On Friday night, the Portsmouth High School seniors will finish their high school careers on Tom Daubney Field against the Con-Val Cougars. The night will be bittersweet and will consist of every emotion imaginable: the excitement of Friday Night Lights, the gratitude and sense of loss when honoring our parents on the field, the joy of success, hopefully the elation of victory, and the sadness of walking off the field as warriors in glory for the very last time. I am sure that several of us will choke up, as this high school experience was so much a part of who we are. It will be engrained in our memories for the rest of our lives.

I am truly, truly thankful that this will not be the last home game of my life, and that I will have new memories to remember when I am old. I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to play college football, and hopefully have a prosperous college career, no matter where I end up. I can't even imagine what Friday night would be like if I didn't have more football in my future, after all, I am sure I will already be balling my eyes out on the field. (Not only did I inherit my mom's strength and large bone structure, but her incredibly emotional personality was passed down along with it).

The only reason I have this collegiate opportunity is because I have been proactive in getting myself recruited. After completing thousands of questionnaires asking for my height, weight, and SAT scores, it was time to compose my junior highlight film. This aspect is of crucial importance because your recruiting future could be determined in the first five minutes of the video. If you show exemplary skills through twenty-some plays, your talents move to the top of the pile. If coaches are unimpressed, you become just another name on the list, subject to more newsletters and junk mail. With this in mind, my dad and I put in close to fifteen man-hours making the film perfect. We re-watched every game from my junior year, marking down the video time for every good play I made. Then we copied those plays onto one VHS, which was then transferred onto a computer program that split up every individual play into its own file. When the final draft was complete, a DVD that even included an ESPN Bottomline that scrolled my statistics across the bottom of the screen. We made several copies and sent it out to a dozen schools, complete with an official letter and a play-by-play of the highlight.

From there, it becomes a waiting game. You have done your part, and now the college coaches must respond. Whether by email or personal letter, if the coaches are impressed, they will contact you, letting you know they are interested. If they don't respond, you focus your efforts in other areas, but don't cross that school off your list yet because who knows what can happen. Oh, and every single one of the coaches -- every one -- will invite/strongly encourage/tell you to attend their camp in the summer. Do not get too wrapped up in this decision because, truthfully, I messed up in this area by not acting quickly. Thankfully for me, things should work out swimmingly. If not, then Friday night will be that much harder to swallow.

When the dust has settled, and the game has been decided, the seniors will be the last ones to walk off the field. We will stop and think. No words will be said between us, just sit and remember. Remember the fantastic wins, the crushing defeats, the epic battles, the winning teams, the losing teams, the players, the coaches, the individuals. Remember the monsoons, the winds, the noise, the fans, the band, the pre-games, the music, the fog, and the touchdowns. But most of all, remember our teams, the Clippers, and the incredible teammates that made football fun. After all, that is the real reason we do it -- because it's fun.