Center Trevor Rees learned he was academically ineligible to play at the end of spring quarter last year.

“I was a little upset,” he said. “But at the same time, I figured I did it to myself. There wasn’t really anything to be mad at or anybody to be mad at except for me.

“It just felt like I let a lot of people down: parents, teammates, coaches. It just made me want to work hard to get back.”

Rees, who was a Sporting News First-Team Freshman All-American in 2003, started 21 straight games in his first two years with Northwestern.

But all of a sudden, he was gone.

“When I found out, I was really disappointed,” senior guard Ryan Keenan said. “The center is the guy who makes the calls on the line; he makes the orders that we have to do in blocking schemes. Bringing in a new center right before the season was going to start took a lot more work.”

So when Rees went home that summer, he made getting back on the field into a full-time job.

The junior said he took 40 hours of classes a week over a month and a half at Houston Community College.

During the fall and winter quarters, Rees enrolled at Houston Baptist University and earned enough credits to be declared eligible by the time spring practice started.

“They were extremely long days and extremely long classes,” he said. “But it was something I did to myself so I was determined to work it out and make it right. If it meant going to school at 10 and leaving at 9, so be it.”

Now that he’s back with the team, Rees is feeling the effects of his 10 months away.

Even though he kept up a workout regimen on his own, Rees said it wasn’t the same as working out with the team.

Coach Randy Walker agreed.

“He’s got a long way to go,” he said. “He’s awful rusty, but he also started for two years and it’s like riding a bike: you don’t forget how to do it.”

Walker compared Rees to Austin King, the Atlanta Falcons’ center who played at NU from 1999-2002 and said Rees has great potential.

“I thought he was one of the best football players on our team. I thought he had a chance to be an All-Big Ten-level player,” he said. “He’s got that great balance that all good linemen have. He doesn’t fall down; he stays on blocks. If he gets himself the right conditioning, he can be very good.”

Even though he’s out of shape, the three weeks of spring practice have helped Rees get back into the swing of competition.

First-year offensive line coach Bret Ingalls said Rees’ experience helps the speed of his return to form.

“As we get going and we’re learning new things and doing some of the old things his experience allows him to understand what’s going on on the football field and he can react quicker to what the defense does,” he said.

Not all of Rees’ challenges come from

football.

He has to maintain his grades this quarter and take courses over the summer in order to be eligible for the start of the season in August.

Betsi Burns, Rees’ academic adviser, said she is proud of the progress he’s shown since returning to campus.

“He could have gone and played at another big football school,” she said. “But he chose to stick it out and work his way back here.”

Rees said he wants to prove that he can be a starter again and that he can make it academically at NU.

“I know I was making it harder than it was,” he said.

Reach David Morrison at [email protected].