|
|
| |
| Wed, Aug. 20, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
Two-stars are good, too Thursday, May 1, 2008 By Harry King LITTLE ROCK - Glenn Dorsey, Derrick Harvey, Keith Rivers, Jonathan Stewart, Lawrence Jackson and Kenny Phillips are in an elite group - five-star athletes who lived up to the hype and were taken in the first round of the NFL draft. Their feats and fame have been part of the landscape since they were teenagers. More intriguing is a group that includes Leodis McKelvin, Ryan Clady, Chris Williams, Aqib Talib, Chris Johnson and Dustin Keller. Out of high school, they were just guys, OK players who filled in the blanks on the recruiting list of one school or another. Johnson was the lowest of the low, awarded one star by a recruiting service. The others did enough to warrant two stars. The kicker is that Johnson and his lowly rated brethren also were selected in the first round of the NFL draft. I wanted to count cornerback Domique Rodgers-Cromartie as a two-star or less but Tennessee State commitments do not merit stars. Late-bloomer is the catch-all excuse for attaching two stars to a future first-round draft choice, but a closer look reveals stories of circumstances and opportunity. For instance, Williams' tale is movie-worthy. Beginning his senior season in high school, he was a backup. When the starting left tackle was injured, Williams became a starter and attracted attention from Oklahoma State, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech and Northwestern. At Vanderbilt, he grew to 6-foot-6 1/2 and added 70 pounds to 310. At Catholic High in Baton Rouge, coach Dale Weiner invokes Williams' name. "I've always used him when talking to kids about not giving up, not settling for being a backup and taking practice seriously or studying the scouting report because they're not a starter," he told the Chicago Sun Times in a story about the Bears' pick. Like Williams, Keller filled out late. Purdue signed him as a 6-3, 185-pound wide receiver, but he was moved to tight end and now he's a 242-pounder with a 38-inch vertical leap. Johnson was also signed as a wide receiver out of Orlando. He missed four games his senior year in high school and his claim to fame was running anchor leg on the fastest 4x100 relay team in the nation. At the NFL Combine, he clocked 4.24, tying the fastest time ever recorded since electronic timers came into vogue in 1999. "You can't be a household name if people don't really see you," Johnson said prior to the Senior Bowl. He had hoped to enter the draft last year, but he only started five games because of injuries and was told he would go no higher than the fifth round. "The game has slowed down for Chris from where he was a couple of years ago," East Carolina coach Skip Holtz told USA Today. "He was pressing to make things happen and he was frustrated." This year, he put up Felix Jones numbers - running for 1,468 yards catching 37 passes for 528 more, and returning kicks for 1,009. Talib's character might have cost him a star. Supposedly, he admitted at the NFL Combine that he tested positive for marijuana more than once while at Kansas. He also told teams that he has changed his ways since the birth of his daughter last year. He moved from Trenton, N.J., to the Dallas area and the best he could was make All-District. The fact that he was redshirted in 2004 indicates that he was not ready to make an impact. Last year, he was an All-American. Clady went to school in Idaho because none of the schools in his home state of California were much interested. At 6-6, 315, he is the first player to leave Boise State early for the NFL draft and Denver coach Mike Shanahan has said he will start at left tackle the day he arrives. He must be a svelte 315 because more than one eyewitness has said he can play at 335. McKelvin might have been bumped to a three-star if he had signed with a Southeastern Conference school instead of Troy of the Sun Belt Conference. Instead, he'll have to settle for being the only player from an Alabama school taken in the first round. ------- Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media's Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com. |
