After receiving a letter in the middle of the day last Friday, Nassir Sims called his mother to surprise her with good news that would bring her to tears.

“It totally came as a shock,” Sims mother, Kendra Lewis said. “He called me out of the blue, and I was at work and I looked at my phone like 'oh my gosh what happened?' He never calls me out of the blue like this unless its something major and he was just super excited.”

Sims, the junior defensive linemen for Desert Edge High School, had received his first Division I football scholarship from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“It was an overwhelming experience for me,” Sims said. “I just never expected to get it this soon.”

Later that day Desert Edge went on to win its first game of the season where Sims was a huge part of the team’s success.

“He controls the middle of the defense,” coach Jose Lucero said. “He commands double teams most of the night and frees up our linebackers.”

The win was big for Sims and the team after starting off with a disappointing 0-2 record.

“It was really, really a blessing to get that information and for them to go on and get their first win,” Lewis said.

While this blessing was a first for the family, people around the team don’t believe that it will be the last.

“You get that first (scholarship) and schools start coming in on you,” Lucero said. “I would imagine this peaks the interest of other schools.”

Sims has already been looked at by others colleges but he hasn’t allowed that to distract him from his goals.

“The coaches have been telling me that other schools have been looking at me but I just haven’t really paid attention, or I’ve been too eager to ask,” Sims said. “I’m too focused on (playing football), getting school done, going home and being successful.”

While Sims isn’t asking his coaches about what specific colleges are looking at him, there is one school that peaks Sims’ interest—the University of Georgia.

“I really like Georgia. I have a lot of family out in Georgia,” Sims said. “I dreamed of going there as a kid and playing there because of the atmosphere and the culture out there.”

There will be many factors that go into Sims' decision about where to attend college with academics perhaps being the most important one.

“We have to see if there is a program that he wants to study in,” Lewis said. “Even though it is a scholarship for football, we want to make sure they have something to offer him academically.”

At the moment Sims and his mother are just enjoying the moment.

“To see him be happy and to be proud of his own accomplishments,” Lewis said. “It’s really heart warming.”