enjoying this

[beast10]

(Part 1 - High School)
Chapter 8 - Pushing Ahead
October 2015
Calhoun Sprouts Success, Home Issues Arise For Chris

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Chris Graham and the Calhoun Sandcrabs made a splash last week, winning their first game of the season with a 35-14 victory on the road against the Terry Rangers. They now sit with just three games remaining on the schedule and with them being far out from the playoff picture, these three games will be their final matches of the season.

Week eight features Foster High, a school known for its massive sizes typically amongst their lineman. This year they’ve most notably cropped center Bryant Garrett who’s drawing interest from UTEP, North Texas, New Mexico State, and Texas Tech. Garrett, a two way player, also plays on the defensive line that marquees tackle Christian Hoffman who’s also mulling over many division-one colleges including majors; Arkansas, Missouri, and Ole Miss.

Chris has every right to believe his sophomore quarterback will be highly pressured.

“Foster always been tough cause they seem to always have lineman that look like they could be in the NFL.” He laughs. “They got a good secondary, too. They ain’t as good as George Ranch [fellow Richardson, TX school] but they’re good… I told Josh [Longley] that he gon have to have to make some quick decisions or else this game will be his first real welcoming to varsity… they’ll kill him.”

While Calhoun rolls out with a 6-0 win, you can easily tell by the score that it was a slaughter fest. Stopping the Calhoun option offense was clearly Foster’s main priority on the night. With that out of the picture, Joshua Longley is forced to adapt to the unusual – remaining in the pocket.

He winds up throwing two interceptions while being sacked four times on the night. The Sandcrabs’ backfield appears to be completely destroyed when junior halfback Santiago Martinez goes down with an ankle injury early in the third quarter that keeps him sidelined for the remainder of the game. Graham, the second-string halfback, spends his second half playing fulltime on both offense and defense.

Calhoun lucks out – playing a Foster team that’s offense doesn’t nearly match its defense. They struggle to score and Chris plays an exceptional role in the process, making seven tackles which comes in as his second high of the season only behind last week’s outstanding outing against Terry which he labeled his best game he’d ever played.

Graham also ends up winning this game for his team.

With 2:28 remaining in the contest, Calhoun sets up just three yards out from the goal line. They return to the option. Coach Pendleton calls for the veer and Joshua Longley makes the correct read at the last second, handing the ball off to Chris who cuts inside for a touchdown that puts the Sandcrabs up 6-0 before their extra point is blocked.

Due to the block, the Calhoun fans are all at the edge of their seats as Foster fields a kickoff with a clear advantage to win the game. With just one timeout, Foster goes out of character and like Joshua Longley, their quarterback is forced to turn to the passing game in desperation to move the ball.

This doesn’t work.

Freshman cornerback Hassan Nadir turns out to be the big hero in this situation, batting away a deep pass on third down. Foster faces a critical forth and long situation in which they make the obvious decision to go for it, passing a rushed deep ball that hits the ground before anything.

This turns out as Calhoun’s second straight win after starting the season 0-6.

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Chris Graham returns home to an eviction notice.

Port Lavaca’s economy strongly depends on the plants and when they’re no openings at the plant, it’s a struggle to find work capable of paying bills. Carla goes through the struggle but continues to search while her seventeen year old son’s part-time job is the only current source of income.

Chris is angry at only one person.

“It’d be cool to have a dad still around in these type of situations,” he says. “I really don’t see how anybody could live like that – leaving a woman left alone to raise a child? That ain’t right. All I got to remember him from was pictures but those have been in the trash for years.”

Chris’s father, also named Chris Graham, walked out on the family when he was just three years old. He has no clue where he is at this point and says he quite frankly could care less. Carla says Chris is actually Chris Graham (IV) but he chooses to simply refer himself as Chris Graham out of the non-respect for his father.

