It has 90k miles and has been driven fairly hard. I do double clutch when I downshift...maybe all that clutching wore something out early.

I checked and both the master and slave cylinders seem to be okay (not leaking). I also replaced the clutch fluid; the old stuff was really nasty but the new fluid didn't change anything.

I investigated the sound some more and I'm convinced it's coming from the clutch area. When I press too far I hear a slight rubbing sound and whatever is touching is causing something to slow down (and I can hear that) and then 'it' stops spinning -- once it stops spinning (and the sounds stops) is when I can no longer get my car into gear (unless I slightly let up on the clutch pedal...then I presume whatever stopped starts spinning again and sliding it in gear is easy again). I think I'm going to install something to make my pedal stop-point slightly 'higher' than it is now to avoid the noise. If anyone has an idea to what is actually going on in my cltuch please let me know! Thanks...