After her
husband was arrested for drunk driving, Reese Witherspoon said; “Do you know
who I am?” and was arrested for disorderly conduct. The real crime? Being a
douche-bag celebrity who asks; “Do you know who I am?”
Here is an
interesting sports question:
What do Ashton
Eaton, Bryan Clay, Trey Hardee, Dan O’Brien, Dave Johnson, Tom Pappas, Steve
Fritz and Chris Huffins all have in common? They are US Decathletes who scored
higher than Bruce “Why am I such an ass-hat?” Jenner.
The greatest
athlete nobody ever heard of? Bob Coffman. Won the US Olympic Trials in the
Decathlon in 1980. The problem? We didn’t send a team to the Olympics in 1980.
Historically this Olympic boycott pans out as one of the most useless gestures
ever. It didn’t just screw the 1980 Moscow Olympics. It screwed the 1984 Los
Angeles Olympics because the then-communist countries boycotted it making both
watered-down token Olympics.
If I am an NFL
G.M.? I send a private jet to pick up London Olympic Decathlon Silver Medalist, Trey Hardee, and have him work out
primarily to see if he can a, catch a football, b, block. Then I do whatever it
takes/cost to sign him. Then do the same thing with Olympic trial # 3 finisher,
Gray Horn, #4, Joe Detmer, #5 Chris Helwick and #6, Ryan Harlen.
Hard pass on Detmer,
he only weighs 160.
But all of the
above have unusual all-around athletic skills that include speed and strength
and coordination. All know how to work out for many hours a day. Unless they
are unusually adverse to being tackled or tackling and blocking, - which I
seriously doubt because 99% of Decathletes are tougher than a Las Vegas 99 cent
all-you-can-eat buffet steak - they would at the very least be valuable special
teams players.
Many guys I
trained with at UCSB - circa 1980 - I know, without a doubt, would have been contributing
members to just about any NFL team, especially one Ron Wopat, a Lawrence
University Hall of Fame tight end.
No question the intangible skill of loving to hit and hitting hard is a huge factor, but I am sure many, many top Decathletes in the US played football or soccer or basketball at some point.
And there is at least one Hall of Fame football player who couldn't hit: Deion Sanders.
And I have been tackled really hard and I have run a really hard 1500 meters. Guess which one hurt more? 1500.
Hell, test most
of the Olympic top ten finishers. Most are over 6.2 and 200 pounds. At the time
he retired from the Decathlon, at 6ft, 203, Daley Thompson, would have been one
of the fastest guys in the NFL, a sure 4.4 forty.
Hell, my last
act as a 100% healthy athlete my senior year was running a 4.5 40 for football
right before I tore my hamstring, and my 100 meters at the Junior Nationals
Decathlon a month before at Cal State Hayward was only 11.5 hand-timed. Thompson ran 10.4. automatic.
Look at awesome Green Bay wide receiver Jordy Nelson at 6.3, 217. A decent track athlete in college. Ran a so-so 4.51 40, 31 vertical leap and 10.3 standing long jump. Those would be dreadful stats for a 7,000 plus Decathlete. Ashton Eaton scored over 9,000.
There is no
doubt in my mind most top-scoring Decathletes can clock a faster-than 4.4 40, bench
press 225 at least 15 times. Minimum 10.5 foot standing long jump and a 38-inch
vertical leap.
These are numbers that make NFL scouts sprout weapons-grade pine.