“Lot of **** happening now…” he says. “Lot of stuff… like I said before, this ain’t been a real fun senior year for me and I ain’t even half way through. I’m thinking more into college now, but then with all this stuff happening, I’m thinking that I’ll need to stay close to home cause I can’t leave my mom like this. She says I can but I can’t.”

Chris begins to work overtime in order to pay bills and retain residence. He’s working until 10-12 P.M. some days throughout the week. This comes with especially bad timing as Calhoun prepares for its final and projected toughest games of the season with Angleton and their senior night match against the undefeated George Ranch Longhorns.

Good news strikes the stressed aura when Colorado University sends in its second straight letter to Graham, this time with a much more personal approach opposed to its previous template-made letter.

It now brings up a tough decision for Chris who just touched up on the situation of leaving far from home.

[beast10]

(Part 1 - High School)
Chapter 9 - The Decision
November 2015
Chris Makes College Announcement

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Chris Graham stands over the 1,000 students of Calhoun High School as he grabs the microphone at the front podium inside the school’s gym. He’s minutes away from announcing his college decision to not only his classmates and teachers, but also the local media teams and Port Lavaca townies that had packed themselves in the gymnasium.

From the Birdseye point of view, this event is ridiculous. Students were pulled from their classes to see the college announcement of a one-star football recruit who plays on a team that finished the season 2-8. While this is very well true, it isn’t for the city of Port Lavaca. Why?

Because they’re preparing to send Chris Graham off as the only active NCAA FBS player from the Port – there hasn’t been a Chris Graham in over eight years so this decision isn’t a joke.

His options comes out as limited. There aren’t many teams that’ve made the podium and this doesn’t come because Chris shortened his list. His final two weeks of high school football went well, especially against George Ranch where he was put in charge of covering Oklahoma bound wide receiver Corey Holycross who had the service of one of the best quarterbacks in the state of Texas, Joe Lane who’s still debating on offers from in-state notables; Texas A&M, TCU, and Baylor.

Graham finished with five tackles, two pass deflections, and a 28 yard pick six touchdown return – his second of the season. It was a good stat line coming on his senior night but it came with a bad result as Calhoun lost 63-14. A week before the game they were up against Angleton who delivered a 38-0 shutout. Chris had eight tackles.

His individual performances attracted minor attention from Arizona State, Utah, and Missouri. He pursued these recruiters but after the first letters, the feeling wasn’t quite as mutual. There was only one college that really stuck with him up until now and that was probably the school he'd be committing to this afternoon.

“… it’s been an up and down year,” Graham says, “lots of adversity, lots of things that have happened unexpected… There’s a lot of people I’d like to thank but mainly my mom, Coach Pendleton, Tyreke [Nalls], Adrian [me], and all y’all who came out and supported us despite our struggles this season. Y’all all motivated me and the entire football team to keep moving even when things looked bad. I remember how we’d preach in the locker room last summer about how we were gonna win the state championship… that obviously didn’t happen but what did happen is we really became a family

That’s what’s really important. That’s what Coach Pendleton always says. We bonded and I see my teammates as my brothers now. We were young so a lot of them looked up to me and the other upperclassmen and that was really a motivation… I remember how my man Josh [Longley] said he wanted to be like me.” Chris laughs. “Point is – even though it wasn’t how I wanted things to go – I had fun playing with Calhoun, both this year, the year before and beyond. It’s been an experience I’ll never forget. #2676!” He pumps his fist with a smile.

Students began chanting “underrated” and a particular student can be overheard by all as he yells that TCU should’ve recruited Chris.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Chris says, addressing the student. “But that wasn’t the case. So I worked with what I got. After taking things step-by-step, a lot of stuff has came up, I’ve decided that I’ll be continuing my football career at the University of Colorado.”

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“They said there was a possible scholarship on the table,” Chris says, recapping his decision the next day. “I’m like, Colorado? Hell yeah. That’s the Pac-12 and I’ve told you since day one that I wanted to play in a big conference. Well here it is.”

