Colton received a scholarship offer from Charley Molnar on Wednesday morning.
Joe Colton is no longer a walk-on after receiving a scholarship from Charley Molnar on Wednesday morning.
AMHERST – Joe Colton was listening to a lecture about carbon dioxide when he got a life-changing phone call.
The freshman safety for the University of Massachusetts football team dipped out of the back row of his biodiversity class and took the call from coach Charley Molnar.
Colton thought this moment might be coming, especially after his contributions in the Minutemen's lone win against Akron – a blocked punt and a game-sealing interception deep in Zips territory – but he didn’t want to assume.
“I thought, ‘OK, I have a good shot at getting a scholarship,’” Colton said. “But I didn’t want to put all my bottles in a basket.”
As it happened, a scholarship was exactly what Molnar was calling about.
By the end of the call, Colton had officially removed the tag of “walk-on” from his status.
“He is a relentless, tough competitor who embodies the way we play football at UMass. He's also an excellent student and a tremendous leader,” Molnar said. “I believe he will be a source of pride for our football program and university as we enter into an exciting future.”
After he hung up with Molnar, Colton went back into class and tweeted his good news. Congratulations poured in from classmates, friends and teammates.
“My phone was blowing up,” Colton said.
One of the first people to blow it up was his mentor, senior safety Darren Thellen.
Thellen said after the Akron game he wanted Colton to have his scholarship. He didn’t think it would actually work out.
“I had a feeling they would give him one with how hard he works,” Thellen said. “It’s a coincidence though. It’s crazy that it happened that way.”
This scholarship was for all the people who told Colton he was too short to play college football, and for all the schools that didn’t offer him a scholarship after he finished his career at Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood.
“That was the first thing that came through my mind,” Colton said. “It’s nice to be able to stick it in the face of those schools.”
It was for his father, who was laid off from his job as a mechanic in a Boston power plant in 2004 and works at his brother’s restaurant, The Fours on Causeway Street near TD Garden. It was for his mother, who split time between jobs as a housekeeper, hairdresser and caterer.
His UMass tuition will be one less bill they’ll have to worry about in August.
“Now they have the money for things they want,” Colton said. “They won’t have to spend another dime on my education.”
Colton is currently undeclared, but plans to study sociology.
He also plans to continue to make an impact with the Minutemen.
He still has more people to prove wrong.