Andy Cross / THE DENVER POST)
FORT COLLINS — He was in a pinch.
The only school Nick Stevens ever applied to was Colorado State, because that's where he wanted to play football. But while at Vista Murrieta High School in California, he had a class project to write an application for the state's college system.
The topic was to describe how he had overcome adversity, and the senior honor roll student was stumped. Being honest with himself, he never had faced any.
So, like all good fictions writers are prone to do, he followed a simple rule: Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.