Rough Draft: Big Mike Makes a Decision

In "Rough Draft," lawyer-turned-writer-turned-football-player Clay Travis recounts his experience training for the 2008 NFL draft alongside some future pros. The following is Part 4 of 10 installments (read Part 3 here) that FanHouse will roll out every weekday leading up to the 2009 NFL Draft on April 25.

As the days dwindle for Michael Oher (right) to decide whether to leave school early or return to Ole Miss, we end another workout and gather in front of the television. The Program, the 1993 college football movie starring Omar Epps, Halle Berry, and Craig Sheffer, as quarterback Joe Cane, is on the television.

For the first time I feel old since most of these guys were in first or second grade in 1993, when the movie came out. In fact, the majority of the guys haven't ever seen the movie before. As we watch, in one scene the starting quarterback, Joe Cane, complains because his father has never come to see him play a football game. Sitting in a large red chair to the left of the television, Big Mike Oher reacts. "Never come to see him play a football game?" asks Oher, scoffing. "I've only seen my own dad about four times."

What had been a loud locker room goes silent.

Eventually I break the silence and ask Oher whether his dad is from Memphis too. "Yeah," he says, "but I only seen him about four times, and he's dead now."

(Editor's note: The photo above is from Oher's appearance at the 2009 NFL Combine, not at the 2008 training camp covered here.)


The next day, for the first time in training, Kurt Hester brings out the ladder, a plastic contraption with holes in between the ladder grooves that football players use to work on their footwork. We run through a series of barefoot drills. Hester wants us to train barefoot every Friday because he believes this strengthens the arches, ligaments, and ankles of the feet. First we do two bare feet in each ladder hole at a rapid speed, then what everyone calls the Icky Shuffle (two feet inside the ladder space, one foot outside on alternating sides), and finally backwards, two in each. I do a decent job because I'm worried about Big Mike Oher rushing through directly behind me and knocking me out of the way if I'm not fast enough.

Oher's footwork and grace is amazing for someone of his size, and Hester calls out a compliment regarding his work on the ladder, "Big Mike has been taking the ladder out to the club and breaking it down. He throws it out on the dance floor and goes to it." Everyone laughs and Mike beams, lowers his head, leans over and grabs his shirt with his mouth. Hester continues, "I thought of that once because I was working with some girl's team at LSU, and they were all saying, 'you must be a great dancer.' And I said I wasn't, but if I could bring the ladder with me I'd be awesome. Just throw that son of a bitch out on the dance floor and break it down."

After the ladder, we close with barefoot sprints. We run the sixty-yard length of the indoor field, and then walk between the end zones. Marcus Monk is leading us and we're otherwise running in single file, while Kurt urges us on. One of Hester's tricks is that he doesn't tell us how many reps he expects us to do because he believes that we'll pace ourselves then, and not do as good of a job as we otherwise would.

Drained, we finish out with one-arm bridges, holding ourselves up above the field while Hester times us with a stopwatch. While we do this, a three-year old blond-haired boy joins our training and keeps trying to knock over Big Mike Oher. "You not strong enough to move me," taunts Oher. Eventually he lets the kid knock him over, and the two roll around wrestling on the ground together. Michael Oher is 21 years old, going on 8.

Kurt Hester stands leaning against the wall surveying the scene, "Guy's going to be a monster millionaire in the NFL, and he's just a teddy bear," Hester says, shaking his head.

While Michael Oher is well on his way to solidifying himself as a first round pick, Dorien Bryant, wide receiver from Purdue, is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Bryant's inability to work out due to his injury and his lack of commitment to the workout drills that he does participate in, has everyone nervous. At lunch while eating with Brad Cottam, tight end from Tennessee, and Caleb Campbell, safety from Army, Dorien Bryant's agent sits with us (all three guys share the Jimmy Sexton ARM agency as their representative). The agent, who will leave the Sexton agency before the draft, makes small talk for a while until Caleb finally says, "Why are you here in Nashville today?"

