The knock on my door made me stop everything I was doing. I seldom have visitors on a Monday night at 11:30. It was Coach Bowden, the head ball coach; he said he wanted to talk to me about my recent actions after the game Saturday. He started off by saying “Listen here Mike, I know you’re one of the best quarterbacks in NCAA right now but you have created a huge problem within the team and given a bad name to the University.” I just nodded my head. He continued, “Your actions after the game Saturday are evidence of that. This is the fourth time within the month that you’ve been caught for underage drinking, and you lied to me about the last time. You know my policy, and I’ve let the first three times slide, but I can’t let this one slide. I’m gonna have to pull your scholarship.”

It’s my first game as a Georgia Bulldog. Growing up in Georgia, I had always dreamed of playing on this field, but it never occurred to me that I could make that happen. Now as a freshman that dream is now a reality. My first game is against the Georgia State Panthers, a small DI school that we should beat very easily. By half time, the score is 42-3. Stephen and I hooked up for 256 yards, and 3 touchdowns. I didn’t play the second half because we were winning too badly. I had no idea what was coming after the game, but everyone on the team was telling me it was going to be crazy. Afterwards we all went to the K? fraternity house for a party. When we first got there everyone went crazy because I had showed up; they were all congratulating me on the win, and they were just passing me drinks. I didn’t turn down those drinks either, that was a mistake. After about an hour passed, I get a call from Coach Palmer, my quarterback coach, he was telling me that I had a great game and that I needed to be careful tonight and not get in any trouble. I should have listened to him, because the next morning the head ball coach called me into his office. He said “I know what you did last night Evans, and I’m not happy with you. You’re just a kid; you don’t need to get caught up in all of that nonsense! You have too bright of a future ahead of you to be doing that kind of stuff.” I replied, “Coach, I know I shouldn’t have done that, but I promise it will be the last time I do it.” He just said “Okay, but if it happens again there will be consequences. You can go now.”

Our next game was against a much better opponent, the South Carolina Gamecocks. Coach Bowden was telling me all week that I needed to get last Saturday out of my head and I needed to focus on this week. I tried to, but I just kept thinking about how much fun I had at that party! Come game day I was focused on nothing but the game; it was the first conference game of the year! The first play of the game was an 80 yard bomb to Josh, one of my receivers. After that, we could do whatever we wanted to with South Carolina’s defense. I finished the game out with 367 passing yards with 4 touchdowns and had 28 completions on 35 attempts. Needless to say, after the game I was going to another party. We went back to the same fraternity house after the game, and this time, the party was even better. Everything about it was better! The only bad thing about it, Coach Palmer walks in as the party is about to end. All he does is look at me and then turns around and walks back out.
I was expecting another call from Coach Bowden the next day, but I never got one. Instead, he called me out at practice in front of the whole team, and he announces that I will not be playing in the upcoming game on Saturday. My heart dropped when he said that. Lucky for the team we were only playing Appalachian State. I went through the week thinking about how I let my team down, and about how I’m done partying and getting in trouble. Come game day, I was so depressed, coach even came up to me and told me that he was sorry for benching me, but that it was the only thing he could do without getting in trouble with the University. I told him that I understood and that I would be alright. Our backup quarterback, Ethan Morris, had a decent game. He had 2 touchdowns and a little over 170 yards. I did the best I could to encourage him throughout the whole game. Overall the team performed well, and came out with the win to move the team to 3-0 on the season.
When I was little, my dad had always told me, if you’re going to dream, dream big. Once I was old enough to know what that meant, I started thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up, and one of the things that popped in my head was the starting quarterback at the University of Georgia. When I told my dad that he kind of chuckled at the thought of it, I just turned away and hung my head thinking that this dream is never going to be possible. Once I got to high school, my coach told me I had the potential to do big things at the next level. I never believed him because my old man never had any faith in me. He was never at any of the games on Friday nights, he never asked me how anything was going, all he did was sit around and drink. I told him that I had an offer from Georgia and he just laughed and said “You’re lying!” On graduation night, this is the only nice thing he said to me throughout high school, he said, “I’m proud of you son, you’ve become a man.” That was one of the last things he said to me before I left for college. Coach Bowden and Coach Palmer really took me in and were like the father I never had. That’s why they acted the way they did when they caught me doing what I wasn’t supposed to.

After the third time I got caught, I told myself that I wasn’t going to do it again. I stayed true to myself for three weeks, and then came the SEC Championship game against Alabama. We were down 34-28 with 00:49 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Coach Palmer comes up to me and tells me our game plan, and then I run out on the field and in my head I’m thinking that we are going to be SEC Champions. We started with the ball on our own 14 yard line, and we had only one timeout. We drive down the field no problem; I’m picking the secondary apart. We get down to Alabama’s 5 yard line with 3 seconds to go. We call our final timeout. Coach tells me that this last play is up to me and not to screw it up. The play ended up being a boot pass that was supposed to go to Stephen, but once I rolled out, he was covered so I had to dump it off to Josh and he dove for the goal line. The referee signaled touchdown and the whole stadium went absolutely crazy. We won by a score of 35-34. After the game, Coach Bowden and Coach Palmer both came up to me and told me not to get crazy tonight. I promised them that I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the rest of our season. I told myself that I wasn’t going to drink anything but I was going to go and have fun, I mean for god sakes we just won the SEC Championship!

Once I got to the party, everyone there screamed out my name “Mike!!!!!” I couldn’t resist, it seemed like the only solution. They started handing me drinks, one after another. It seemed like a good plan, because none of coaches saw me there. But what I didn’t know was that Coach Bowden had someone watching me at the party. He asked me the next Monday what I did after the game and I told him that I went to eat with some of the guys and then went home to get some rest.
He continued, “You lied to me Mike; I trusted you, and you lied to me. Do you know how hard it is for a coach to put that much faith into a freshman?” I just said “No sir.” I could see tears in his eyes as he was talking. I felt tears come to mine when he looked at me. I said, “Coach, you know I don’t mean no harm with what I am doing, I’m just trying to enjoy the college experience.” Coach interrupted, “Yeah trying to enjoy it a little too much. My decision is nonnegotiable Mike; you can’t get yourself out of this one.” “But coach, you know my dad will kill me if he finds out that I got kicked off of the team!” He answered softly, “well maybe you should have been thinking about that when you were out partying.” He stood up; tears were now rolling down his face. I knew at that moment that he hated having to do this to me, but I knew he had to do something about it. “When you first walked into this school Mike, you told me that this was your only dream as a kid. Well you had a shot at making that dream a reality for 4 years, and you blew it within 6 months. Looks like that dream will be lost forever now Evans.” The only thing I felt were the tears rolling down my cheek. I heard the door shut, right then I knew my ride was over. This reality I used to live in is only a dream once again, lost for eternity in my memory bank. All I can do now is look back on this time and think, what my life could be today if I would have kept on dreaming.