Meet market: say hello to Larry Brackins, the only junior college player among the 332 invited to to the NFL Combine. He needed more than good interviews and a favorable weigh-in—he needed to get noticed

Sporting News, The, March 11, 2005 by Dennis Dillon

His wakeup call comes at 5:30 a.m. Good morning--and oh, by the way, please provide us with a specimen for the mandatory drug test. After breakfast, he goes across the street to the RCA Dome to run the physical gantlet. Eight different rooms, all occupied with a gaggle of team doctors, who seem to push, poke and probe every muscle, bone and tendon of his 6-4, 205-pound physique.

Then he is shuffled off to a hospital for blood work. It is the first time he has been stuck with a needle. ("I was cool with it," he says later.) Next on the agenda: meeting the media at the convention center. He manages to sneak in a 2-hour nap before dinner. Then comes the tour of teams--nine interviews this Friday night (there will be 11 more on Saturday)--before the day ends, finally, at 10:45 p.m.

Welcome to the NFL Scouting Combine, Larry Brackins.

Held every February in Indianapolis, the Combine is the prelude to the NFL draft. It is a seven-day marathon in which teams can learn more about the nation's top prospects through medical examinations, personality evaluations and individual and position-specific drills. Players must take physicals and interview with teams, but many bypass exercises such as the 40-yard dash, the vertical jump and the shuttle runs, electing to wait until pro workout days on their college campuses.

Not Brackins. Though he has scheduled two pro days in March, he has come to the Combine to perform. Like a hungry newborn, he seeks attention. Of the 332 players invited, he is the only one from a junior college.

He was supposed to be here by late afternoon on Thursday, but his departure from Gulfport, Miss., is delayed because of a mechanical problem with the plane. After a stop in Memphis, he doesn't arrive in Indianapolis until 9 p.m. By then, he only has time for the Cybex test, which measures the flexibility and strength of one's joints, and to be issued his workout gear, which includes a gray sweatshirt with a "WO35" (wide receiver, No. 35). And he has time to have his eyes opened wide.

Brackins doesn't realize the magnitude of this football pageant until he sees some of the owners and coaches he recognizes from TV. He also sees several of the other 40 wide receivers, including some of the well-known players from big-time colleges. But he is enthused, confident and determined. By the end of the weekend, he hopes, everyone will know the name of a 22-year-old wideout from Pearl River Community College in Poplarville, Miss.

"I think I'm going to surprise a lot of teams," he says, a few days before the Combine. "They really haven't heard too much about me or seen me like a Braylon Edwards (of Michigan) or a Mike Williams (of USC). I'm going to show them I can do the same things. I'm going to make a big impact up there."

The scouts already know something about his skills. All 32 teams have a highlight tape of Brackins, courtesy of his agent, James "Bus" Cook, of Hattiesburg, Miss. Brackins is in good company because Brett Favre and Steve McNair are among Cook's clients. It doesn't take long for Bus' buzz to gather momentum. Now, the teams want to learn more.

They pepper Brackins with questions on Friday night. Could you tell us about your family? "It was tough because my mom was a single parent raising seven kids, but we managed." Why are you coming out early? "It's an opportunity to help my family financially." What routes do you like to run? "Quick hitches, comebacks and streaks."

The Dolphins have Brackins draw up plays to show them how he would run a 10-yard dig route against a cover 2 defense and a post pattern against a cover 3. They ask him to demonstrate how he would break the jam against press coverage.

The Packers ask him to rate his hands on a scale of 1-10. Without hesitation, Brackins gives himself a 10. One of Green Bay's coaches says he counted 18 passes that Brackins dropped last season. Ouch.

Now, at the end of this long day, Brackins sits in the quiet of a nearby restaurant--long since deserted--and flashes a smile. He is looking forward to his workout, still almost 36 hours away. 'Tin real excited to work out and show them that everything they've been talking about is real," he says. "That I'm just as good as any other receiver in the country."

So, how does one get from there to here? How does Brackins get from the "peanut capital of the world"--one-fourth of the nation's peanut crop is harvested within a 75-mile radius of Dothan, Ala., his hometown--to this big football stage in Indianapolis? In a straight line, the distance is 590 miles. But Brackins doesn't fly like the crow.

Let's start near the beginning. The penultimate sibling in a brood of four girls and three boys reared by Karen Dawsey, Brackins is 9 when he first puts on football pads for a peewee league team. He wears the uniform of the Falcons--white helmet, shoulder pads, red-and-white jersey--on Sunday afternoons, which he spends watching NFL games on TV and playing football in the living room. His favorite player is Jerry Rice. "He'd say, 'I'm going to be just like him some day,'" recalls Dawsey, a custodian at a Dothan recreation center.