"I had to have my come to Jesus talk with Dorien," the agent says. "Tell him to start being a football player and quit being a p***y."

Bryant has an MRI scheduled for later in the day, and has been morosely walking around the facility listening to his iPod and talking to no one. Bryant, a New Jersey native with a quick wit and lacerating humor, has also angered a few of the guys he's training with because they think he talks too much trash. "Dorien's just pissing a lot of people off," says Caleb Campbell, "which sucks because I like the guy." For his part, Bryant, normally chipper and talkative, withdraws into himself. I see him sitting in the locker room watching old Martin television shows on his iPod video screen.

"Bookman," he says, "this show was hilarious."

But he's not laughing.

After lunch I get into a debate with Big Mike Oher about the upcoming Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants game. Oher is a Cowboys fan and wants me to bet with him on the game.

"You giving me points?" (The Cowboys are a 7.5 point favorite.) I ask.

"Naw, I don't never give any points. 100 bucks. Just straight up."

"You bet straight?"

"Always bet straight."

I tell him I'm not betting him straight up and Oher shrugs his shoulders. "I've already lost $300 this year betting against the Patriots three times. I only bet with people I know though."

Shortly after our near bet, I'm so tired from the workouts and drinking with the guys last night that I can barely stand. Along with Frank Okam, defensive tackle from Texas, and Ryan Karl, linebacker from Tennessee, we turn out the lights and take naps sprawled out on the couches and chairs in the locker room. I cover my face with my baseball cap and use clean towels as blankets. I sleep for over an hour and wake up to Kurt Hester standing above Frank Okam, burrowed like a big bear at hibernation amid the pillows on the couch.

"Frank!" screams Hester, "Did you drink beer or liquor last night?"

Okam pulls a pillow off the top of his head and groans loudly, "Yes," he says.


Our afternoon lifting session is accompanied by a huge storm that has spawned tornados across the state of Tennessee. Geoff Schwartz, offensive lineman from Oregon, is terrified, all 6'7", 340 pounds of him, of tornados. While we're lifting, he discovers that there's a tornado warning in effect for south of Nashville. Other guys pick up on his fear and start pausing during their lift and claiming that they can hear tornado sirens.

"Stop that right now!" yells Schwartz. "I've been through earthquakes but that's nothing compared to tornados." He sequesters himself away from everyone else and cocks his ear to listen for the sirens. Five minutes later I walk past him and he says, "Hey, if the tornado comes we've got to sprint over there underneath the bleachers (he gestures across the indoor field). That's the safest place in here. I asked already."

Schwartz, a mammoth left tackle, is a curious blend of personality traits, with the neuroses of a small kid who gets picked last for kickball, and the size of a giant born to play NFL football. Raised in Los Angeles, Schwartz grew up a UCLA fan, but chose to attend college at Oregon. While there, he began starting at right tackle as a sophomore and started for three years after that. But Schwartz has never left behind the small child with a stuttering problem. "Kids used to pick on me a lot when I was little. I worked really hard not to stutter. But when you're that young and you get picked on, sometimes you stay quiet when you're older, try not to draw attention to yourself."

Unfortunately given his size and weight, it's impossible for Schwartz not to draw attention to himself. Consequently when out at bars or restaurants, he often attracts a crowd, "I hate when people come up to me, poke me on the arm, and say, 'Hey, how tall are you? Or, 'How much do you weigh?' Who else gets asked how much they weigh at the bar?'"

