Whatever happened to Georgia's Jasper Sanks

Jasper Sanks finally became a pro. It just wasn't in the arena in which he expected.

Sanks' game used to be football. Nowadays, it is oil. Specifically, oil drilling. He's a junior engineer handling explosives for Pro Oil Fields in Houston. In his words, he "blows up stuff" for a living.

He's married with a couple of kids and has a nice house. He's a happy, happy man.

» For more on Sanks since his departure from Georgia, read the full story on MyAJC.com

But 13 short years ago, Sanks was a very unhappy man. He had come to the University of Georgia from Columbus as one of the top running back prospects in America. He left in 2001, shamed and disillusioned.

Sanks was kicked off the team for violating the Bulldogs' now-infamous, three-strikes drug policy. His unceremonious ouster came at the hands of coach Mark Richt with two games left in Sanks' senior season. As a result of that and a less-than-stellar college career, Sanks was not drafted nor did he even have a free-agent tryout with an NFL team.

Sanks' rise and fall as a football player — and the triumphant reconstruction project he executed to become an upstanding citizen — is the subject of an upcoming documentary.

The working title is a pretty good one: "Inches Away."

That heading provides the perfect metaphor for Sanks' football story. It embodies both the fact that Sanks came tantalizingly close to fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming an NFL player while also referencing the play that ultimately defined his career at UGA: the fumble against Georgia Tech in 1999.

Or as Sanks calls it, "the fumble that wasn't."

» What are Sanks' feelings on Georgia coaches and how he left the university? Read the full story on MyAJC.com