COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Sam Salz emerged from Texas A&M’s Bright Football Complex at dusk in early February, eager to explain how he got here.
“Over there,” he pointed, patting down his yarmulke with his other hand. “That’s where it happened.”
The patch of land in the distance sat adjacent to where the Aggies football team practiced. Salz, just a student with a dream in the spring of 2021, would arrive at the field every day an hour before Texas A&M practiced and stay an hour after the practice concluded.
A 5-foot-6, 160-pound Orthodox Jewish student who had never played organized football, Salz intended to try out for the SEC program as a walk-on.