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Gwaltney makes his return - at CW Post!GREGG SARRA | gregg.sarra@newsday.com
September 7, 2008

You could picture him wearing the red and silver of the Ohio State Buckeyes. You could picture him wearing the maroon helmet with the Trojan logo at USC. And, of course, you saw him in the blue and gold uniform he wore as a West Virginia freshman.

But nobody, not a single person on Long Island or anywhere else, could have pictured him wearing the green and gold of C.W. Post. Yet there was Jason Gwaltney, four years removed from a fabulous high school career at North Babylon, where he scored a Long Island record 135 touchdowns, wearing No. 18 for the Pioneers yesterday.

How did it happen? Why is Gwaltney, Long Island's all-time leading rusher , playing at a Division II school, his last chance to prove himself as a college player?

It's all about blown opportunities. Call it the high school superstar syndrome, in which a player isn't held responsible for his actions and goes to the next level to fail. Gwaltney was so good, so dominating while at North Babylon, he was enabled by the very people who should have made him attend classes and ultimately set him up to self-destruct in college.

But make no mistake, Gwaltney bears most of the responsibility. He was told countless times in high school and college to go to class and chose not to. "I didn't go to class," he said. "I never had the discipline in school that I had on the field. I never valued school."

Gwaltney makes his return - at CW Post! -- Newsday.com