AUBURN, Ala. – Senior Phelps Gambill has come a long way since playing high school football at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee.
"If someone told me five years ago that one day I would be playing football at Auburn University, I would have told them they were joking," Gambill said.
Gambill grew up an Auburn fan thanks to his father, Keith Gambill Sr., who was both a student and an SEC champion wrestler at the university. However, his father wanted Phelps to make his own choices and go where he wanted to go.
"My dad didn't want me to feel like I had to follow in his footsteps," Phelps said. "He wanted me to have the freedom to pave my own path."
So he took his father's advice and visited several other schools where he had scholarship offers to play football, but he never found the connection and the feeling he had with Auburn. It was meant to be.
At first, Gambill enrolled at Auburn strictly as a student in the fall of 2016, but he quickly realized how much football meant to him and how hard it was to leave that behind. Yet, it wasn't until the following spring that he would land the opportunity of a lifetime.
It was April 2017 when Gambill met Trey Hand, son of then Auburn offensive line coach Herb Hand. Because the two had played against each other during their high school days, the younger Hand recognized Gambill's school apparel and the two struck up a conversation. Gambill expressed interest in playing football again, and so Hand helped him get an interview with his father.
Gambill met with the former offensive line coach as well as the walk-on coordinator, and two weeks after that he would receive an email saying there was a spot for him on the roster.
"I never thought that day would happen," Gambill said. "Not only was it life-changing, but life-saving as well. I've met some of my best friends in the world here at Auburn, and it's crazy to think that one decision had such a huge impact on my life."
What would his message be to future recruits and walk-ons?
"Don't take anything lightly," Gambill said. "If you're going to do it, do it with 100 percent commitment and intent."
On track to graduate and receive his undergraduate degree in building sciences in May, it would be easy for Gambill – who is also in the middle of his construction project manager internship – to become idle and to feel satisfied with being an average teammate, but that is far from reality.
"To leave this program better than you found it, it's all about your attitude," says Gambill, who has played seven different positions in his three seasons at Auburn. "You can never have a sense of complacency, and you always do whatever you can in order to help the team. I'll do whatever I can do, play any position, anything they ask of me, in order to make this team better and to keep on winning.
"At the end of the week, we're all trying to put Coach (Gus) Malzahn's vision onto the field."
Because of his "team-first" mentality, Gambill says he is truly happy to watch his fellow teammates grow and succeed. He even feels like a mentor to some of his younger teammates such as Luke Deal, Kameron Stutts, Tyler Fromm and Tanner Dean.
"The Auburn Family is all about rooting for one another," Gambill said. "You can look at the guy next to you and know that he'll always have your back. It's rare to find that in college athletics these days."
The future for Gambill is unclear. He declared seniority for this season, but he still plans to attend practice next spring before having a final self-evaluation in which he will meet with his coaches and decide whether or not he will hang up his cleats for good.
"I feel like there's still more left on the table that I can give to the team," he said. "I'm just going to work hard and see how it all plays out."