KNOXVILLE — Jonathan Crompton has waited most of his young life for this football season, so you’ll have to excuse his lack of interest in the past.

The 21-year-old junior has wanted to be the University of Tennessee’s starting quarterback since his spirals first started smashing picture frames in his family’s western North Carolina home.

Crompton’s father, then a police officer, worked the night shift so he and his son could play while his wife worked a 9-to-5.

“We had the little Fisher Price basketball goal in the house, and we’d always throw footballs and baseballs,” Crompton said with a smile while sitting inside the Neyland-Thompson Sports Center. “Every day, I’d break something, because I’m a little too competitive. For some reason, it was always picture frames.”

Like so many others, Crompton’s mother has been an obsessive family photographer.

“There were a decent amount of frames for me to throw at,” Crompton said. “And I did.”

Game pictures of him have been hard to find the past three years. Three years can be an agonizingly long time for an elite quarterback recruit to hold a clipboard.

Asked about his wait, Crompton said, “I mean this in no disrespect, but I would rather concentrate on the future. The past is the past. It’s over with. It’s time to have fun and play football.”

WHEN IT WAS FUN

Some of Crompton’s earliest football memories involve watching fellow western North Carolina native Heath Shuler run and pass his way into Heisman Trophy contention at UT.

When Crompton first played organized football in second grade, he knew what position he would play.

“Our coach said, ‘Who wants to play quarterback?’” he recalled, saying he immediately volunteered.

“I just thought it would be fun to play quarterback. I never knew it would get to where it is now.”

Janet Crompton said she “knew Jonathan would be special” since his T-ball days.

“He just carried himself differently than the other boys,” his mother told the Times Free Press when Jonathan committed to the Volunteers.

Crompton’s potential became more evident in sixth grade, when he met then-Erwin High School football coach Travis Noland. Noland told Crompton he could “come work” for the high school team, and Crompton was at his side for much of the next seven years.

“He’s like my second father,” Crompton said.

Crompton charted plays for every EHS game from sixth grade to his freshman year, when he enrolled at the school. He rode on the team bus, learning about teammate relationships and leadership skills while soaking in football knowledge.

Those lessons are evident today, as UT receiver Josh Briscoe said Crompton “blends in and hangs out with just about everybody on the team.”

“Being the quarterback, he’s going to have a lot of attention, but he doesn’t take that to his head,” said UT defensive end Wes Brown, Crompton’s roommate. “He’s a team guy. We go out and play golf, fish, whatever you want to do to get away. He’s just an all-around good guy.”

... Then really fun

Crompton won Erwin’s starting job as a sophomore, completing 123 of 263 passes for 1,705 yards and 15 touchdowns.

“I thought, ‘If he grows up to be a big kid, he’ll be scary,’” Noland said.

College coaches didn’t wait to see if Crompton would get bigger — though the 6-foot-4, 220-pounder obviously did. Before becoming the first 15-year-old offered a scholarship by Clemson coach Tommy Bowden, Crompton and his father drove to Knoxville and met Randy Sanders, then the Vols’ offensive coordinator.

“If Coach (Phillip) Fulmer was here, I’d offer you a scholarship,” Sanders told him.

The offers eventually flooded Crompton’s mailbox as a junior, when his family moved 20 miles west, following Noland to Waynesville’s Tuscola High. That Sept. 1, the first day he could receive official scholarship offers, he got five — including one from his dream school.

Crompton didn’t publicly commit until the next summer, but the UT offer simplified the process. He didn’t care that the Vols started two true freshman quarterbacks that fall, as several coaches reminded him.

“If you go to Division III or Division II or Division I-AA or Division I, you’ve got to compete,” Crompton said. “And Tennessee was my school, no doubt.”

WHEN IT WASN’T FUN

Problems started as soon as the nation’s No. 2 pro-style quarterback prospect enrolled at UT in the summer of 2005.

Two weeks after Crompton arrived, he complained about pain in his throwing shoulder. Trainers initially thought it was tendinitis, but an MRI showed extensive damage to his labral cartilage, and it needed surgical repair.

As Crompton took a redshirt year and recuperated, the Vols endured a woeful season. Players were repeatedly in trouble off the field, and the coaches’ quarterback rotation resembled Russian roulette. The 5-6 debacle was UT’s first bowl-less season since 1988.

The program bounced back in 2006, and Crompton got a temporary turn in the spotlight. Starter Erik Ainge suffered one of his many injuries, this one an ankle sprain that gave the redshirt freshman nearly every snap in two crucial SEC games.

Crompton entered the lineup in the second quarter against LSU, and he nearly led the Vols to a come-from-behind victory. Two of his 11 completions went for touchdowns to Robert Meachem, including a 54-yarder to give UT the lead midway through the fourth quarter. The Tigers would ultimately rally, though, keeping possession on their game-winning drive after a controversial non-fumble call on Jamarcus Russell.

The beaten, bruised Vols kept Crompton under center the next week, when they were soundly defeated at Arkansas. Ainge returned the next week, relegating Crompton back to the bench.

“Like I said, I’d rather focus on the present,” Crompton said when asked about the past season-and-a-half.

A RETURN TO FUN?

Crompton is a reinvigorated man. His demeanor changed late last season, and it got even sunnier when Richmond head coach Dave Clawson took the UT offensive coordinator job, replacing new Duke head coach David Cutcliffe.

Fulmer said Crompton “met Coach Clawson at the door on his first day, and they’ve been almost inseparable ever since.”

Crompton said he did the same thing on Cutcliffe’s first day back at UT in 2006.

“I was the first to meet Coach Cutcliffe at the door too,” Crompton said. “But ... this time, I was more excited to meet Coach Clawson and get started. We had a limited amount of time to get going, and we had to get things clicking.”

Crompton’s body looks different, too, and surgery to remove a loose body in his throwing elbow has put more zip on his throws.

“I walked into the facility one day this summer, and I saw this big, good-looking guy in a baseball cap and jeans and what looked like a collared shirt,” Fulmer said. “From way off in the distance, I couldn’t tell who it was, and I said, ‘That must be some pro guy here visiting.’ He was throwing the ball in flip-flops.

“As I got closer to him, I said, ‘Wow. That’s Jon.’”

He looked different — happy, one could say.