It didn't take long for Lackawanna College head coach Mark Duda to realize he had a special player on his team when Mark Glowinski arrived in Scranton.

Just days into training camp of Glowinski's freshman season, Duda saw potential in his new offensive lineman.

"After two practices, I turned to Josh Pardini, our offensive line coach and told him that this kid (Glowinski) is going to be an upper level division one player," recalled Duda.

On occasion, junior college coaches will have players on their roster that rival the talent of an FBS level program. Glowinski wasn't recruited out of high school and had to take the junior college route in order to simply be scouted by division one coaches.

A few months after starting at tackle as a true freshman, Glowinski began to realize his own potential as a few programs from the MAC, Big East and ACC became interested.

During the spring leading into Glowinski's sophomore year, Duda finally shared his thoughts with the future division one standout.

"After my freshman year, we were doing conditioning and between reps of running back and forth, Mark Duda told me I was going to be an NFL player," said Glowinski. "I just wanted to get a scholarship so I could work my ass off, to have the opportunity to eventually play in the NFL."

Glowinski followed up a stellar freshman season at Lackwanna with a junior college All-American selection in his sophomore year. He also got the right scholarship offer and signed onto play at West Virginia as part of the 2012 recruiting class.

Following a redshirt season during his first year on campus in Morgantown, Glowinski went onto start every game for two consecutive seasons at right guard for West Virginia.

Now, just like Duda envisioned, Glowinski is on the cusp of becoming an NFL player.

The NFL Draft begins this Thursday and although he took a nontraditional route to the league, the six-foot-five standout is one of the top offensive guard prospects in America.

"My story helps. Seeing where I come from and the fact I keep going up the latter, big chunks at the time to get better helps," Glowinski said. "The NFL teams like that even though I was not able to go to division one right away, I eventually found a way to start at West Virginia and showed the potential to play in the NFL."

At West Virginia, Glowinski anchored the Mountaineer offensive line for position coach Ron Crook.

Crook joined the West Virginia staff prior to the 2013 season, so the year after Glowinski took his available redshirt season. When Crook arrived, he completely retooled the blocking schemes Glowinski learned while redshirting the previous season under former offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh.

Having been previously at Stanford and holding some ties to the power run game, Crook implemented change during the spring of 2013. At the time, out of all the linemen on the West Virginia roster, Glowinski was the first to understand the differences.

After his senior season, Glowinski was named as an All-Big 12 team guard selection and was invited to the East-West Shrine game, where he increased his draft status to another level.

"Seeing how far he has come, when you know his (Glowinski's) mentality it doesn't come as a surprise at all," said Crook.

And that's what hasn't changed throughout his long journey.

Glowinski has shown the ability to steadily improve from the minute he stepped on the practice field at Lackawanna College up through the entirety of the draft process.

"He'll work on his technique until the moon falls out of the sky," Duda said. "He does not consider anything to be tedious, okay. You can sense that with him. If you told him to get in a stance 100 times, he would go do it 100 times."

Just a few weeks after the Liberty Bowl and leading up to the NFL Combine in February, Glowinski trained at TEST Football Academy in New Jersey to better his workout numbers.

During the combine Glowinski finished as a top performer on the bench press as well as in the broad jump to improve his draft stock too. He followed his combine showing, with a solid pro day workout in March.

Since then, the Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots, Philadelphia Eagles and Tampa Bay Buccaneers have worked him out privately in Morgantown. Glowinski also has made visits to the Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints, and Seattle Seahawks.

Even during the stressful trips to meet with front office personnel, head coaches, position coaches and doctors with these teams, Glowinski has never stopped trying to improve. He always made time to work on himself.

In Glendale, Atlanta, New Orleans and Seattle, Glowinski made sure use every nook and cranny of tiny hotel gyms just to make sure he was staying in shape.

"Before I got on the plane leaving New Orleans, the gym at the hotel actually had some treadmills, some dumbbells and some pull down machines. I tried to get in a circuit workout where I could do some leg workouts and some upper body motion," Glowinski said laughing. "But, the machine only went up to 50-pounds, so I had to do sets of about 30 reps."

Additionally, he has stayed in contact with Steven Loney, an offensive line coach for the Dallas Cowboys, who also served as Glowinski's position coach at the East-West Shrine Game.

Glowinski will watch the draft with his family at home and is hoping to be drafted within the first four rounds depending on how fast the other guards on the draft board are selected.

The only opportunity he needs is one where he has a chance to succeed.

"I don't have a favorite team. I just want to be somewhere that my style fits the team," Glowinski added. "I'm going to compete and do the best I can. If that's me starting, then that's what it is. If I don't have a chance to start, I'll make the person ahead of me better."