Obviously, Chris' past high school record means nothing to his career in the record biz today. But his poor performance did have an effect on his attitude and the direction his life eventually took. "When I moved down to Florida [from Clarion, Pennsylvania], I had to attend community college because I couldn't get into any of the schools because my grades were so bad," Chris winces. "But the minute I fell, I started college and started taking life seriously. I ended up with like a 3.5 grade point average, which I got to transfer over to an Ivy League school, and got a scholarship in music."

Wow! That's a pretty impressive comeback. Yet don't think that because Chris didn't excel at, say, pre-calculus that he was a total slacker. He did have a favorite subject, psychology, and he definitely kept himself busy with other high school activities. "In high school I played football, baseball and one year I ran track," he lists.

However, where Chris really made his mark in high school wasn't on the football team or in his psych class-it was in the kitchen! "I was in home economics my senior year because I needed an easy credit," he explains. "And I ended up winning a [cooking] competition, which was so embarrassing, because I'm sitting there playing football and I won this home ec award, some kind of show award, like where we make this big presentation and we got to go to Columbus [Ohio] for the state districts and do this thing."