Today's lift is focusing on bench press reps at 225 pounds. Frank Okam leads the group with 26 repetitions. In addition to his great strength, Okam is incredibly intelligent, scoring a 1290 on his SAT, graduating with a 3.9 GPA from high school, and recently graduating from Texas with a 3.5 GPA. As a high school senior Okam, a natural athlete who played football, basketball, and competed in track & field, was a five-star Rivals football recruit and the #2 rated defensive tackle in the country. Arriving as a heralded recruit at Texas, by his sophomore year Okam anchored the Texas defensive line in the 2006 Rose Bowl, sacking Matt Leinart in the 41-38 BCS title game that garnered Texas a national championship. The following season Okam was pictured alone on the preseason college football preview issue for ESPN the Magazine. Says Okam, "I had the hype back then."

It appeared certain Okam would be a first round draft pick, and that his future would include a signing bonus for millions of dollars. But in the past two years Okam's effort and intensity have been picked apart by scouts. From a projected first round pick at the end of his sophomore season, Okam is now uncertain where he'll be drafted. "I can't control any of that stuff," he says, "but people who say I don't try hard enough? They don't see me working."

Okam is from Houston, the youngest of three children with two older sisters. His father was born in Nigeria and died when he was eight. "He died while he was back in Africa," says Okam, "I remember he gave me the phone and told me I had to be the man of the family." Speaking slowly and softly, Okam stares at the ceiling, "I still think about him all the time, wonder would he be proud of me, things like that."

After his father's death, Okam and his family moved frequently from home to home. "We didn't have much money and I never had the clothes that some of the other kids had. They didn't really make fun of me because I was bigger than them, but I remember wanting a lot of stuff I didn't have."

Now Okam has the potential to prove scouts wrong and have everything he's ever wanted. He's one of several players who are preparing to depart for the East/West game the upcoming weekend. Turbo J. Leman, linebacker from Illinois, Craig Stevens, tight end from Cal, Geoff Schwartz, and Caleb Campbell, safety from Army, are all slated to leave training and decamp to Houston, Texas for the game and week of practice in front of scouts.

To prepare them for their departure, Kurt Hester has distributed a list of sample questions for the team interviews they might have at the East/West game. After lifting, the guys ask me for interview tips because several of them are nervous about their first meetings with NFL teams. We practice their answers to several hypothetical questions in the locker room.

The hardest question any of them have is assessing their weaknesses. They don't know exactly how to approach this, because as football players they've all been trained to overlook their weaknesses and commit their bodies so fully to the game.

We wrestle with the appropriate answer to the weakness question. Geoff Schwartz, Oregon lineman, confesses he gets angry at himself when he underperforms, and that he later can't stop obsessing over his mistakes when he should move on to the next play. Turbo Leman says that he considers his greatest weakness to be his lack of speed, but I counsel him against using that. "You want to give them something that you can improve on," I say, "think of something that's challenging to you but that you can conquer. Schwartz's is a good one because he can get better at that."

Leman nods. "What about this stupid hobby question?" he asks. "It's like they're just fishing to find out something bad about you."

As we finish the interview preparation, Jason Jones, defensive end from Eastern Michigan, arrives with boxes from Reebok. Today most of the guys have received luxurious free gifts from the shoe company-athletic socks and a black Reebok jump suit. Each of the players is ecstatic about receiving the free gear. When J. Jones arrives with the box from Reebok, all the other players immediately race out of the locker room to get their own packages. Then they tear into them like kids on Christmas morning. Packaging paper goes everywhere.

J. Jones, defensive end from Eastern Michigan, is ahead of the curve since he opened his package first, "Aww man," he says, holding up a pair of black Reebok track pants in front of his long legs, "these pants aren't going to fit." Undaunted he tries the track pants on and they do fit. Jones smiles broadly, as if he were just hand-fit for an Armani suit. "Perfect," he says.

Everyone else reacts similarly.

"These socks are awesome," says Cal tight end Craig Stevens.

On the doorstep to NFL riches, free athletic gear can still make everyone's day. As I watch them dig into their gifts all I can think about is how much different they'll be in five years if they're still playing football. New cars will replace socks, houses will replace track suits, everyone is close to moving on up. But for now the childlike glee is infectious.

