By Keith Schleiden
April 22, 2008

The following feature about the uphill battle faced by small-school prospects in each year’s NFL draft was written by editor-in-chief Keith Schleiden, then a senior editor for PFW, after he went on the road to watch prospects try out for NFL scouts and coaches. The feature was originally published in the May 1997 issue of PFW.

Ronnie Anderson is telling a story, making a point, dreaming a dream.

He knew a guy who came out of college and had a dream, much like Anderson's own, of playing at the highest level of football one can play — NFL football. Ronnie's friend was not drafted. He went to a training camp. He didn't stick. The friend tried to make it again the next year. He was cut once again. On and on for several years the friend did his best to achieve the dream.

Ronnie finds himself in a similar situation now. A little-known wide receiver out of a little-known Division III university in Pennsylvania trying to make it into the well-known NFL, Ronnie knows the odds are stacked against him. But he doesn't want to hear about odds, and he doesn't want to hear that he can't make it. He is adamant about continuing his football career.

"It can be done," says Ronnie, leaping out of his seat. "It's a question of whether you want to do it."

He wants to do it, but not many people in the world of football know who he is. He knows that, even if he is drafted, he will be one of the players whom fans don't get excited about when they see his name scroll across the bottom of the TV screen. Ronnie who? And he knows that he will not earn the riches bestowed upon a high NFL draft pick. He doesn't care. You can see it in his eyes and hear it in the way he speaks. He just wants his shot. He is negotiating for a chance, not a better signing bonus.

"Do you want to make the minimum, which is $131,000?" asks Ronnie rhetorically. "Which isn't bad. Do you want to do that?"

He answers his own question immediately. Pounding on the table with his fist, in rhythm with the words he is speaking, Ronnie bellows in his best Cuba Gooding Jr. impression: “Show me the minimum! Shoooooow meee theeeee minimum!”

It is the last week of March, less than a month before the NFL draft, and scouts are busy crisscrossing the country, evaluating prospects. In between the stops at the Colorados and Florida States and Virginias of the world, brief stops are made at lesser-known, out-of-the-way schools. These small schools, competing below the Division I level, don't have the best facilities. They aren't known for producing NFL-caliber players. They aren't seen on TV. These schools feature players competing against all odds, just trying to get noticed. They want their shot too, just like the better-known college players who are already busy planning Draft Day parties.

There will be 30 players drafted in the first round on April 20. There will only be 240 players drafted in total over the weekend. There are approximately 6,000 draft-eligible players every year. You do the math. There will be thousands upon thousands of players who have played their last football game. But a few small-college players just asking for a shot are not willing to give it up.

Pro Football Weekly went on the road to experience firsthand the effort made by these lesser-known athletes struggling for a place in the National Football League.

Sunday afternoon, March 23, 1997

Anderson, OT Dave Rilatt and Anthony Cowsette have a lot to fear. They are gathered in a conference room adjacent to the Villanova University gymnasium. Sitting around a table with a reporter, they are eager to explain what it is like to try to rise above the small-college stigma and make the NFL.

Ronnie Anderson

Rilatt is far from his school — the University of Maine — but close to his hometown of West Chester, Pa. Rather than traveling to some warm sand beach in Florida for spring break, he has come home to work out for any NFL team that will see him. At 6-6, 310 pounds, Rilatt will be considered for the next level just because of his size. He has drawn interest from the likes of the Lions, Eagles, Giants, Jets, Dolphins, Panthers and Packers. But, for the most part, he has had to take himself to the team in order to get a look, like some unknown politician going door to door in search of support and an open mind. There just aren't that many teams that will tell a scout to head four hours northeast of Boston to work out a small-school prospect.

At ease on his own university's campus, Cowsette talks about his dream of playing in the NFL. He is already well on his way to earning his MBA, but those letters are not the ones he wants to be associated with at the moment. He is most interested in the letters N, F and L.

"I'll do anything," says Cowsette, who scored 32 touchdowns for Division I-AA Villanova last season. "I'll long-snap. I'll block the field goals. I'll kick the field goals, even though my foot's not that good. If they have any unmet need, I will fill it."

As the group talked, the subject of not getting a chance kept coming up. Each is confident of his abilities, but none has as much faith in the fact that people know about them.

"When someone walks through that door to test us, we're gonna be ready," says Rilatt. "I'm not afraid of the actual workouts. I'm afraid of not having the exposure somebody from a Notre Dame, somebody from Penn State is gonna have over me."

