How I Talked My Way Into a Walk-On Tryout for Georgia’s Football Team

The following is adapted From Underdog to Bulldog.

Since I was 7 years old, my dream was to play football for the University of Georgia.

The only problem? I was a 4th-string linebacker in high school who weighed 145 pounds when I started classes at Georgia my freshman year. In other words, I had no business playing for such a storied SEC football program. Nevertheless, after being accepted into Georgia in my senior year of high school, I turned my attention to the bigger goal: playing football.

How does someone try out for a college football team? I wondered. Do I just show up at a coach’s office? Is there even such a thing as college football tryouts? How in the world am I going to make this happen? I didn’t know where to start.

I tried a Google search, but there was no information online—probably intentionally, because coaches don’t want random people showing up at practice.

Plus, I was nervous. I imagined one of the first things coaches would ask for is film from my high school days. I had no film. There was no highlight tape. I made one tackle my sophomore year, and even then I was one of three defenders tackling the running back.

If the Georgia coaches needed a reference, I could get one; my high school coaches were really nice. But they would also be honest and say I’d never started a game in high school. If I couldn’t move forward without a highlight tape, my dream was dead.

The summer before my freshman year, I attended a fraternity rush event and ran into a guy who was the kicker for a team I played against in high school. Trent told me he was trying out for the Georgia football team and gave me the name of the coach he had talked to: Coach Tereshinski, who was, amazingly, the same coach I’d met when I was ten years old and attended a Georgia football event with my dad.

Trent was going to a tryout specifically for specialists—punters, kickers, and long snappers—which didn’t help me, because I wasn’t a specialist. But at least I had some information now: I had the name of the coach in charge of the walk-on tryout program. I didn’t tell Trent what I planned on doing. I decided I would just walk into Coach T’s office before the specialist tryout and ask when they were having tryouts for other positions.

I was so nervous about talking to Coach T. What if the tryout was already full? I knew colleges recruited a lot of players, more than the number of scholarships available, but I wasn’t sure how many places that left on the team for someone like me to try out.

What if the secretary wouldn’t let me into Coach T’s office? Or what if he took one look at me and asked me to leave? I weighed 145 pounds. At that weight, trying out for anything other than kicker or punter, let alone linebacker, was dangerous.

The specialist tryout was the day before my first class. I woke up super excited, thinking about how it would feel to tell my family I was trying out—assuming I got the chance to do so. On the way to Coach T’s office, I rehearsed what I would say, trying to avoid going into too much detail about my high school days.

I asked the secretary what floor his office was on and then headed for the elevator, hoping Coach T was there and had a couple of minutes to talk. I walked toward an open elevator, and just as the doors started to close, a hand reached out to hold them open. As I walked in, I saw Coach T standing inside. I immediately recognized him, looking almost exactly the same as when I’d met him eight years earlier.

He looked at me for a second, saw that I was in gym clothes, and asked, “Are you the guy I spoke with about the walk-on tryout?”

I nodded, not believing my luck and not wanting to give myself away.

“Come on downstairs. The meeting is about to start.”

And just like that, I was in, being walked down to the tryout meeting by Coach T himself. He didn’t ask me what position I was trying out for, what my name was, what school I played for, nothing. I just went with it and acted like I was supposed to be there.

We got off the elevator on the first floor of the Butts-Mehre football building. Several guys were standing outside the team meeting room, most about twice my size.

Coach T punched a code into a keypad near the door and unlocked the meeting room. I followed the other guys inside and then stopped to look around the room. Splashed across the walls were pictures of famous players throughout Georgia’s history, plaques for every SEC championship Georgia had won, and next to those hung plaques for every SEC East division championship and national title. So much football history was displayed in this room, and I was one small step closer to being part of it.

We sat in the leather chairs facing the front of the room where Coach T addressed the group: “You’ve all expressed interest in trying out for the team. Today we’re going to fill out paperwork and discuss the walk-on process. We’re allowed to carry 125 players on the roster, and eighty-five of those are on scholarship. That leaves forty walk-on spots, most of which will be filled by preferred walk-ons—players we’ve recruited out of high school. If we find someone we really like during this tryout, we’ll allow them to become a walk-on if there’s still room on the roster.

“First, you’ll have to get a physical with the team doctor. Once you’re cleared, we’ll put you through workouts in the weight room. We’ll be evaluating you during workouts, which will go through the end of the semester. At that time, we may decide to officially let you try out next spring, which could put you on the team for next fall.”

I let that sink in. Basically, Coach T was saying that those of us in the room were competing for a few spots on the team. Actually, at this point, we were competing for an invitation to try out, before the actual tryout. Coach concluded by saying the roster was full for the current season, but if any spots opened up, some of us might even have the opportunity to join the team within a couple of weeks. That got me excited.

There were about twelve guys in this meeting—a handful of specialists and others who played offense or defense. It was a surprisingly small group, and everyone but me had apparently talked with the coach beforehand. It clearly wasn’t a group of random students. I couldn’t believe I was sitting here. What were the odds of walking into the building at the exact moment the meeting was about to start? Of being allowed inside when I hadn’t spoken to anyone prior to today? I shook my head and smiled.

The paperwork asked for basic information about ourselves, including what position we were trying out for. I decided to try out for linebacker because that’s what I played in high school. As I looked around the room, however, I realized I had a lot of work to do. These guys looked like elite athletes, and they were hoping to try out for the team just like I was. I needed to gain a lot of weight, get a ton stronger, and become much faster—in a hurry.

I talked to some of the other walk-ons after the meeting. All of them were high school starters, and some had earned all-state honors. Some had turned down scholarships to Division II schools to be a walk-on at a Division I school like Georgia.

If I had walked into the building just a couple of minutes later, I would have missed the meeting. I would not have received the information I needed and would not have been included in those workouts. It seemed so surreal. I thought one of the hardest parts would be finding out how to try out and convincing the coaches to give me an opportunity given my size and lack of experience, but here I was with my foot in the door. Now for the hard part: proving I was worthy of trying out.

For more stories from Candler's journey to become a Georgia Bulldog, you can find From Underdog to Bulldog on Amazon.

Candler Cook grew up watching University of Georgia football games with his family and decided at a young age that he wanted to be one of those guys on the field. Fourteen years later he became one when, after his third tryout, he was selected as a walk-on. Candler holds two degrees from the University of Georgia: a bachelor of management and a master of business administration. He lives in Atlanta, GA, and works as a finance professional.