Alex Darras scrambled onto the national scene in his pre-teen years, winning a national punt, pass and kick competition.
Acclaim since, though, hasn't come so easily for the 6-foot-3, 200-pounder who continues to pass, punt and kick.
Darras, Notre Dame's senior quarterback and now a four-year starter, spent his summers playing baseball - he's a noted pitcher/shortstop - and didn't try to squeeze in the annual football camps and combines most aspiring football players attend.
As a result, although football appears now to have surpassed baseball as his first sports love, inquiries about his interest in a college football scholarship have been few and far between. He bypassed baseball this summer to attend some camps with the idea of overcoming what he might've missed in previous years.
Recruiting, after all, is beginning even earlier with college coaches offering scholarships to high school players in their sophomore seasons and some even toward the end of their freshman years.
"We've put the word out and I finally got a (recruiter) to talk to me a little bit," Notre Dame coach Charles Fant said. "I got the feeling that when they were watching Kareem (Orr, a receiver/defensive back now at Arizona State) they felt anybody could throw him the football. It was kind of unfair."
Colorado State, coached now by former Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, has been the most consistent follower, and Darras spent a couple of days in Fort Collins, Colo. He also attended camps at Harvard, Tennessee and Vanderbilt.
"Mostly it's been Colorado State and Harvard," he replied when asked about correspondence.
Yet he's also begun hearing from Middle Tennessee State, Vanderbilt and most recently Tennessee Tech. After all, who couldn't use a strong-armed quarterback who's also carrying a 40-yard punting average, put a large majority of his kickoffs into the end zone and just missed a 51-yard field goal by no more than a foot. In addition to his football skills, Darras also carries a 4.3 grade point average and posted a 32 on the ACT.
"Alex really is a coach. He's like Peyton Manning (of the Denver Broncos). When people see Peyton they don't just think quarterback but offensive coordinator," Fant said. "Alex knows what we're doing and he knows what we're likely to call before we call it. It's that simple experience and knowledge of offensive football. I don't know that I've ever had one quite like him."
The coach said the two smartest quarterbacks he'd had were at Boyd-Buchanan when he was there as offensive coordinator: Will Healy, now wide receivers coach at UTC, and Drew Akins, now offensive coordinator at Ooltewah.
""With Will it was reading defenses and with Drew it was making checks and calling the best plays. Alex is both of those kids. He makes all the checks and all the reads," Fant said. "Where Will threw the ball and Drew ran the ball, Alex can really do both, although that's not how our offense runs.
"With Will and Drew you knew if you put the ball in their hands, you had a chance to win. Alex brings a lot of that, too. It's really amazing."
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.