MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- David Sills V has learned to embrace all that he has been. And all that he never was. He was the wunderkind quarterback, who first pierced the taboos of early-age recruiting. He was the 13-year-old whom Lane Kiffin notoriously offered to USC, after watching only one highlight clip. He was then the latest cautionary tale of an athlete gaining fame too young. But that wasn't the end of Sills' story. And after exhausting his quarterback ambitions through all means, including giving up his scholarship at West Virginia for one last try in junior college, Sills has found a new calling. Now back with the Mountaineers, Sills has remarkably re-emerged, reinventing
Adidas Authentic Adrian Amos Womens Jersey himself into one of the top receivers in college football, tied for the national lead in touchdown receptions. "My story, if you want to say, is nothing I would've pictured," he says. "But I'm having so much fun now. The most fun I've ever had playing football. "And I'm not playing quarterbackDavid Sills V was 9 years old when his dad really began to believe that his son might have special talents. At the age when boys are riding bikes and playing little league baseball, Sills was named top quarterback at a week-long, summer Philadelphia Eagles' football camp. "That kinda showed I wasn't just some crazy dad who thought his kid was better than he is," said David Sills IV, who played cornerback for the Virginia Military Institute. The following summer, the Sills family was in the market for a QB guru to take Sills to the next level. At the time, Steve Clarkson, who had tutored Ben Roethlisberger, was training USC Heisman winner Matt Leinert for the NFL draft when he started getting calls from Sills IV. "I called him six or seven times, left messages, but he never answered or called me back," Sills IV said. On the other side, Clarkson didn't know what to make of this dad from
http://www.authenticfloridapanthers.com/authentic-keith-yandle-jersey Delaware asking him to work out his pre-adolescent son. "But [Sills IV] was persistent," Clarkson said. "At a certain point, it was like, he really wants this to happenClarkson finally relented. He told Sills IV they could come to Pasadena after the draft, and he'd give Sills a look. "He had this attitude of, 'Yeah, sure, I'll take your money,'" Sills IV said. Clarkson still believed Sills was too young after the first session. "I thought, 'We'll do one more workout, and I'll tell them to come back in five years,'" he said. But that next session, Sills dazzled with a natural throwing motion and an arm strength that defied his age. Clarkson had never seen anything like it. Sills wowed Clarkson even more in the ensuing days, displaying an uncanny knack for understanding defensive coverages. "This was not normal," Clarkson said. "I started to rethink, 'How young is too young?'" After later visiting the family in Delaware, Clarkson agreed to take on, by far, the youngest client he'd ever had. Sills was 10 years oldLane Kiffin entered the picture three
Amos Youth Jerseyyears later. Clarkson was in Miami for Super Bowl XLIV, and Kiffin had just left Tennessee for USC. Clarkson called, and at the end of their conversation, asked if Kiffin would watch a YouTube clip. "No explanation given," Clarkson said. "Just asked his opinion." "I thought I was looking at a 10th or 11th grader," Kiffin recalled, in a phone interview about Sills with ESPN.com. As impressed as he was, Kiffin couldn't figure out why Sills was so skinny. "That's because he's 13," Clarkson told him, prompting an expletive of disbelief from Kiffin. "He just seemed so far advanced for a kid that age," Kiffin said. "It just seemed if he stayed on that track, he was going to be an elite kid, an elite player. If the kid kept growing, he could end up being as big as [USC Heisman winner] Carson Palmer, who we'd had a few years before." Putting aside the prudence of evaluating a quarterback off a single YouTube video, it wasn't - and still isn't - against
http://www.officialcalgaryflames.com/Adidas-Joe-Nieuwendyk-Jersey the rules to offer a middle-schooler. But it certainly was taboo. An unspoken rule of recruiting. It didn't take long, however, for the notion to pop into Kiffin's head. In a follow-up phone call that same day, Kiffin broached Clarkson with the idea of offering Sills a scholarship. "Of course, I know you're going to be offering him when he's a junior," Clarkson joked back
