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Player Looking To Go: Pro
Other Positions Played: Wide Receiver.

• Immokalee High School: 2000 - 2004
  McIntosh Nicolas eases his feet, clad in shoes signed by Oakland Raiders defensive back Phillip Buchanon, into the starters blocks. He stretches his lanky arms forward and steadies his stance as the afternoon sun glows on the Immokalee High track.
  His hands move back to the starting line. His back end raises up and he shoots out from the blocks, head down, legs pumping.
  
  He does this several more times, this ritual that takes only a few seconds to complete yet is essential to the senior sprinter from Immokalee.
  
  Nicolas is one of the best high school sprinters in Florida, a three-time state champion.
  
  Everyone knows that.
  
  Everyone wants to beat him.
  
  He knows that.
  
  So he admits that, even with his blinding natural speed that earned him three state sprint titles and a football scholarship to the University of Florida, he needs to practice. He wants to finish his high school track career on a triumphant note, and a state full of prep sprinters want to spoil it for him.
  
  The Edison Relays weren't the way Nicolas wanted to start the track season. He finished second in the 100- and 200-meter dashes at the Fort Myers event, both times losing to Riverdale's Chevon Walker.
  
  He makes no excuses and says the way he lost, running 10.95 seconds in the 100, was what burned the most. He won the 2003 regional title running 10.23 seconds and the state title running 10.83 seconds.
  
  "My times were terrible," Nicolas says of his Edison Relays performance. "That's what made me mad at myself."
  
  The speed is always there. At the Edison Relays, he had a bad start out of the blocks in the 100 and was running last before one of his trademark bursts put him in second at the finish. It's the technical side of running, the little things like running form and the way he comes out of the block, things that can shave a tenth of a second, that he must practice.
  
  "He's got to get focused," Immokalee boys track coach Bernie Martinez says. "He has to understand that it's not just going to come to him."
  
  Nicolas' attention was other places during a whirlwind winter season. There were colleges — from Florida to Louisiana to Michigan — to visit and major Division I football programs to choose from. He finally decided on Florida, where coach Ron Zook called him the fastest athlete he had ever timed.
  
  Nicolas also decided against playing basketball this year, a choice he admits affected his conditioning.
  
  "It felt like such a big break," he says. "When I played basketball and then went to track, I'd have a couple of days off, maybe a week.
  
  Not going straight from basketball to track, it felt like I didn't play sports at all."
  
  Nicolas needs to get into condition faster than before. The Florida High School Athletic Association shortened the track season this year, meaning fewer practices and fewer meets. Immokalee girls coach Bridgette Toombs says the clock is ticking.
  
  "We just don't have enough time this year," she says.
  
  Martinez says Nicolas is showing signs he's returning to his groove. He ran well at the Red Knight Relays in North Fort Myers, and Martinez says Nicolas should become more focused as the postseason draws closer, as he always has.
  
  "He always works harder at the end of the season," he says. "I don't think he likes getting beat."
  
  Nicolas says he doesn't want to look bad in his last race, either, because he knows people will be watching. When he won the 200 as a sophomore, it was from out of the blue. Winning the 100 and 200 as a junior showed the state he wasn't a fluke. This year, he'll be expected to dominate.
  
  He knows many family members and friends will be at the state meet to watch him. And, since the meet is at the University of Florida track in Gainesville, several future coaches and teammates might stop by.
  
  "That might help me," he says with a grin. "I think I'd like that, to tell the truth."
• Immokalee High School: 2000 - 2004
  Talk about it in the Message Boards
  At this time every year the news is sprinkled with articles about top signees of Division I football programs either learning of news that they will qualify or deciding to take an alternate route to D-I football. ACT and SAT scores are delivered for the last time in June and final grades are posted for a handful of signees hoping to make the qualifying score. As final academic information arrives, college coaches watch their scholarship numbers go up or down.
  Naples Daily News
  
  Look fo Wide Receiver McIntosh Nicolas to be back on the D-I scene in a couple of seasons.
  The risk of over-signing your recruiting class, signing more prospects than you have scholarships, is having more than 85 scholarship players show up for preseason camp. Someone will have to go home or it will be a major violation.
  
  Not all universities allow their football programs to over-sign and many may put a limit on the number. Over-signing is more about strategy than risk. Only prospects that have a legitimate chance of qualifying are considered for signing a NLI and usually all at-risk signees will have a plan B. Top Florida signee, McIntosh Nicolas, is going to Dodge City Community College in Kansas after he learned his last ACT score wasn’t high enough for him to be an NCAA qualifier.
  
  According to the Naples Daily News, Florida coaches told Nicolas they would scholarship him when he leaves DCCC.
  
  "They were extremely positive and supportive," said Nicolas who is a two-time Florida state champion in the 220-yard dash.
  
