Stanford football walk-on gets scholarship, reaction melts your heart

 By 
Sam Laird
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Walk-ons are the unheralded heroes of college sports, players who bust their tails in practice every day just like the big stars but never play any meaningful minutes and have to pay their own way through school.

This even holds true at Stanford, where undergraduate tuition alone (not counting living expenses) costs more than $45,000 per school year.

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Those two facts combined are what make the video below so special. Watch as David Shaw, coach of the 21st-ranked Cardinal, surprises senior walk-on Craig Jones -- a 6 foot, 223-pound linebacker from Modesto -- in front of the entire team by telling him he's being put on scholarship.

The surprise announcement is great -- but Jones' reaction with his teammates is what really brings the feels.

Watch walk-on senior @CraigJones_30 and his teammates react when @CoachDavidShaw announces that he's on scholarship. https://t.co/qXO1Dymy3W— Stanford Football (@StanfordFball) August 28, 2015

Jones, for his part, tweeted this afterward:

Never thought I'd see the day— Craig Jones (@CraigJones_30) August 26, 2015

College football season kicks off soon.

BONUS: 25 of YouTube's Funniest Sports Fails

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