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GOLD & BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 4 32 he knows it could reveal more about him than any of the successes have. And he's expecting it to come as a first-year college quarterback at Purdue. He knows John Shoop's offense will be a handful. He knows it'll take time to adjust to the wordy play calls and inches-thick playbook. He knows he'll need to learn the receivers, their preferences, their strengths, their weaknesses. He knows Shoop will put him in difficult scenarios on purpose, to prepare him for the worst and help him excel in those circumstances. He knows defensive backs will be quicker, racing to close just-there gaps. He knows defensive linemen will be heftier and stronger, mean- ing meetings with them are espe- cially undesired. And, yet, Sindelar can't wait for every new test. Because he's expecting to pass, eventually. He always has. Ask him how he feels about fail- ure, and he quickly regales with two recent tales — in sports other than football. As a pitcher, he lost in the district championship, 2-1, felt the weight hard and vowed to not let it happen again. So, the next three years in that same situation, he didn't allow a run and averaged 13 strikeouts in three consecutive championships, he said. In basketball, also in a district title situation, he missed two free throws with 2 seconds left with his team trailing by one. It lost. "I don't think I missed a free throw the rest of the year because that's enough embarrassment. That's enough failure for me," he said. "That that's all I need. You won't have to worry about me after that. "I really like failure because it really pushes me. It pushes me over the edge to do more." Sindelar didn't have too many hurdles to overcome in his football career, even though he didn't grow up dreaming of playing quarterback. He did it in first grade tackle football in Ohio, then switched to other po- sitions, including linebacker, before settling again at quarterback in sev- enth grade. But he tore his menis- cus that year, so he didn't actually get to play the position fully until eighth grade. That was when Caldwell County varsity coach David Barnes noticed how special Sindelar could be before he even threw a ball. Barnes was struck by the way Sindelar carried himself first but also how superiorly athletic Sindelar was. In his freshman season, Sindelar won the starting varsity quarterback job for Barnes' team. And, quickly, the numbers started to pile up in the fast-paced offense that Barnes had been running for years. By the time Sindelar had finished, he was a record-setting Mr. Football. And even months after the career had finished and already a month into college life at Purdue, Sindelar still seemed stunned by what he'd done. "When I think about my high school career, it really is just unbe- lievable. It feels like a video game," Sindelar said. "Freshman year is what I thought every year would be. We were, like, 7-5, kind of a normal year. And then after that, when we were averaging 50 and 60 points a Todd Griffin/Princeton Times Leader Sindelar is eager to sling the ball around in college, saying he couldn't throw as hard as he's capable in high school because players couldn't catch it. Purdue teammate and fellow mid- year enrollee Anthony Mahoungou can attest to Sindelar's strength: He calls him "cannon."