Chris’s verbal commitment was received over to the staff at Colorado. Assistant recruiter Thomas Reid gave him a phone call a few hours later welcoming and congratulating him on his decision of joining their program. Chris says he’s chasing his dreams.

“It was tough to make this decision because Colorado is a real long way from here. Main thing was I didn't want to leave my mom here… but then again I wasn’t really given a choice. She told me to go chase my dreams and she wouldn't take no as no answer… Going to play over at Colorado is where I can do that. It ain’t too often Colorado shows any interest to a one-star player. They see the potential in me so I’m down for the ride.”

A one-star prospect however isn’t too good on paper when the Colorado Buffaloes have a recruiting board loaded with the majority of three and four star recruits. The fact that they’d pursued Chris Graham itself is a surprise but it clearly shows that they do indeed see something special in him.

[beast10]

[beast10]

(Part 1 - High School)
Chapter 10 - Signing Da...
February 2016
Chris Signing Day Countdown Is Rudely Interrupted

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Wednesday, February 3rd – National Signing Day of 2016. It’s quickly approaching. Chris’s off-season has been the least bit of ‘off’ as he continues to train for his first year on campus at Colorado. He’ll undoubtedly redshirt his freshman season while gaining key learning experiences under the Buffalo’s secondary that he’ll eventually join later on down the line.

“I been working every day. Getting bigger, stronger, quicker… all of that. I know it ain’t going to happen but what I’m trying to do is prepare myself to start from day one,” Chris says. “I got a chip on my shoulder, the way they probably seeing things over at Colorado is that I’ll either be on the sidelines my whole career or I’ll be a gem. I know I’m a gem.”

Graham’s decision to attend Colorado is supported but it also sparks criticism that comes off as total common sense. It’s been the main conflict all year; why is he going to such a big school? Why not settle for Rice, UL Lafayette, New Mexico State. Somewhere he’d have a chance.

“Colorado is going to provide him a challenge,” Coach Pendleton says. “His future not only withholds him battling for playing time with the current players, but also the recruits they’ll be bringing in throughout the future. He’s got a lot of ground to cover but he’s got the work ethic to fill the void.”

Teammate and best friend of Chris, Tyreke Nalls will be attending Blinn College in hopes of soon earning a football scholarship from a four year university within the next two years. He says his friend should’ve selected a smaller school. “Colorado is bigtime, that’s the Pac-12. I keep it 100 with Chris so I told him that he was crazy and should’ve went smaller. But at the end of the day, that dude works. I wouldn’t be surprised if three-four years from now he was starting at cornerback for them.”

Chris just can’t wait to put the pen to the paper of his Letter of Intent.

“I think about it all day,” Chris admits with a smirk. “I just can’t believe I finally made it. But at the same time, I haven’t made it yet cause it’s still a lot for me to prove. I just always think back to the start of the season, seeing Rivals rank me at #2676, blowing it at the Texas Tech camp, all that stuff. Hell, I remember my freshman year when Coach Pendleton told me I was gon be playing junior varsity and varsity like it was yesterday. Who would’ve thought I’d be signing my LOI to Colorado in a few days?”

Just a week before Chris’s heavily sought of day, Coach Pendleton breaks the news to Chris that the university had faxed in a document to the athletic office requesting that he undergoes the greyshirt process which would delay his scholarship enrollment at Colorado from next fall to the second semester in January of 2017 instead.

It takes Chris by surprise.

“I had never heard of greyshirting before Coach told me about this,” he admits. “I learned it’s basically like them saying, ‘hey we got other people we trying to recruit, come back another time.’ It hurt,” he says before becoming loss for words.

Chris is now presented with the choice of either accepting or denying the greyshirt request. If he accepts, he’ll likely enroll at a junior college in order to get his credits before making the move to Colorado when the time comes. The tuition at the junior college will however be out of pocket and despite its remarkably lower price than a typical four year university, it’s not an extra expense the Graham household can necessarily afford.

