National Football Foundation Award Dinner

     This was one of the greatest honors of my career.  It was truly an honor to represent my family, Texas Tech, and Stephenville as a National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete Award Recipient.  This Scholar-Athlete class had a great group of guys and it was a pleasure to meet them and get to know them.  Also, Congrats to Barrett Jones being the William V. Campbell trophy winner!  This is what being a student athlete is all about.  It's not just about how you perform on the field, but performing off the field as well and being a great role model.  All 15 players there represented that very well and I was honored to be a part of that.  It took a lot of hard work and help from a lot of people to get me to where I am today.  I thank God, my parents, my fiancee, my teachers, my coaches, family, and friends for all the help and support that helped me along the way.  I couldn't have done it without you!  Now a little about my experience in New York...

     Being my first trip to New York, it was definitely a blast.  The timing was perfect as the Christmas decorations were up around the city.  Just seeing all the massive buildings and how compact everything is really was eye opening.  We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria which is such a amazing and historical building.  Rex Burkhead was my roommate and I really enjoyed meeting him and getting to know him.  With the rest of the scholar-athlete group we had a press conference and continued on to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree and then to Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Spectacular.  The Rockettes were pretty  impressive and it was a great show.  The next day the group got together for pictures then it was on to the award dinner.  What a star studded event!  I was around some football legends and could not believe the players I was getting to meet.  It was an honor to meet Gabe Rivera and great for both of us to be at the event to represent Texas Tech.  My dad was even more star stuck as he knew more of the older players in attendance than I did.  It was my first black tie event and truly a night to remember.  After the event we got the chance to explore the city and do the following sightseeing: central park, empire state building, wall street, NYSE, Rockefeller center, Macy's, Times Square, Grand Central Station, ride the subway, 9/11 memorial, and got to see Wicked on Broadway.  Pictures and video from the award dinner are shown below.  It was a trip of a lifetime and I am truly blessed to have received such an award. God Bless!

-Student of the Game

#Blessed

Video from YouTube:

Pictures taken by my parents: