Gary Gulman

Their team wasn't that good that year.

And sure, yes, Gary didn't know how to stay on his feet when players threw themselves at his ankles, but John Jetson says he'd only been playing football a few months.

Of course he hadn't mastered that.

There wasn't time to teach him everything.

The Jetsons still saw Gary as a diamond in the rough.

Gary was doing everything they asked, ran his plays well, was more reliable than most of the team.

And so the coaches did what they did with any player with a ton of potential.

They took video of Gary's best game, that great first game, made a bunch of copies, and sent it around to colleges.

And after seeing that video, a parade of recruiters showed up at Gary's school.

He'd get called out of class to meet them.

He was approached by Harvard, Holy Cross, UMass, University of New Hampshire, University of Maine, and some top Division I-A schools.

Syracuse and Boston College, his favorite, who'd recently won the Cotton Bowl.

And also there were players on the team who were All-Americans.

I mean, this was a big-time program that played a big-time schedule against Penn State and Notre Dame and Ohio State and USC.

I mean, they were big-time football.

And they had Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie.

He was the hero to everybody in my neighborhood.

And what do you remember of them recruiting you?

I remember this man who I had seen on TV because he had recruited Doug Flutie and he was a New England celebrity.

His name was Jack Bicknell.