Speed School athlete Jarrett Mitchell has tried out for – and made – the University of Arizona football team. That’s the headline. The back story is what is particularly unique and inspiring.
Mitchell was a multi-position player in high school who dominated both sides of the ball. He ran a 10.8 100m in track, and his 4×100 team set a Pacific high school record. He was even named MVP of an elite, invitation-only high school recruiting camp. And yet, as a high school senior, he had not received a single DI collegiate offer to play football (a strange enough situation, given his talent, that it was even chronicled by some national publications).
The problem was that coming from a military family, Jarrett Mitchell attended Kubasaki High School in Okinawa, Japan – 7,000 miles from the only school to express any interest in him. Simply put, collegiate coaches weren’t all that interested in an unseen running back from halfway around the world, no matter how impressive the stats were.
Jarrett first contacted me on Twitter and asked if we could help him with his goal: Play football for the University of Arizona. When we finally met in-person, I was immediately impressed by his drive and focus. For six months, Jarrett joined our program and worked as hard as any athlete we’ve ever had. And my favorite part is that despite getting countless “No thank you’s” from college coaches around the country, there never seemed to be ANY doubt in his mind that he’d be on the Wildcat football team if given the opportunity to perform in front of the coaches.
Finally he got his chance. And when I asked him how it went, in typical fashion, he flashed a big smile and gave me a thumbs-up.
He now joins fellow Speed School athlete Jason Sweet as a Wildcat – who joined the team this last fall as a walk-on with a fairly unique background himself. With Jarrett’s work ethic and dedication, no doubt that he will do well (he’s off to a strong start, already scoring a touchdown in the 2015 Spring Game).