(Editor's note: Georgia Tech quarterback Joe Hamilton will share a weekly diary with ESPN.com throughout the season. For more on the Yellow Jackets, visit the FANSonly Georgia Tech team page. For more on the ACC, visit the conference's official site at theacc.com.)

Sept. 29, 1999

I grew up playing football, football, football, and basketball, basketball, basketball. So it wasn't hard to find any of us when we were growing up. From the time we got out of school and went to my grandmother's house, typically around 3 p.m., to the time our parents picked us up around 7 p.m., it was football. Our parents had to drag us off the field, which was right in my grandmother's yard. She had a big yard.

	Hamilton passed for 2,166 yards in 1998, leading Tech to a 10-2 record.

I remember simulating Monday Night Football in the dark with the lights on the field. It was fun to grow up playing football. I wasn't part of any little league or anything like that. I wanted to but I never really pushed it. I never asked my parents. The guys at school would be wearing jerseys, the IGA Cowboys or whatever. But we always said we could put together a team from the guys right here, make up a team and get somebody to sponsor us and win it all.

That's why I take pride in Alvin, S.C., and I take pride in the guys back in Alvin. Those same guys I played football with, I am willing to say that we could get a team together and we could be competitive. We understand the game. We know the game of football. There wasn't a time that we had other things to do, there wasn't a time when there was a game on television that we weren't watching it. Then when that was over, we were outside simulating it. We were outside being whoever was just playing on TV.

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	Ole Miss' Todd Wade: Calling all fans
	Wyoming's Jared Jarnagin: A win worth waiting for

I played with Pierson Prioleau, who played last year at Virginia Tech and got drafted by San Francisco. (Former Georgia Tech receiver) Harvey Middleton wasn't in the general area so he didn't know every time we played, but he would call and ask if we were playing today and he would come down and played in numerous games with us. Penn State's Courtney Brown, who still lives in Alvin, too, would play all the time.

It's amazing because we would hit each other, but when we get back together now, we see each other and we say, "Man, I will never play tackle football without pads again." We were hitting. We were doing everything. But those are the times you look back on and say that was fun.

The first time I put on pads and played organized football was in seventh grade on JV.

In backyard ball, I was a wide receiver. A wide receiver that thought he could be a wide receiver on junior varsity, who thought he was a good wide receiver. With good hands and able to make good moves. But in the first JV practice, coach said we needed a quarterback, and said to me, "You come over here and play quarterback." I didn't grumble because I knew I wanted to play football.

And from then on I never played another position.