Overby Walked Into His Dream : College football: Freshman cornerback from Sunny Hills passed up a baseball scholarship for a chance to play football at Colorado.

It was Aug. 1 and Ken Overby was at home in Anaheim, flipping through course guides and enrollment papers for Rancho Santiago College.

Eight days later, he was 5,430 feet above sea level and wearing a Colorado football practice jersey.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks to Overby, a football and baseball standout at Sunny Hills High School last season.

He turned down a baseball scholarship from San Diego State and a football and baseball offer from UC Davis and accepted a last-minute offer to walk on with the defending national champion Buffaloes.

“It still hasn’t hit me,” Overby said. “I was walking back from practice the other day, thinking about all this. It’s really a dream come true.

“Here I am, barely recruited out of high school, then ‘Bam!’ I’m in here with the defending national champs.”

A cornerback, Overby likely will play on the scout squad as a redshirt, and hopes for a scholarship next season.

“I wanted to play both football and baseball at a Division I school,” Overby said. “San Diego State was Division I, but the offer was for just baseball. I could have played both at UC Davis, but it’s Division II.

“I really wanted to go Division I, so I figured I would play both sports at a junior college a couple years then go Division I.”

His agenda was moved up when Sunny Hills football Coach Tim Devaney sent films of Overby to Colorado. The coaches were impressed, and invited him to walk on.

Overby was on the next flight to Denver.

“I was just sitting around, waiting,” he said. “Then, ‘Bam!’ I was gone.”

Landing at a Division I program wasn’t Overby’s only surprise this fall. An all-league outfielder at Sunny Hills, he planned to play baseball at Colorado, too.

There was only one problem--the Buffaloes don’t have a baseball team. Overby discovered this when he arrived on campus.

“I was second-guessing my decision about giving up baseball to stay here,” he said. “I thought about transferring because I was under the impression that they had a team.

“But with spring football out here, I wouldn’t have any time to think about baseball in the spring. But everyone back in Anaheim keeps telling me baseball is my best sport.”

A year ago, Overby and D.C. Olsen, a former football and baseball standout at Fullerton High, watched Colorado practice at UC Irvine before the Pigskin Classic. Overby wondered then if he could play college football.

“Those were some big boys out there,” Overby said. “Back then, I couldn’t imagine playing with them.”

Overby rushed for 849 yards last season and led Sunny Hills to the Division VI championship. When he came to Colorado, he figured he would play at running back.

But that also changed when he arrived in Boulder.

“They already had enough good running backs here, and the next thing I knew, they were throwing a defensive playbook at me,” he said.

Overby played strong safety in high school, but Colorado coaches moved him to cornerback.

“I said, ‘Say what?’ ” Overby said. “It was a whole new position for me. I was pretty nervous at first.”

He settled down by the last day of two-a-day practices, when he intercepted a pass by Darian Hagan during a scrimmage.

“I was covering Rico Smith, and the guy runs like a 4.2,” Overby said. “He beat me on the first step, so I just drifted back behind him. I saw Hagan point his shoulder toward him, and there it (the ball) was, right in my hands. It was a big confidence boost to me.”

Overby said learning the new position is “a challenge.”

“There’s a lot of technique involved,” he said. “But I feel like I’m in a groove right now.”

The move to Boulder has been a big change for Overby, who grew up in Southern California. Although the altitude hasn’t bothered him, the weather has.

The scenic campus, nestled at the base of the Rocky Mountains, gets hit frequently by thunderstorms in the summer and snowstorms as early as October.

“It’s really weird,” Overby said. “It’ll be hot one second and then it’ll be pouring rain the next.

“I can’t wait for the snow. Now that I’m here, I have to learn to ski. I just hope I don’t break my neck.”