Jayden Smith '25 Recruiting Profile

I am a football player. It feels strange writing it without capitalizing the word. To me, "football" is part of my identity, who I am. I capitalize my name, and so I should capitalize my sport. While I think about my future in the sport, I also spend my time polishing my skills, pushing myself to improve. I do this because football is not my future, but it is the key to my future. Without my success on the gridiron, it is unlikely I would have as expansive a choice of schools as I am blessed with now. Football will allow me a brighter future than I have now, and thus football matters as a means to an end; it is the future that truly matters as that end. 

While some people are talented in music and others in art. My talent however is the competitive sport of football. For as long as I can remember football has been my greatest passion. From the age of five years old, I discovered my talent as a football athlete. I have learned how to work as a team and how to communicate well with others. Other than enhancing my social skills and my ability to work well with others, football has brought out a sense of leadership in my persona that has helped me excel in my school environment.  

Every game that I play is a new challenge that I have to face and accomplish. I use the competitiveness I gained from football in my classroom environments. The more I practice, the better I will become and all the hard work pays off in a victorious game. I implement the "practice makes perfect" philosophy in my school assignments and presentations.  For me to get better at any subject, I have to do my homework and study routinely because that is the practice I need and can then demonstrate how hard I practice in any exam pass. Football has been my motivation to be a better student because to be able to stay on the team, you have to be able to maintain a certain GPA which I have maintained and overpassed. 

Football has taught me that I should never give up and that I should keep trying until I make a play! Playing a sport that has a numerous amount of varying factors to determine a victory has taught me resiliency. Sometimes I might not always win a game or score a touchdown but the good sportsmanship and ethics that I have learned from being a football player have taught me never to be discouraged. Even though I might not always approve of what my coach says, I have learned to take risks in this sport and that is what life is all about, taking risks and trying to reach your goals.

What is truly important, what matters to me, is what I will become. College is a step on that path, and perhaps the most vital of all of them. I don't know what waits for me at the end, or what I will become. I only know that it will be something better than my parents could have hoped for.

I owe it to them. More importantly, I owe it to myself.