In person he is captivating, earnest, possessed of an easy confidence, boyish features offset by riveting gray eyes, legs in constant motion, a true Sagittarian — always ready to rock and always ready to roll.

Were you a jock in school?

I don't think I was a jock, but I wrestled competitively for seven years until I turned eighteen. Wrestling is great because it's not a team sport, it's purely one-on-one. When a team loses, you can say it's someone else's fault. In wrestling it's just you and one other guy. It forces you to be mentally strong and totally focused on winning. It's a very tough sport. There's a lot of discipline involved, the whole training process, getting in shape, getting pretty intense when you have to.

How were you discovered?

I was hanging out one night at a club in Miami and this photographer approached me, gave me his phone number and told me he was interested in using me for a Guess shoot. I was a little hesitant, but I figured there was nothing to lose so I met with him, he did a test shot and hired me for the Guess campaign.

How old were you?

It was two years ago so I was 19, still in college, and here I was making $300 a day as a model, so I was pretty happy. I was so curious to see exactly what models looked like up close, and there were some pretty hot girls on the shoot so that was cool.

Did anybody notice when that campaign first appeared?

I was still going to college when the campaign first came out and it was in all the malls, everybody I knew saw it, so it was a pretty big deal. It was pretty amazing for my first job, because I never had to do a lot of the things guys usually have to deal with just starting out.

How did you end up signing with Jason Kanner (NY Models at the time, now Metro Men)?

I guess everyone just heard on the grapevine about this new kid, so there was a lot of interest — some people in Miami, a lot of agencies in New York were interested, and a couple of my buddies were lobbying me to join their agencies. Ultimately I decided to go with Jason Kanner because I already had friends with the agency, a couple of other guys I knew were going there and I felt I had people I could trust there.