Acclimation to Trinity and College Football
Costley was under the mindset that he had to get acclimated to his new opportunity in two separate categories: the football acclimation and the social/school acclimation. When it comes to school, even during Trinity’s time as a Division-I competitor, its athletes were always given the choice to prioritize schoolwork over sports. According to Costley, some of his teammates used to schedule their labs in a time slot that interfered with afternoon practice so they could “get out of the heat for a little bit” (Costley). However, Costley never struggled with class because his mom always forced study habits onto him. As far as social life went, he gives credit to being quiet and keeping to himself to the fact that he was from a small town, Mart, Texas. This enabled him to devote the time and commitment he desired towards football without any obstacles getting in the way. In terms of the football acclimation period, he struggled a bit more. From high school size wasn’t as big of a deal and he was just given the ball and told to run. On the college stage, “the ability of each individual player was much more equal” which forced him to go back to the fundamentals and learn more about the position to separate himself from the opposing defenses rather than relying on his athletic ability. The biggest responsibility of a running back that he had to obtain and become comfortable with was blocking. In high school he had blocking responsibilities, but if he didn’t succeed in those responsibilities, the play could still be successful. In college those blocks became much more crucial to the success of the play. According to Costley his most awakening experience in realizing how much different college play was than high school was set in Texas ATM Kingsville’s stadium the third game of his freshman year. He was given the responsibility of blocking Ernie Price (future defensive end for the Detroit Lions) on a sweep to the right. He “pulled around the corner and thought [he] was heading in for a huge blind side crack block when all of a sudden Price turned and planted [him] into the ground”. After getting up looking through the earhole of his helmet and hearing Price say, “Welcome to college rookie,” he had finally been introduced to a new level of play (Costley).