Check day

Sporting News, The, March 27, 2000 by Terry Frei

When draft prospects work out for NFL scouts, they know their wallets will get fatter as their 40 times get slimmer. TSN goes inside the workout of a pair of highly regarded Jackson State players with something to prove.

It is primary election day in Jackson, Miss. Judging from the yard signs and the campaigners handing out fliers on virtually every corner in the neighborhood around Jackson State University, the District 5 city council race in the state capital has been emotionally contested--and neither neutrality nor apathy is a viable option. Even the NFL men in the rental-car caravan are handed campaign fliers as they ask for directions.

The Nazareth Lee Missionary Church, a tiny brick building across the street from the Jackson State gym and football offices, is the polling place. Each time an NFL visitor spots the jammed parking lot at the gym and pulls into a space in front of the church, a woman nicely asks them to move. Please, she says, they are trying to keep the front of the church clear for the cars of elderly voters. Can the visitor park down the street? Or wait until a spot opens up in the lot next to the gym?

She always wins.

The lot across from the church is full because the few spaces not taken by students have been nabbed by guys with stopwatches and clipboards who are in Jackson for an NFL workout day. They have come to take another look at the draft-eligible players from Jackson State and nearby Mississippi College, although their focus will be on the Tigers' two elite prospects--wide receiver Sylvester Morris and cornerback Rashard Anderson. At times, both players have been trumpeted as potential first-round draft picks. But the NFL men aren't entirely sold on either one, which is why this is a day of enormous significance for both.

Morris and Anderson participated in workouts at the February scouting combine in Indianapolis, where their speeds were underwhelming. Their electronic times in the 40-yard dash both were right at 4.6. Had the draft been held that weekend, Morris probably would have gone no higher than the bottom of the first round and Anderson would! have been a second- or even third-round pick. Neither player was happy with his showing, and Both were eager for a chance to show their Indy times were aberrational.

What they both indisputably have is talent and size. The wide receivers in the Randy Moss-Cris Carter mold are coveted, and so are the big cornerbacks who cover them. Morris caught 63 passes for an average of 18.1 yards as a senior. Anderson didn't get much action on his side, but had seven interceptions in his two years as a starting corner.

The evidence of their draft status isn't necessarily the number of NFL men--about 30--who end up watching them. It's the nature of the number. There are executives, such as the Chargers' Bobby Beathard and the Ravens' John Wooten. There are a handful of position coaches. There are the scouts, the men who have been doing the legwork all along. And then there are friends and family.

Sylvester Morris Sr., 44, is carrying a new video camera to tape his son's moves. He is a New Orleans union electrician, and the way he says "Local 130," you can tell the "union" part is important to him. HIS wife and Sylvester's mother, Cynthia, is a school bus driver.

All this seemed inconceivable when Sylvester Jr. was an obscure tight end at McDonogh High School in New Orleans. His father didn't allow him to play football until he was a junior. "My parents didn't spare the rod," Morris says. "Everything was structured to keep my focus on school and the church."

Sylvester Sr. says it was simple: Until his son had roughly a B average in the classroom, he wouldn't play football. "If he had a C, I figured it would drop to D if he played football," he says, "and that would have meant he was about to fail. That would not have been acceptable. I wanted to keep him focusing on what was important in his home, and that was his life in Christ."

He barely got off the bench his first season and wasn't very good as a senior. Ultimately, only Jackson State recruited him. "I told the coaches they wouldn't be sorry," Morris says, "and that I would make the most of the opportunity."

The turnout on workout day reconfirms that he did.

Many of the scouts and coaches show up long before the scheduled 2 p.m. session. They touch base with the Jackson State coaches and look at tape. Some pass the time by looking at the bulletin board and the media guides, where there are sobering reminders of the tragedies for the Tiger program in the past year. Walter Payton, the most famous of the school's many elite football alumni, succumbed to liver disease and cancer; head coach James "Big Daddy" Carson died of colon cancer.

Two scouts, the Chiefs' Jeff Ireland and the Raiders' Bruce Kebric, are the primary liaisons with Carl Roberts, Jackson State's gregarious offensive line coach and the organizer of this session. In the gym shortly before the workout, Kebric tells Morris and Anderson they'll be high draft choices regardless of what happens today. But this is a "check day," he says, meaning it could drastically affect the figure on their paychecks. That could make them relax. That could add to the pressure. That is part of the test for both Morris, the city kid, and Anderson, who was raised in Forest, a small town about 50 miles east of Jackson.