Anderson is the most boisterous of the group. A well-spoken English major who dabbles in poetry, he is confident that he will "make the 48" — meaning he will be a member of the active roster on an NFL team next year. But he knows there are no guarantees.

"You've got to be afraid," says Anderson. "If you're sitting there, saying you're not afraid, it's a bunch of bull. In the long run, all your work, all your dreams, all your hopes, all your prayers, all the nights that you went to the weight room on Friday night and your buddies went out — you're busting your ass because of a goal."

Anderson related another story, about how hard it is to get noticed as a small-school player. He had workouts scheduled for March 7 and 21 in Erie, Pa., not too far from his college campus. The workouts are in Erie because Allegheny doesn't have adequate facilities to host an NFL workout. The personal workout days were made known to all NFL teams, yet not one scout was there at 1 p.m., the scheduled time of the workout. By 3:30 p.m., on both days, no scouts had shown. Anderson worked out anyway and then headed back to campus, discouraged but not defeated.

While each of the three players is unique, and has shown in college — albeit at a lower level of competition — that he is an excellent athlete and performer on the football field, each shares the same small-college stigma.

"They're gonna come in already with the stipulation that he's a small-time player," says Cowsette of the scouts who work him out. "So you have to work even harder and try to impress them a little bit more. You have to run a little bit faster than the average running back at a big college. You have to lift a little more weight than the average running back."

Stan Drayton, who failed to make the NFL after coming out of Allegheny in the early 1990s, coached Cowsette at Villanova. He knows personally of the hardships a small-college player faces.

"Unfortunately, they're pretty far back," says Drayton. "They're not playing on TV every week. They (scouts) figure that they're not playing against the kind of competition that the Nebraskas and the Michigans play against every week, and, it's true, they're not. It's a different-caliber athlete, and these kids need to recognize that. But I think the pros need to recognize, and I think they do now, that there's a diamond in the rough everywhere you go."

Tuesday morning, March 25

Bengals DL coach Tim Krumrie pokes his head into an office in the Virginia Union University football building. He has DT Dwaine Robinson with him, and he is assuring one of the school's coaches that the workout won't be too long or strenuous.

Virginia Union is a predominantly black college in Richmond, Va., with an enrollment of 1,300 students. It is hardly considered a must-see school for most pro scouts, but, this spring, things have been a little different around the football building. Robinson, a 6-3, 290-pound defensive lineman who recorded 16½ sacks in 1996, has attracted the attention of NFL teams like few small-school players do. Krumrie, who has been on the road scouting for nearly a month with only weekends at home, is in town for a one-on-one meeting and short workout with Robinson.

There is no suitable place to hold the workout at Virginia Union, so Krumrie, Robinson and a reporter pile into the Bengal coach's rental car and head across town to Virginia Commonwealth University, where the two will get to know each other better on an AstroTurf field.

Then-Bengals DL coach Tim Krumrie demonstrates proper technique to Virginia Union DT Dwaine Robinson at a personal workout in Richmond, Va.

Krumrie and Robinson are in the front seats of the car, their huge frames filling the majority of the car's interior. As Krumrie drives and chats with Robinson, he occasionally realizes that he has no clue where he is going. Robinson is eager to point the way to what will be one of his many personal workouts for NFL teams.

As the group is searching for a parking space adjacent to the field, Robinson is asked if he is nervous at all, considering he is moments away from an evaluation that will most certainly affect his draft status. Robinson shakes his head no and says he feels fine about the workout.

"He played defensive line," says Robinson. "I play defensive line. So I think we're gonna get along perfect. I usually get along with football people anyway."

Krumrie parks the car. Illegally. There is a shortage of open spaces near the field, so he tells the reporter his job is to keep an eye on the car, to make sure he doesn't receive a parking ticket.

Today Krumrie will be running Robinson strictly through a series of position drills, and he says he will explain everything he asks the player to do. There will be no stopwatches at this workout.

Robinson stretches. And stretches. "Sometimes the stretching takes longer than the workout," jokes the jovial coach.

When his pupil is ready, Krumrie instructs Robinson to run along one of the yardage markers, first slowly, then faster. Then he wants to see Robinson's burst. The player runs slowly and then shows how quickly he can accelerate. The drills continue, with Krumrie watching intently, all the while giving instructions. At one point, the two men are engaged in a battle, pushing their huge bodies into each other, testing Robinson's moves and strength.

"You're getting tired, huh?" asks the 21-year-old Robinson.

