Scott Novak '21 Recruiting Profile

All my life, I’ve tried to be a positive person, but it was never easy. I was always a bigger kid, and it made making friends hard.  I would always be the butt of the joke. My choice in sports didn’t help me either, as I played soccer before I played football. I was always laughed at because all of my teammates were much faster and skinnier, while I fell behind and could never quite be good enough.

Even through my struggles, I always wanted to make others happy. In elementary school, I started an anti-bullying day where everyone would be able to meet new people in various activities throughout the day. My goal was to make sure no one else was experiencing the bullying I was going through. Despite all my attempts to be the best person I could be, I was still harassed at school, and it only got worse as time went on. Eventually, I was in middle school, and I had very few friends. Waking up and going to school was extremely hard to do, because I knew when I got there I would be tormented throughout the day. One day, for reasons I still don’t know, one of the football players noticed me, and took me under his wing. He was nice to me, and defended me against the people that made my life miserable. He told me that my size would be seen as a good thing instead of a bad thing if I played football instead of soccer. With his help and guidance, I left soccer, and started playing football in eighth grade. My very first practice, I learned something about myself that I hadn’t known before, with size comes strength. Our first practice with pads, we did a one vs. one drills, where two people went up against each other, and the one to push the other person backwards wins. To my suprise, I was stronger than almost everyone on my team, and blew through the competition. It came down to me and one other teammate, and after a hard fight, I pushed him over his side and won the competition. This strength was not only new to me, but also a reassurance that what I was doing was the right thing, and a football field was where I belonged. In the years since, been influenced by football greatly, and changed a lot about myself because of the confidence football gave me. Football motivated me to push my body to its limits, and lift weights that I would have thought were impossible as a kid. Football allowed me to change how I wanted to be treated. I stopped letting people walk all over me, and stood up for myself. I became happier, and school wasn’t hard to go to anymore. I eventually started to make more friends too. Without football, I would still be constantly bullied, and have no idea about the natural strength I possess.

 In school, I strive to get the highest grades possible, and I look to do the same thing in college. I enjoy many of the classes I take, and create bonds with many of my teachers throughout my school career. In my future I hope to make these same bonds with teachers in college, and play on a team that I can one day see as my family.