Sterling Gattis '22 Recruiting Profile

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need”.  That song by the Rolling Stones was one that my Mom and Dad would always sing to my sisters and me when we would say “but I don’t want that”.  While I did not appreciate the truth in those lyrics at the time, and still don’t care to hear them sung to me by my Mom or Dad, there really is something to learn from them.  I have come to see the truth of those lyrics in my own experience.

My main focuses throughout high school were academics, playing guitar, obtaining my Eagle Scout rank, and playing sports, (not necessarily always in that order.)  While academics have certainly helped shape me, I think sports and more specifically football- have really impacted my life and changed my attitude and outlook on life.  

 My goal since I was in 7th grade was to be the starting quarterback for our football team.  I put in countless hours in training, specialized coaching sessions, going to camps across the country, (Elite 11 Camps & the Manning Passing Academy) and doing hundreds of hours of personal work to make myself the best candidate. All that work paid off for a while.  My freshman year I was named the starting quarterback and that title stayed with me as I moved into my sophomore year on Junior Varsity.  However, all that changed my junior year.  Although I really do believe I was the best quarterback on the field our new quarterback coach and offense coordinator evidently didn’t think so and he made it very clear that I was not going to get any time playing quarterback.  I spent my entire junior year on the Varsity bench.  It was a miserable time and a real emotional letdown for me.  All that work, all those years, all that commitment, and I was sitting on the bench.  

 I was not going to get the chance to do what I wanted.  I had to decide what I needed and I decided what I needed was to get a chance to play and contribute somewhere on the team.  I went to our head coach and asked if there was anywhere else I could help the team and get a chance to play so I could get off the bench and contribute.  I was moved to defensive end.  But in Texas, defensive ends don’t weigh only 175 pounds; they don’t bench and squat weights akin to those of a quarterback.  I would have to get to work and fast.  The biggest challenge preventing me from success was my strength and size.  I’d always been skinny; for me to play, I needed to gain a lot of lean muscle weight and strength.  I decided to start working on my diet, eating the right things, and working out to get bigger. I gained weight, trained harder, and learned my new position inside and out in hopes of getting out on the field to play a varsity football game as a senior. 

 The work I had to put in to gain weight, gain strength, and gain knowledge in my new position was certainly not an easy journey and I didn’t have much time to get there.  I researched diet plans and prepared my meals so that I could eat throughout the day and be able to eat the right things.  I spent hours in the gym pushing myself harder than I ever had before.  I also had to spend a significant amount of time learning how to defeat a quarterback rather than how to be one.  Just because you work hard doesn’t always mean you will accomplish your goal but in this case it worked out.  I am now the starting defensive end for my team and in my very first game the Friday night sportscast on KXAN in Austin highlighted me as I sacked the quarterback for the opposing team changing the momentum of the game.  As of the writing of this statement I have also been highlighted  on two separate occcasions in the Varsity News for the Austin American Statesman Sports Section.

 Playing the game with the cards I was dealt rather than the ones I wanted was frustrating and challenging, but the cards I had in my hand were exactly what I needed.  I just had to learn how to play them and push through the challenges.