FORT COLLINS — What they are doing is making a bet on themselves.
Being a walk-on player at a Division I school — even a preferred one — comes with no guarantees.
Not that a scholarship will either, but there is some measure of leeway there. But Nate Ryken believed he could make it. So too did Ayden Eberhardt and his Loveland High teammate Charles Dunkelman.
All could have had their school paid for at a smaller program, but they gambled.
"That's the best feeling, knowing I came in here and really no one thought twice about me," said Ryken, who walked on to Colorado State from Berthoud.