Combine provides spotlight, chaos

Lex Hilliard's professional football dream is about to unfold. But first, he must endure an absurd nightmare.

The Kalispell native is headed to next month's exclusive NFL combine in Indianapolis, where he will showcase his immense talents in front of nearly every important decision maker in the league.

No sweat, right?

Anyone who has watched the Montana Grizzlies since 2003 knows that Hilliard - UM's all-time leading touchdown scorer and second-leading rusher - is a tough, dynamic football player. But the NFL combine has little to do with football.

Hilliard will be weighed, measured, poked, prodded, timed, ogled and interrogated. The virtual cattle auction promises to be overwhelming - even for a beefy Montana man.

And that's the point. The NFL brass wants to see which prospects shine, and, more importantly, which ones fold under the greatest scrutiny of their athletic careers.

Team doctors will meticulously inspect every joint, muscle, bone and tendon Hilliard injured while in college. They also will question him about any falls he might have suffered while skateboarding in middle school or swinging from the monkey bars in kindergarten.

Such painstaking research is understandable considering the immense, potentially franchise-altering financial risk NFL teams take when drafting and signing rookies. But that reality won't comfort Hilliard when he wakes up from a short sleep to take the Wonderlic Test: a 12-minute examination featuring 50 bizarre questions and riddles.

I can hear the conversations now.

NFL scout: "Hey, coach, that Tech safety missed three math problems and misspelled four words."

Coach: "I guess he's not the player we thought he was."

The highlights - er, lowlights - from my 2003 combine experience are still fresh in my mind.

I was a fairly anonymous offensive lineman, projected by most draft "experts" as a mid- to late-round selection. When it came time for individual team interviews each night, I felt like the last kid picked in dodgeball.

I spent 11 hours at the hospital on one day alone, enduring a barrage of tests due to my myriad maladies at Stanford. At one point, I waited in line for an MRI next to the same Boston College defensive end who inadvertently tore my MCL on an interception return five months earlier.

We didn't talk much.

I even had to share a shuttle to the hospital with some scrub quarterback named Tony Romo.

I wonder what happened to him.

But I didn't feel sorry for myself alone. I also ached for a Miami running back named Willis McGahee, who hobbled around the combine campus on crutches after suffering a gruesome knee injury in the national championship game against Ohio State.

I wonder if he ever walked again.

I was particularly embarrassed for Seth Wand, a small-college offensive tackle who stumbled to the RCA Dome turf during a simple pass protection drill.

That pity vanished two months later when the Houston Texans snagged him in the third round, handing him a $515,000 signing bonus.

Despite the NFL's obsession with order, the combine is a long, disorienting game of Hurry Up and Wait.

I was awakened early one morning for drug testing, only to stand in line behind dozens of other sleepy, dehydrated prospects for more than an hour. It felt like the men's room line at halftime of the Super Bowl.

I had just enough time after my final workout to jog from the dome to my hotel room to grab my bags and rush to the airport - without a much-needed shower.

As I finished packing, I was told I needed to register my leg strength on a menacing machine resembling Ivan Drago's training equipment in Rocky IV.

I still made my flight (barely), and I even enjoyed an in-flight meal thanks to a sympathetic San Jose State lineman who gave me one of his hot dogs.

Still, the combine is a precious opportunity, especially for players like Hilliard, whose Saturday afternoon exploits weren't often aired on national television.

And as more and more big-name prospects refrain from combine workouts due to "nothing to gain" mindsets and the facility's notoriously slow track, the chance to dazzle scouts and executives with a monster performance is greater than ever.

Before Tank Johnson became a police blotter staple, he was a productive but lightly-heralded defensive tackle at Washington. Then, the 6-foot-3, 304-pounder ran the 40-yard dash in an unfathomable 4.69 seconds at the 2004 combine, launching him into the second round of the draft.

But workout results must be taken with a pinch of salt as all participants don't complete their drills in the same order. A speedy cornerback might flop in the hallowed 40 after exhausting himself in the broad jump, just as a high-flying receiver might be grounded in the vertical leap after running countless routs.

One of my top combine performances came in the 40, when I finished sixth among guards, at 5.09 seconds. My time edged that of Marshall quarterback Byron Leftwich, who went to the Jacksonville Jaguars as the No. 7 pick, commanding a guaranteed $23 million over five years, including $10.9 up front.

I always knew I should have played quarterback.

Greg Schindler is a sports reporter at the Daily Inter Lake. He can be reached by e-mail at gschindler@dailyinterlake.com or by calling 758-4463.