Carpe Diem

Two days after Zac Norris, Port St. Joe Class of 2006, arrived for the spring semester at the University of Central Florida earlier this month he walked into the Knights’ football offices.

Norris wanted some information on the football program, how he would go about trying out for a walk-on position.

He was told to come back the next day at 4 p.m. for a meeting; that tryouts would start the following week.

And the following week, Norris joined 29 other hopefuls for what was planned as three days of intensive drills.

The coaches said going in the idea was to drive these non-scholarship athletes to a breaking point, see how they would handle it.

The Knights were also looking for big guys, linemen, since the UCF, which went 9-4 last year and earned a trip to a bowl game after winning Conference USA, had skilled position players on scholarship not getting on the field.

The 30 athletes started their drills in the morning. The first vomiting, Norris said, came in about 15 minutes. By midday there were but 12 players left, by the end of that first day the number was down to nine.

“It was one of the harder things I’ve ever done,” Norris said. “I didn’t feel rusty, but I wish I was in a little bit better shape. It was pretty tough. I tried to go as hard as I possibly could the instead of taking the breaks some of the guys were taking.”

By the end of the second day, the coach running the drills called Norris and said he was the only one who made it and the third day had been called off.

Norris was officially a Knight.

Two years removed from last donning pads and knocking helmets.

“I’m thankful to my coaches at Port St. Joe who made me go through all those drills they made us do, working on footwork and that kind of stuff. I’m thankful they made me do all that jumping through ropes - I never thought I’d say that,” Norris said.

Spending a bit of time as a coach himself, Norris said, provided the kind of perspective he needed to bolster himself to try out at UCF.

Norris spent a year-and-a-half at Gulf Coast Community College after graduating from Port St. Joe.

“I was hitting the books, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do coming out of high school,” said Norris, now 6-foot-3, 245 pounds, adding that he was keeping in shape, running, lifting weights, working on drills.

He spent last football season helping out Port St. Joe coach John Palmer with the high school and middle school programs and that proved somewhat cathartic.

“I think that helped a lot,” Norris said, “seeing it from both sides, another perspective.

I used to hate practicing, going out there when it was 100 degrees out and working so hard. I hated that.

“But spending some time coaching made me realize it was one of the better times in your life and you’ll never get them back. Two years out of it and you are thinking you’d like to play again.”

Norris, who played on the 2005 state championship football team and won a state title in the discus while a senior at Port St. Joe, had spent time deciding where to go after GCCC.

Having determined he wants to pursue a bachelor’s degree in engineering - Norris already has in mind his tract to a master’s degree - he had centered on the University of Florida and UCF.

An uncle had graduated from UCF, with 58,000 students now the largest university in the state, and, as Norris said, UCF “was one of the best engineering schools in the state.”

So UCF it was and next fall, after spending time in the weight room and improving his fitness, come spring, Norris will be suiting up under Coach George O’Leary.

“I’ll play wherever they want me right now,” Norris said. “I’m just happy for the opportunity. A lot of people don’t get a second opportunity, especially after being out of the game for two years.”