In March 2013, two Highland Park High School gyms were in use. One was the site of a powerlifting meet, the other a practice for the Scots basketball team. Mark Howeth, then the football team’s defensive coordinator, peered into the basketball practice, and watched a sophomore tangling under the glass with the Scots’ 6-foot-8 senior center … and holding his own against his older, larger teammate.

A few days later, Howeth pulled Mitchell Kaufman out of chemistry class with an invitation: Howeth wanted Kaufman to join the HP football team.

Linebacker Mitchell Kaufman has grown up an SMU PonyFan, attending games on the Hilltop with his parents, who are SMU graduates (photo by Kaufman family).

“He saw me play (basketball), and I guess he liked what he saw, because he asked me to play football, and at our school, that’s a pretty big deal,” Kaufman said. “I hadn’t played football since seventh grade, but when he asked me to, I said, ‘I guess I’ll try it,’ and it worked out pretty well.”

That it did. In his only season of high school football, Kaufman — who now carries 220 pounds on a frame he said is “almost 6-4 ... at least 6-3.5” — became a fixture in the Scots’ defense right away, collecting more than 70 tackles from his outside linebacker position. He also intercepted four passes, three of which he returned for touchdowns; he pulled one in with one hand because of the cumbersome cast he wore over a broken left hand for the first four games of the season. In just one season, Kaufman became one of the Scots’ top defensive players, earning enough respect on his team that he is the lone defensive player named a captain for the upcoming season. Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine named him its preseason selection to be the 2014 Defensive MVP in District 10-6A.

Should he have an even better senior season, the argument could be made that one reason for his continued success is that he doesn’t have to deal with choosing where he will play his college ball after committing recently to sign next February with SMU.

“I always kind of pictured myself there — it was always my top option, even without football,” Kaufman said. “My parents went there, and I have grown up an SMU fan, going to SMU games. My dad is always on PonyFans.com — anything that happens in football or basketball, he has it up, reading about SMU.

“It just made sense. The school is great, the coaches are great … it just made sense. I wasn’t closed to the idea of anything else, but it just always kept coming back to SMU.”

Kaufman said he has offers from Colgate and Holy Cross, as well as opportunities to play at several Ivy League schools. Baylor and Kansas State have shown “a lot of interest.”

“I’m solid” to SMU, Kaufman said. “It’s nice that those schools are interested, but I don’t have any interest in going anywhere but SMU. I’m done with recruiting.”

With two parents who are SMU alums, it’s no surprise that his choice was well received at home, although he said his parents never pushed him to go to their alma mater.

“My dad was really happy,” Kaufman said. “Mom supports anything I want to do, but she’s happy, too. (The decision to attend SMU) was warmly welcomed.

“I really focused on academics from the beginning, and some of the schools that recruited me are great schools. But I was born and raised in Dallas. Moving to the northeast … let’s be honest, there’s no sweet tea or Tex-Mex. You’ve got to focus on what’s important, right?”

Dietary preferences aside, Kaufman received more encouragement to follow in his parents’ academic footsteps.

“(Freshman SMU offensive lineman and Highland Park alum William) Barns has been after me a little, asking what I was going to do, when I was going to commit,” Kaufman said, “and (Highland Park head) Coach (Randy) Allen went to SMU, too. He told me how great it was for him. He never told me I should go there, but he was really enthusiastic, really excited when I told him I committed.”

So what kind of player is SMU getting? In the Scots’ 3-4 defense, Kaufman is utilized as a standup outside linebacker, sometimes dropping into coverage, but more often blitzing off the edge. His 4.51 (40-yard dash) speed allows him to close quickly on the ball carrier, and his long arms, basketball timing and 33-inch vertical leap have allowed him to make his knack for leaping into the air to knock down or intercept passes into something of an art form.

Kaufman, who just turned “a fresh 18,” said he does not know if he’s done growing. His father stands 6-3, but his grandfather is 6-5. Whether or not he gets any taller, he plans to add bulk to his frame before he arrives at SMU next summer, eyeing somewhere between 235 and 240 pounds.

If the academics, proximity to his family and his overall affection for the football program weren’t enough reasons, Kaufman said that the chance to play for SMU defensive coordinator Tom Mason, who recruited him for the Mustangs, was another major attraction.

“He is the exact kind of guy I was looking for,” Kaufman said of Mason. “I have watched some practices, and he’s cool — he wasn’t yelling, but he’s always teaching. He makes it a great environment for you. He’s fun, but everyone knows he’s the man when it comes to that defense. He didn’t push me — he knew I was really interested, and he gave me the time to make my own decision. I really appreciated that. He let me make my choice when I was ready.

"It was always SMU.”