Million-dollar maybe: One-tenth of a second
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Doug Lesmerises
Plain Dealer Reporter
The confused repairman stands in the lobby, waiting to be directed toward the broken heater at Speed Strength Systems Inc. in Euclid. He can wait. He has time this Monday morning.
Across the lobby on the other side of a glass partition, the value of time rises exponentially.
There, exploding down a 40-yard strip of green artificial turf, future NFL draft picks know that one-tenth of a second could be worth a million dollars.
All over the country for the past six weeks, from Atlanta to Phoenix, from Orlando to this chilly warehouse complex off Euclid Avenue, college football players have consulted a specific brand of workout expert, preparing for the NFL Combine that begins in Indianapolis on Wednesday. They have been focusing on technical details and training their fast-twitch muscle fibers in drills that have little to do with making them better football players.
"That's not really the point -- can it make them better football players," said trainer Eric Lichter, who runs Speed Strength with his partner Tim Robertson. "But there can be a huge result. The tangible result for a first-round guy to move from the 27th pick to the 20th pick could be a couple million dollars."
One of the quickest ways for a player to improve his draft stock is by dropping his time in the 40-yard dash. Though Lichter estimates 80 percent of a player's draft value is determined by how he played in college, the $1 million tenth of a second does exist as the best of the best are separated.
"It's literally true, it is worth that much in a signing bonus and draft position," said Loren Seagrave, the founder of Velocity Sports Performance, which operates 61 training centers in the U.S. and Canada, including one in Mayfield Heights. More than 90 football players have been working out at their facilities.
Ohio State safety Donte Whitner is a prized client at Speed Strength, where he first worked out five years ago while still playing at Glenville High School. When Whitner and cornerback Ashton Youboty turned pro after their junior seasons at OSU, even Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel said their draft fates would come down to the combine.
A bad time may even do more bad than a fast time does good. When OSU's Chris Gamble turned pro after his junior year two years ago, he was talked about as a possible top 10 pick.
After running a below-average 4.54 in the 40 while working out for scouts in Columbus, he was picked No. 28 by Carolina. Gamble agreed to a $9.1 million, five-year contract with a $2.75 million signing bonus.
The No. 10 pick in the draft was another cornerback, Dunta Robinson. He signed for six years and $11.4 million with Houston, including a $4 million signing bonus.
They have been equally solid pros, but Robinson has the monetary edge.
"Gamble cost himself millions of dollars," Lichter said.
Whitner wants to go the other way and open some eyes. He said if he runs a 4.6 40 at the combine, he will be no higher than a fourth-round pick. If he runs a 4.3, he thinks he will go in the late first round or early second round. Several weeks ago, on his third 40 of the day after squatting 375 pounds, he ran a 4.39. He likes his chances.
"I know it affects your draft status a lot," Whitner said. "I'm thinking about that every day."
The quest for that extra tenth grows more sophisticated each year. Seagrave helped start combine training more than a decade ago with the International Performance Institute in Bradenton, Fla., which now serves only clients of the Cleveland-based agency IMG. Among the experts working with IMG clients is Michael Johnson, a five-time Olympic gold medalist in the 200 and 400 meters. In Columbus, two-time Olympic track medalist Butch Reynolds returned to his alma mater, Ohio State, where he not only worked with the football team during the season, but has been tutoring Buckeyes such as Mike Kudla and A.J. Hawk in their combine prep.
Seagrave scoffs at the old notion that speed can't be taught, insisting that by cocking a player's foot in the right way and retraining his nervous system, speed can be gained.
"We're teaching them to be more like a super ball than a bean bag," Seagrave said.
For other combine drills, like a shuttle run and a test where players weave around three cones in about four seconds, the training can be very specific, down to counting strides and advising which hand to put down first on the starting line. The training is shaped so the athletes peak at the combine, with the plan never to be that fast again.
"They aren't trying to hold that level of performance," Lichter said. "Getting ready for the combine is a completely different animal than getting ready for camp."
Players might not understand exactly what they're doing or why they're doing it. They all know you can't just show up in Indianapolis in front of 32 NFL general managers and run. So in Euclid, 25 players paid between $100 and $175 per day over six weeks for the expertise offered by Lichter and Robinson.
"It's a big deal, but I still don't see what it has to do with what you do on the field," said safety Nate Salley, who was a senior captain for Ohio State this season. "If you like me better than another guy on film, why is my 40 going to stop me from making an extra million dollars just because some guy ran faster than me? I don't know where all this came from, but it's important now, so that's why I'm here working on it."
Salley, a savvy player and respected leader, isn't likely to set the combine on fire with his numbers. He's better when judged in total as a teammate, so his stance makes sense.
Other players, such as Cleveland Heights grad Barry Cofield, who played defensive tackle at Northwestern, are more eager to be judged alone.
"A lot of times you get forced into a box based on what your coaches want you to play, but scouts see you running and jumping and they see what kind of athlete you are," Cofield said. "You have those GMs in the stands, it's just like a professor staring down at you. Pencils or cleats, it's all the same, you've got to perform on a test, you've got to perform at the combine."
A great test can only earn you an "A." A great combine can earn you millions. So everyone has been cramming.
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