"No, I'm fresh." laughs Krumrie, whose 12-year playing career ended in 1994.

Both men are clearly breathing hard.

After the drills are over, Krumrie tells Robinson he did a good job. Everyone gets back in the car, which did not receive any citations, and the jaunt back to Virginia Union begins. Along the way, Robinson spies an Amoco station and asks Krumrie to stop for a moment so he can buy a Gatorade. Krumrie obliges.

While Robinson is in the store, Krumrie talks of Robinson's chances.

"You don't like to build false hopes," says Krumrie, who noted that, when he came out of college, he was told he would be taken in the second round but was not drafted by the Bengals until the 10th round. "You tell them they did a good job. You don't know where they will be picked. You don't ever like to say where. You just like to say they'll be part of the league."

As the car makes its way back to the Virginia Union campus, Krumrie is asking Robinson for directions again. This time he's looking for the best way to get out to the interstate, as he has to get back on the road. There are more prospects to see.

Tuesday afternoon, March 25

Virginia Union assistant head coach Luther Palmer is sitting in his office, explaining the difficulties of being a small-college player trying to get noticed by the NFL.

"I don't think the scales balance," says Palmer, who played in the NFL briefly himself. "You've got to help sell them because, if you don't, they'd never get a look. A lot of these scouts that come in here, they go off that top 300 or who is designated by the Combine scouts. They are great football players, but some of these guys get overlooked. But, if you take a deep look at some of these people, man, some of these people can play. Some of them can really play."

Ravens scout George Kokinis (holding stopwatch) times Virginia Union RB-WR James Brayboy in the 40-yard dash at a workout in Richmond, Va.

"I got a kid named Joe Williams" says Palmer, marketing like he says he has to. "He runs a 4.29. You need to time him. He led the country in kickoff returns. He played corner for me. He's not a big boy, but he's strong."

Although he's in Richmond to scout Robinson, Kokinis agrees to give Williams a look. Along with Williams and Robinson, four other long shots dreaming of NFL careers are allowed to show their skills for the Ravens. As Kokinis says, no stone goes unturned.

Kokinis conducts the workout with the aid of something called the "black box," a device used to measure agility and quickness. After a battery of skill drills that included running, jumping, sprinting, twisting and turning in a campus gymnasium smaller than many high school gyms, the six athletes and Kokinis file into various cars to head over to the same Virginia Commonwealth field that Robinson had visited earlier in the day. There they will be timed in the 40-yard dash, one of the most-used measuring devices in football. After all, if you can't run, you can't play.

The players spend about 10 minutes stretching and practicing their starts. Kokinis, meanwhile, is measuring off the 40 yards with a tape measure. He is taking into consideration whether the route is uphill or downhill, and whether the players will be running with the wind or against it. Every little factor can mean a tenth of a second, and a tenth of a second can determine the difference between a draftable player and a career as an insurance salesman.

Kokinis is not the only one measuring off the 40 yards. Robinson and a few of the other players appear skeptical. They pace off the distance, checking up on Kokinis' work.

The scout, shaking his head with a smile on his face, turns to the reporter and says, "I've been doing this for six years. I worked out 450 players last year, and they're questioning whether I can measure off a 40?"

The players are now milling about near the starting spot. Kokinis is stationed with his stopwatch at the finish. Before giving the go-ahead for the first player to start, he warns the athletes that he isn't like some of the 100-year-old scouts conducting workouts for some NFL teams; Kokinis notes he can see 40 yards and will know if they are moving up their starting position by a few inches to gain an advantage.

One by one, the six players run their 40s. Williams, the 5-6, 150-pound player Palmer urged Kokinis to time, whizzes over the distance. CB Tyrone Laster, screaming as he runs, is as loud as a freight train as he crosses the finish line. Robinson, by far the largest of the prospects, looks like the incredible hulk as he motors over the 40 yards. Each wants to know his time immediately, but Kokinis won't divulge the information until each player has run the distance twice.

After securing the times, Kokinis gathers the players together for a little powwow. There he tells the players their times and lets each know how they did in the drills back in the gym. He lets them know what they did right, what they did wrong, gives them words of encouragement. And then he leaves, back on the road, off to another school.

The players leave, too, heading back to their small-college campus. They are left to wonder if they impressed the scout from the Ravens. They are left to wonder if they jumped high enough, ran fast enough. They are left to wonder whether they made an impression big enough to make their phones ring on Draft Day.

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