Football
Associated Press 17y

Longhorn defensive back took long road to UT and success

AUSTIN -- Aaron Ross had to feel like he was in the Twilight
Zone.

He was 20 years old and back in high school. Sitting among 15-
and 16-year-olds in sophomore English, he listened to the same
discussions about composition, literature and poetry he had already
heard years before.

And yet, he was happy.

Pass this class -- again -- and his long and winding road to
becoming a Texas Longhorn would finally end. An administrative goof
and a missing half credit of high school English had held up his
college football career for two years.

"I did a lot of waiting," said Ross, now a 24-year-old senior
starting cornerback for No. 5 Texas. "And praying."

He looks back on those days with a laugh now. None of it seemed
very funny four years ago.

Ross didn't know it, but his long detour began when he moved
from San Antonio to Tyler after his sophomore year of high school.

Although he didn't start playing football until he was 15, two
years in Tyler had turned him into a top recruit. He was part of
the 2001 Longhorn recruiting class considered among the best in the
country.

He graduated in the spring and by late summer he was ready for
preseason practice.

Then the NCAA stepped in. There was a problem.

Although he had been accepted by the university, his high school
transcript didn't show he had taken English II, a core requirement
for the NCAA.

He wasn't eligible to play because that measly half credit
didn't make the paperwork when he changed schools.

There were tears when coach Mack Brown broke the news. Texas
filed a waiver with the NCAA but was denied. Ross went home to
Tyler.

He thought about enrolling at Blinn Junior College, but spending
two years in exile at a college football outpost didn't appeal to
him.

So he waited. He worked out. He got a job as a file clerk in a
doctor's office as officials tried to drum up a record of his
sophomore class.

Ross thought the problem was fixed and signed again with Texas
in 2002 as part of another standout class that included Vince
Young.

But the same thing happened. The NCAA still didn't have the
missing class.

"Everybody was apologizing," Ross said. "But it wasn't
changing anything."

A Texas assistant coach suggested he retake the missing class.
That meant going back to high school.

When he left high school the first time in 2001, he was a senior
football stud. Now he was a 20-year-old 10th grader. Teenage angst
and girl problems were supposed to be long gone, not surrounding
him.

"It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," he said. "People
did tease me about coming back out for the football team."

He passed -- again -- with an "A" -- again -- and signed with
Texas -- again -- in 2003.

"I was part of three recruiting classes," Ross said with a
laugh.

He's played a key role on defense and special teams ever since,
and he plans to graduate next summer with a degree in education.

Teammate Michael Griffin got the early attention as the leader
of the secondary this season, but it's been the steady Ross who has
been the most consistent. He has a team-high four interceptions,
two in the fourth quarter against Oklahoma.

He typically draws the toughest coverage assignments. That meant
matching up with Ohio State's Ted Ginn Jr., who beat him for a
touchdown in the Buckeyes' 24-7 win, a play featured on the cover
of Sports Illustrated.

Ross shrugs it off. A year earlier, he helped shut down Ginn in
a Texas win.

Even after Ohio State won, Buckeyes quarterback Troy Smith
called Ross a "great cornerback, probably the best in the Big
12."

Ross lived up to that with his game against Oklahoma. The two
interceptions and a fumble return for a touchdown clinched a 28-10
win. Brown started lobbying for Ross to be an all-American.

"If he's not the best defensive back playing in the country,"
said UT defensive co-coordinator Duane Akina, "I don't know who
is."

As a punt returner, Ross has three career touchdowns.

Ross says life is good with that two-year detour well behind
him, a wait that taught him patience and persistence. At 24, he
takes good-natured ribbing from his teammates that he's the "old
man" of the team.

His girlfriend, Sanya Richards, is the former UT track star who
holds the American women's record in the 400 meters and won an
Olympic relay gold medal in 2004.

Richards got to Texas a year before Ross and met him his
freshman year.

"Then I found out he was older than me," she said. "I didn't
understand how that could be."

She was attracted to him in part because he always seemed so
happy. Even when she dinged up his car in a fender bender, he
didn't get mad.

"There's not a single thing to be unhappy about," said Ross,
who somewhere in all that extra English education learned how to
write his girlfriend a couple of poems.

The two get a lot of ribbing now about who's faster.

Ross said he could take her in the 100 or 200 meters. The 400,
her specialty, would be different.

"She'd murder me," Ross said.

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