Chase Budinger, the California Athlete of the Year and a McDonald’s All-American, will be the Wildcat’s guest of honor for his first week at Arizona, giving an inside perspective to the freshman’s start of school.

-as told to Roman Veytsman

I knew my day was going to be pretty stressful. I woke up at 7:30 a.m., got up, took a shower, and my first class was at 9 o’clock. My first class was Language of East Asia. I went to that for an hour and then I had to get put in my English class.

I had to wait in line for 45 minutes to an hour before I got switched into that. Then I had to run over and get some food because I was running out of time and I got a quick slice of pizza. Then I had to rush over to my NATS class, which was by the library. It wasn’t a far walk, but time was ticking. I took that class, then I had to get my books, had to go to Wells Fargo to make sure my scholarship check goes straight to my checking. I only got two books today, but I have to go back and get three more because you have to go to class before you buy the books.

After that I had to go to McKale (Center) to see (UA assistant strength and conditioning coach) Mark Hill for a body-fat test thing. It just shows you how much body fat you have and how lean you are. I don’t want to give anything out (laughs), but let’s just say I’m lean. He wants to put 10 to 15 pounds on me before the season starts.

After that I got to relax for half an hour to an hour and then all the guys started coming in, and we had a little barbecue thing. That started at 4 o’clock and all the athletes came to the gym, where everyone from sports was introduced to each other.

It was cool. You get to see all the different sports and their groups. Everybody was cool, the volleyball girls were cool, the football guys are pretty big.

Right after that – we already had our ankles taped, so we were almost ready to go – got our stuff on and came out and we started practice.

Today it was a little more nerve-racking when it finally came down to it. I had some nerves going into practice because I knew practices were going to start being tough. We did a lot of defense, a lot of basic stuff, but all the basic stuff was still pretty tough. I’m just trying to get in condition right now. They were trying to put some new stuff in, trying to run the ball more.

Lute wasn’t there today, he’s coming tomorrow. He’s at the Michael Jordan fantasy camp right now with a bunch of other coaches. (Assistant coach Jim Rosborough) led practice. He was good, all (the coaches) are good. Because I was the newcomer and I didn’t know much, I got a lot of input, so they always stopped things for me and taught me to do things the right way, so I’m starting to learn. (Assistant coach) Miles (Simon) is doing a good job with me, showing me all the little stuff to do. It was a good first day.

After practice, I’m going to take a long shower when I get back to the dorm and probably go to bed early.

I may play some video games for a half an hour. I play “”Halo”” and “”Halo 2.”” We have the old Xbox, but we’re going to be getting Xbox 360.