Jakob Bailey '16 Recruiting Profile

My name is Jakob Bailey; I'm a junior at a small school called Vista Grande High School located in Casa Grande, Arizona. My goals and aspirations are to obtain a Bachelors Degree while playing college football and hopefully be drafted into the NFL. Knowing only one percent gets drafted into the NFL my alternative plan is to work in the field of Fire-Emergency Services/ Homeland Security which is team driven just as that of a football team.

I am a good candidate for any team because I strive to pick myself up even if I have fallen multiple times, I learn from many of my failures and am always ready to learn new things to better my football career. I'm am the person who is out there working towards being the best  Making right decisions and supporting my team and players is my fundamental goal as any solid team player should.

What makes me different from a lot of people is truly my character, some would say I'm honest, reliable and true to my integrity which is what defines a true human being. But me personally I think my best character is determination both on and off the field of dreams and field of life.

In order for me to succeed I have had to learn how to fail and become better. I've learned that through athletics as I'm a large kid for my age so some would think things come naturally which is untrue making myself more determined to learn and earn what I know. Always being the big kid growing up I was told to go easy on other kids not to hurt them. I've had to learn when to turn on the competitive side of myself knowing someone could possibly get hurt including myself.  My freshman and sophomore football years were great. Coming up that summer I was to go to a couple lineman camps and combines before starting my junior year. An unfortunate turn of events lead to having my right heal being ran over by a car which had put me down for the whole summer and the start of football training. This was difficult because it had also leaded me to not starting varsity but more humiliating playing JV. Through that humility I've learned to be a strong player not only through learning but also teach what I’ve learned and any playing time is better than no playing time at all.

As any kid does I have struggled to keep my grades in the high percentages due to the stresses that school , sports, family, and friends bring upon me, but not low enough to keep me from playing to sport I love. I have powered through to put in the best effort I can to get where I’m at right now. There is nothing worse than being told by peers or teachers that you have a possibility of not going to college if you don’t push yourself to do your best and so I took that to heart, I turned all the negatives and made them positive reinforcement to myself to push myself to strive for the grades I get. I’m a good student and that’s because I have to fight everyday to keep bring up that GPA to get it higher. My family has always supported me through school and has also pushed me to better my knowledge, skills and abilities and for that I thank them and any friend or coach that has helped me throughout my football tenure.