This is a guest post by GL Hoffman from What Would Dad Say.

Most dads dream about his little boy playing college football or being a major league baseball player.

It is in the Dad DNA. But mostly, it is a dream so that we can keep our mind from wandering during all those never ending T-Ball games.

I lived that dream and I thought my, er, our story would be helpful to others.

Son Gavin was always good at sports. I would prop him up when he was a baby and roll baseballs at him. It was our favorite game. Later, we would play in the yard. His favorite game was for me to throw the ball just out of his range so he could dive for it. Often he made the catch and the scratches on his knees were like badges of Catch Honor. You have been there.

In junior high, he grew some more, he was now about six feet tall and very coordinated. He could really throw a baseball. But he could throw a football even better.

One summer when he was a freshman in high school, we went to a national baseball tournament in Chicago. That was the first time, we both realized his dream of playing in the major leagues was not going to happen. Every kid and his dad must come to this point when realism hits optimism. It was a clear moment of understanding when Gavin was not the best player at the tournament nor on his own all star team. He handled it pretty well, although with a bit of resignation.

Soon he threw himself into football. He was a quarterback and it appeared he was going to be a good one.

One good tip for the rest of the dads: always be encouraging and always send him to camp. That is what I did, he went to three day camps, and week long camps. We did this for some obvious reasons…he wanted to play football ALL THE TIME, so camps were a good way for him to stay involved. But more than this, he got some excellent outside coaching. He was like a sponge and adapted almost everything he learned in some fashion. In short, he became a real student of the game and of his position.

Of course, we played catch all the time. Except now I was the one running and catching what he threw. He loved it when I would run “outs” and hated it when I would not dive for his errant throws. I think it just made him concentrate more on his accuracy. He had to hit me in the hands, I was not diving for anything.

Through high school, I might have been the only one who could see a future for him, certainly in college. I noticed that others around his school were not thinking that way, even his coach.

I don’t think this was due to any ill will, it was just at his little school no one had ever gotten a full ride before, so it was out of their frame of reference. This happens a lot. I think there are lots of undiscovered talents out there who are waiting to be discovered. Let me tell you…it doesn’t work that way.

The parents have to be in charge of the recruiting effort. For me, that meant approaching the effort like you would a marketing effort, except in this case your “product” is your son. I know this seems a bit aggressive, but I am just saying what worked for us.

So, we were more careful about the football camps he went to. We started going to college camps so that he could catch the eye of an assistant coach. We monitored the camps, so that he did not wear out his arm before a particularly important one.

During the season, we kept adding to the film library. Even though his team did not do particularly well, we could always find snippets here and there that were early indicators that he might just have it. That is a typical problem. There are a lot of high school players who exhibit such talent, but it is seldom recognized or encouraged. College coaches are extremely good at recognizing early talent.

They know that with the right amount and quality of coaching that talent would be improved.

So our goal was to make a football tape not so much of highlights but of select moments that showed promise. This tape was about five minutes long, one doesn’t want to bore the college assistant. Keep in mind that these assistants see hundreds of tapes…yours is being measured against maybe a hundred other players of similar and apparent skill.

This was not an easy task for us. It meant a lot of research into the coaching philosophies, which team had a potential need for a drop back style quarterback and which coach would mesh well with my son. We all know our kids pretty well, and I wanted someone special for mine.

Even though his team had a mediocre year his junior year in high school, he grew even more. Now when we would play catch, I had to wear a baseball glove, he threw that hard.

His summer before his senior year, we sent him to the Oklahoma camp. There he was voted the best camper and I let his high school know this. His coach immediately called the local sports reporter and Gavin got a bit of print.

He went to the Wisconsin camp, a big one. I happened to be there when Coach Alverez made Gavin and another QB demo some throws in front of the entire camp, maybe 300 kids. I knew at that moment he would achieve his dream.

Next stop was Northwestern and on the way home from the camp, we received an excited call from his coach, saying that Gary Barnett wanted to offer him a full ride. Since Northwestern was his early pick, Gavin said yes, and subsequently had a great senior year, winning the first state championship ever for his school and was named Gatorade Player of the Year for Minnesota.

He went on to started every game at Northwestern as a red shirt freshman. Someone asked me once how that felt. I said “you haven’t lived until you have heard your kid cheered and booed by 100,000 people,” but that is another story.

To learn more about GL and his thoughts, be sure to check out What Would Dad Say.

Gavin Hoffman after transferring to Penn

*Photo credit: The Daily Pennsylvanian 2000

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