At the age of 25, Neil Gorsuch was hired by Byron White, the Supreme Court justice who long wished people would get over the fact that he had once been a star rusher, passer and punter at the University of Colorado, and who also was known to try to hire from Colorado.

People the New York Times spoke to said that Gorsuch’s Colorado roots likely helped him land the job.

“He did not serve as an editor on The Harvard Law Review,” an expert in Supreme Court law clerks told the Times. “Moreover, he ‘only’ graduated cum laude — which suggests that his grades might not have been as high as the typical Supreme Court law clerk.”

The Times story on Gorsuch’s professional path reveals that Gorsuch was assigned to clerk also for Justice Anthony Kennedy, beginning a relationship of which much has already been made.