He played college football for the Texas Longhorns, who won two NCAA national championships.
[citation needed] Atessis attended Jesse Jones High School, in Houston.
[3] Atessis was a member of teams which set a school record 30-game winning streak that currently stands as the twelfth-longest in NCAA history and was a three-year letterman and three-year starter at left defensive end,[4] including two years as a starter on the back-to-back National Champion Texas Longhorns teams of 1969 and 1970.
[5] He was voted Longhorn Defensive MVP by the Dallas Morning News and Houston Post both in 1969 and 1970.
[6] Texas Coach Darrell Royal called him a "[s]uper player, who hasn't played a bad game in three years.