“It’s tough and the timing is B.S… I don’t really got time at this point to change my commitment, all the schools got they targets now. I still wanna go to Colorado but what they’ve offered isn’t real realistic,” Graham states. “Coach says what they did was inconsiderate, he thinks I could still possibly get into Texas Southern or other FCS teams. I don’t know…”

As of now, February 1st, 2016, Chris Graham is without scholarship. Schools recruiting him prior to his verbal were Texas Southern, Texas Tech, Missouri, West Texas A&M, and Midwestern State [Division-2].

[beast10]

(Part 1 - High School)
Chapter 11 - Irony
February 2016
Chris Makes An Ironic Decision

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Chris Graham ends up denying the greyshirt request. Colorado doesn't seem too affected as they go on to sign a total of eight players to finish out on their 2016 recruiting class – none of the players being rated fewer than two stars.

“I just took the time to think about it,” Graham states. “I listened to people's opinions and I was honest to myself, too. Colorado ain't want me. It was that simple. They threw that greyshirt at me trying to cover it all up… they probably would've eventually took that away too. I would've just been some lost kid at a community college with no football team [Victoria College].”

Theory is assistant Colorado recruiter Thomas Reid did actually see something special in Graham but had a difficult time selling the product to his colleagues, causing the scholarship offer to be withdrawn for the time being.

Despite the setback, Chris will be playing football this fall. It won't be at Colorado nor will it be at any other FBS program. It also won't be at an FCS school… Chris had planned on attending Victoria College had he accepted the greyshirt request but instead he’s made his commitment to Blinn College, a different junior college that played a role in producing NFL megastar Cam Newton.

This decision comes ironically after Graham showed the program no interest earlier during the high school season when they would fill his mailbox with letters. Now it’s different. But at the same time, Graham sees this only as a stepping stone – at least that's what junior college is all about.

“I hear a lot of stories about dudes going JUCO and coming out with big time offers they didn't have in high school,” Chris explains, “it’ll just give me another year or two to develop before taking off to another major program.”

Blinn, who finished 5-4 last season, has a content football program that typically competes with a tough schedule year in and year out against some of the best teams in the junior college division.

“It's a good move, especially for a kid like Chris who wants to play at a high level,” Adam Pendleton says. “He’ll be a good piece on that Blinn roster – that's a good school, too – if he does well over there he’ll have plenty of those ‘Colorado’s’ reaching out to him when it’s all said and done.”

At Blinn, Chris will be joining his high school teammate Tyreke Nalls who gave them his verbal last month. Nalls was happy about his friend's decision after openly criticizing his verbal given to Colorado.

“It's another year to ball out with my brother," he says with a laugh. “But yeah, I really felt his pain when Colorado did him like that. It’s just a moral of life. Just when you think you finally made it, things can always all come crashing down. That’s why they say only the tough survive. Chris is tough, though… Hopefully we can go over to Blinn and put in work right away, come out with scholarships to any school we can imagine.”

Along with its athletics, Chris will be able to use Blinn College as a springboard for his academics as well as the many other things that prestigious colleges pursue outside of football.

“It's definitely gonna to be an experience,” he says. “This is the path less traveled, I guess. I really just want to go there and become a better person before I arrive at the real thing. I think of it like a second shot. Hopefully when I’m done at Blinn I won’t ever have to go through this type of situation, y’know? Then, instead of coaches faxing the school two days before signing day saying they don't want me anymore, it could be vice versa, I'd be the one saying I don't want to play for them anymore – two days before the first game.” He laughs.

[beast10]

Just want to say thanks for 1K views, been a little quiet in here lately but I hope yall are still enjoying this storyline.

It's been a lot more fun making this than i thought. I also realize I've actually been running this for a month now (which is kind of an accomplishment for me lol)

Will be moving into part 2 soon, which will be college.

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