He was hoping to do a double concentration in applied math and economics, but it didn't take long for those plans to fall by the wayside.

"If I wasn't playing football, I'd be more inclined to have tried to stick it out," he says. "But it was real tough to find time to go to office hours and work on the stuff that I was struggling with."

So instead of attempting to juggle vector spaces, marginal demand curves and football practices, Wilford dropped his mathematical aspirations and concentrated solely on economics--and football.

But football hasn't always been willing to return the favor. Although he shaved down many of his academic goals to play, he spent his first three years as the second-string quarterback.

This fall, however, Head Coach Tim Murphy turned to Wilford to assume the starting role. It was Brad's team--and he was "the man." The pressure on him increased tremendously.

A Day in the Life

These days Wilford usually gets out of bed at around 9:30 in the morning. He stumbles down to the Winthrop House dining hall for his daily breakfast before heading off to his morning classes.

For the past three falls, Wilford has only taken three classes during the football season and makes up the difference by taking a grueling schedule of five classes each spring.