Neal Tracey was once a hot, young recruit.

After that visit from the Notre Dame assistant the letters started coming. Letters upon letters. A ton of letters. Chris Branch, his coach at Ponaganset, told him he could get to the next level, but he had to become more focused, get stronger, play every play as if it were his last.

What was left unsaid was that college football was a business, and that schools don’t give out football scholarships because they’re nice.

It was fun in the beginning, no question about that.

The summer before his senior year he went to camps at Notre Dame, Michigan State and Boston College. At Notre Dame, he even picked up pieces of grass from the stadium to take back to give to one of his brothers. He also sat down with coach Bob Davies. Here he was a kid from Glocester, and the coach of Notre Dame was talking to him.

Who would have ever believed that?

A few months later reality showed up.

Davies was gone, and new Notre Dame coach Ty Willingham didn’t seem to have any interest. Penn State backed off. BC put him on the back burner. As his senior year played out the two schools still all over him were Big East schools Rutgers and Pittsburgh.

Then he got hurt.

A few minutes into a playoff game against Shea, his last high school game.

A torn ACL in his left knee.

Neal Tracey was looking at an operation and six minths of rehab.

Tracey came to Pitt and ended up with 2 more knee surgeries including losing the entire 2004 season.

By the time spring football started, Dave Wannstedt was the new Pitt coach. He he wanted smaller, quicker lineman. Tracey got down to 280.

But when he came back to camp in late summer his knee swelled again. He was sent for an MRI. When the results came back the trainer told him his knees “were trashed,” that he had no cartilage in either knee and probably will be looking at knee replacements at age 40.

Still, Tracey wanted to play.

And play he did.

He was a blocker on the field goal team, and played backup tackle against Youngstown State.

“All my hard work paid off,” he says. “I finally got on the field.”

Still, his football is over, even if he has two years of eligibility remaining. He recently graduated with a degree in Communications, already wants to get on to the next chapter in his life. He knows he was fortunate to get through last fall, that he can’t do it again, no matter who much he’d like to.

He also knows he has to lose weight, that it’s not healthy to be lugging 300 pounds around. His goal is to eventually get down to 220.

I don’t pretend to have even known of Neal Tracey prior to this story. It probably is a similar story for so many players at so many levels of college football just trying to keep playing and get on the field. In any capacity.

Congratulations to Tracey for not just getting out on the field, but graduating and moving on with his life.