Before Ryland Ayers signed his National Letter of Intent to continue his academic and football-playing days at The Citadel, Camden High head football coach Brian Rimph extolled the virtues of his former senior defensive back. In his introduction of Ayers to those in attendance inside the Camden High library for the occasion, Rimph may have been sending a thinly veiled message to student-athletes who sometimes tend to forget about the student part of the equation. For Ayers, whose final decision came down to making a choice between The Citadel and Wofford, his grades appealed to coaching staffs at those and other schools which recruited the three-year Bulldog starter.