By By Matthew Nascone
Josh Linam grew up watching college football and hearing his father's stories about football recruiting trips. So when Linam's senior year approached, he wanted to go on those same trips, but there was a catch.
"He has grown up listening to me talk about my trips to colleges," said Kevin Linam, Josh's father and a two-year player at Georgia Tech. "He originally committed to the University of Central Florida after his junior year, but he wanted to experience the trips. So he called UCF head coach George O'Leary and decommitted to take trips and we traveled all around visiting schools."
But Kevin said Josh wanted to do it the right way and that is why he actually called the coach instead of going to the other schools behind the coach's back.
Josh took many trips with his dad to the likes of Georgia Tech, Alabama and Auburn, but in the end, he chose UCF. And on Feb. 6, which is National Football Signing Day, Josh became a UCF Golden Knight.
"I am extremely excited for Josh," Kevin said. "He is a tough kid out there and anything he hits while covering the middle is stopped dead in its tracks. I am very proud of him for moving on to the next level."
But moving on to the next level was only a matter of where he would play. Linam is the epitome of a student athlete with a 3.8 GPA and a 25 on his ACT in the classroom and a 6-foot-3, 235-pound frame and 276 tackles in his final two years of high school football on the field.
"It has been a dream of mine to play college football since I can remember," said Linam, as published in The Daily Commercial. "This solidifies everything I have worked for to get to this moment. It has not been by myself. I have had a lot of support from all of these people."
That support came in the face of his parents and his grandparents.
"I can't tell you how much support my parents, Ray and Joan Linam, have given to Josh through the years," Kevin Linam said. "They have been great and they have been behind him 100 percent the entire time."
Linam led the Tavares Bulldogs in tackles at the middle linebacker position with 146 and was named The Daily Commercial's All-Area Football Defensive Player of the Year.
Linam again led his team in his senior season last year with 130 tackles and was named to the Class 3A All-State second team by the Florida Sports Writers Association and was also named the 3A-District 8 Player of the Year.
Linam resides in Tavares, Fla., but he visits his father in Atmore every chance he can get. Kevin has lived in the Atmore/Lottie area since 1976.
"Josh was with me every second he could get growing up," Kevin said. "And I am so proud of everything he has accomplished."
And the incoming freshman that might see the field next year, according to his father, had a long road to Division-1 football.
"His first position when he was 8 years old was center and that was the same position I played at that age," Kevin said. "But he was changed to the quarterback position later that year and that is where he stayed until ninth grade. Then he was moved to free safety for two years and he registered 146 tackles in his first year as a linebacker his junior year. But when he got to the defensive side of the ball, he said he never wanted to go back."