  Going to a junior college is the typical scenario for players like Nicolas. As a non-qualifier, the NCAA requires these players to graduate from the junior college meeting certain g.p.a. and hour requirements before gaining eligibility for Division I football.
  
  Strategy for over-signing might be to hold one scholarship for three at-risk prospects gambling that only one of the three will qualify. If more than one qualifies, you have to hope for attrition on the team either naturally or with some assistance.
  
  Arkansas signed seven at-risk prospects and today announced that four of them will not qualify. Three of them will go the junior college route and the other will attend a prep school.
  
  Over-signing gives a program the ability to get the best possible talent in its recruiting class and for some programs, the chance to get a talented player they normally wouldn’t be able to sign.
  
  For McIntosh Nicolas, if he takes care of business in Kansas, he will be back in the D-I spotlight with more than just Florida knocking at his door.
  
  What do you think about schools over-signing? IC Convention IC Staff Meeting Premium Board
• Toronto Argonauts: 2007 - 2008
  The Toronto Argonauts opened training camp about two weeks ago. A few of the names football fans in the United States might recognize:
  
  Eric Crouch. Former Heisman Trophy winner.
  
  John Avery. Former Miami Dolphins bust.
  
  Michael Bishop. Former Davey O'Brien Award winner.
  
  Not such a household name is McIntosh Nicolas. Not outside of Immokalee, Fla., anyway.
  
  And Nicolas, truth be told, isn't a former anything just yet. OK, so he's a former state champion in track. And a former University of Florida signee.
  
  But Nicolas sees his March 30 signing with Toronto, the most storied franchise in Canadian Football League history, as his beginning. He sees it as the first step toward the NFL -- where he always envisioned himself. He sees it as his chance to start becoming a name you know.
  
  So do the Argos.
  
  "He is a skilled athlete who is young and raw," said Greg Mohns, the assistant general manager. "I took him because I suspected he was someone we could groom. I would be in hopes that a year from now you've got a very polished player who's been exposed to a high quality of football."
  
  To date, the legacy of Nicolas, 22, is one of nonfulfillment. He signed with Florida out of Immokalee in February 2004, but he never played a down of Division I football.
  
  The receiver's route to pro ball has been like something drawn in the dirt. He spent one season at Dodge City (Kan.) Community College as a redshirt and two more at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, Calif., where he accumulated 31 receptions for 479 yards and three touchdowns.
  
  Two junior colleges in three years. Not exactly a pipeline to NFL riches.
  
  But the fact that the Argos took a flier on him speaks to his uncanny athletic ability. They saw the same qualities in his game that then-UF coach Ron Zook and the Gators once did.
  
  Namely, they saw speed.
  
  "Some of the guys call me 'The 4.2' sometimes," Nicolas said, speaking of a reference to the 6-foot-1, 180-pounder's time in the 40-yard dash. "There are some other players with speed, but I'd say I have the best out here."
  
  From the beginning, the ability to run fast has taken Nicolas places. It took him to three state track championships in high school -- two in the 200-meter dash and one in the 100-meter dash. It took him out of Immokalee, where the Haiti native settled with his family two decades ago.
  
  It almost took him to the SEC.
  
  Nicolas chose the Gators after earning all-state recognition as an Immokalee senior. Had he met Florida's academic requirements, he might have been part of the 2006 national championship team.
  
  "I looked at the game," Nicolas said of Florida's rout of Ohio State in Glendale, Ariz., to win the title. "I was trying to figure out where I'd fit in if I was there."
  
  All along, Nicolas hoped for a comeback route. He hoped to spend one season in Kansas before returning to play for the Gators, who promised a scholarship would be waiting for him.
  
  Instead, he ran a fade. All the way to Canada.
  
  "This is a different culture," Nicolas said, laughing. "It's all new to me."
  
  And then there's the game.
  
  In Canada, it is 12-on-12. The field is 110 yards long and 65 yards wide. Offenses have just three downs to move the chains. Multiple men are in motion on every play.
  
  Nicolas is learning the rules as he goes. All the while, he is learning a whole new playbook.
  
  "They're moving me around to see where I fit in," Nicolas said. "The biggest problem I have is the plays. I have to know what every receiver does on every play."
  
  Then again, Nicolas wouldn't be here if he didn't think he could handle it. He took the leap to pro ball because he believed it would provide him exposure -- at least, more than a small college somewhere.
  
  But first, he must earn his keep.
  
  The Argos, who open the regular season on June 28 in British Columbia, will have an active roster composed of 21 non-imports (Canadian players) and 21 imports. They will also have a four-man reserve roster and a seven-man practice squad.
  
  As the youngest player in camp, Nicolas still has a lot to learn. But he's doing his best to keep up.
  
  And move ahead.
  
  "He's done some good things for us," Mohns said. "We're looking forward to seeing what happens the rest of the way."

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