THOMASVILLE — A college coach waited outside the Thomas County Central locker rooms Saturday night at the conclusion of the Yellow Jackets’ loss to Bainbridge.

Pamphlet in hand, he was there to talk to Bainbridge senior Patra Parris about coming to play for his school next year. He went over not only his athletic program, but also the academics his school offers.

As football players sign their letters of intent today, a large portion will be signing on the dotted line of a non-Division I school. Not all athletes go on to the big-gun programs. In fact, most go on to smaller schools where they can still play their sport while immediately chasing what former Thomas County Central running back Joe Burns calls the “fifth quarter.”

“Division I is not the only option,” Burns said during a phone call last fall. “There’s so many great schools out there.”

He uses his friend Glenn Dubin as his example, a man who took a Division III route with the help of football instead of Burns’ Division I trail.

“He played running back at a Division III school at SUNY (State University of New York) Stony Brook in New York City,” Burns said. “I played at a Division I school at Georgia Tech and he’s on the Forbes list. You’d think he care about I went to Georgia Tech and he went to SUNY. It doesn’t matter because they prepared him for his fifth quarter.”

Dubin made his money as co-founder of the hedge fund firm Highbridge Capital Management. The 57-year-old is “self-made” and worth $2 billion according to Forbes.

“That’s what I want these kids to understand,” Burns said. “Football is a stepping-stone to reach your ultimate goal. Football shouldn’t be your ultimate goal.”

Burns is the co-founder of Rising Seniors in his fifth quarter following a football career at Georgia Tech and four years with the Buffalo Bills.

“Rising Seniors is just looking back over my life and figuring out what all went wrong with a lot of my teammates and guys who have more ability than I have, but our lives went down a different path,” he said.

Even for the students attending Division I colleges, Burns and his co-founder Izell Reese are looking to promote the academic as much as the athletic. Athletic careers are fleeting. Academics last forever.

“One of the greatest things, for me, is to tell guys about Ivy League schools and to have, like, five guys get into the program turn down other schools to go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Brown so that they can have a great fifth quarter,” Burns said. “You know, football is only going to last 10, maybe 15 more years of your life, but you’ve got hopefully 30 to 40 years left after that.”

Burns made his decision off of the football program and the mascot. He said one of the things he had always wanted to do was become a high school music teacher and coach. But Georgia Tech didn’t have an education program and that dream was never attainable. He didn’t look at what comes when football ends, which happens for a 0-10 high school team’s third-stringers and for stars such as Peyton Manning.

“At some point this is going to end, and I tell them all the time, people can be cheering for you on Friday night, you had a great game, but mom and dad ask you to go the grocery store that Saturday morning and without your uniform people won’t even speak to you,” Burns said. “We try to get them to understand: Take advantage of this opportunity that you have before you and do the right things and make the right decisions. You know, go to a great school and get a great degree. People, they forget football players ,but they don’t forget great people. And that’s what we’re trying to get them to become, great young men.”

Sports provide one of the greatest opportunities to take the next step in getting an education. It looks good on an application and it can provide a paved way to college for those who might not go. But as academics play into a recruit’ fifth quarter, they also play into a high school athlete’s road to college itself. Rising Seniors works with students to make sure they have the grades to take advantage of athletic opportunities. That way, as students start signing today, they’ll be doing so for the athletics and the academics no matter what school they attend.