J. Leman models his track pants. "I'm going to tell them," he says, "that my hobby is making money."


By Saturday morning of the first week, my hamstrings are aching from the starts and my left ankle is rolling and popping, somehow I've tweaked it. (I have no idea what I've done to it, but it will hurt for the next several months.) We begin with timing ourselves on the twenty yard pro-shuttle drill: five yards to the right and touch the line, then back ten yards to the left and finishing with the five yard sprint through where you began. Kurt Hester wants us to break down the pro shuttle into two primary movements. Today we're focusing on the first five yards.

You place your left hand down, put your right hand behind your back, and spring five yards to the right. Your first step is with your left foot and it crosses over your right foot as you begin. Hester stands at the five yard distance with his stopwatch. We're focusing on the first five yards, because, according to Hester, "If you can't get the first five yards in less than 1.5 seconds, there's no point in doing the rest of the drill."

We each go three times. Tennessee tight end Brad Cottam is first in line. Cottam, a lanky 6'7" tight end from Memphis who is the son of two collegiate swimmers, fires out of his stance and slaps the line almost immediately. It truly seems like he covers the distance in the blink of an eye. Hester shakes his stopwatch. ".9 f*****g 1," he says, "that's ridiculous." Cottam's time in the first five yards is better than everyone else's. "You got big gorilla arms," says Hester, "you're finished before you even start."

I'm the final participant each time. On my first attempt, my time is 1.34. Hester comments, "Bookman's gonna get paid at the combine too." The other guys grin and clap in response. My second attempt, I slip a bit on the start and get a 1.50. But on my final five yards, I post my best time, 1.18 seconds. Hester looks down at his watch, blinks twice fast, and then says, "Damn, Bookman was moving."

After just one week of combine training, I've learned an important lesson: my lateral speed is much better than my straight ahead speed. Which makes perfect evolutionary sense. If a tiger was chasing me in the jungle, I'd be better off running sideways.


After our five yard starts in the pro shuttle, we move to the second phase, the ten yard portion of the shuttle. We're to touch the line in what Hester calls the crab position (right hand reaching back to the line, left hand pointing towards the left line, squatted on our haunches with our left leg pointed towards the left line and our right leg sort of wedged up underneath us). The idea is that the crab position will allow us to spring out of our stances and explode across the ten-yard distance. As a practical matter, the crab is a hard position to hold. "Damn," says Frank Okam as he nearly tumbles over. "This shit hurts," says Monk.

Hester agrees, "Don't hold those positions for too long, just get the feel and get back up."

We do three timed sprints of ten yards from out of the crab position. The first timed sprint my time isn't recorded because someone else is being instructed. The next two times I get a 2.20 and a 2.02, the latter a good time for me.

Although Hester is displeased with everyone's times: "Y'all f*****g killed the first part of this, and now y'all aren't doing it right." We go over the crab position again until a frustrated Hester drags out the blue mats and puts us through the mat drill. We go over the mats frontwards, then backwards, then side to side. Shortly after we finish this, Hester spaces the colored cones out every five yards. It's time for more conditioning work. There's a collection groan from the group as we stand in line.

"How many of these we got to do?" asks Big Mike Oher.

"Twenty," says Hester.

Oher grimaces. When we finish everyone collapses on the field for a stretch. Sweat is pouring from me. My legs are shivering. The rubber bands used for stretching are a godsend. Eventually everyone rises and Jason Jones of Eastern Michigan leads us in a group cheer. "Make Money!" everyone screams with as much energy as they have left.

As the group filters away to the showers, I sit and talk with Kurt Hester near the weight room. His mouth is etched in a perpetual grimace and he's shaking his head, frustrated over our performance on the second portion of the pro shuttle today. The first thing he says is, "We need more time. I need an eight day week to get these guys ready." This statement flies in the face of all of Hester's comments to the guys thus far. He's told them constantly that they have plenty of time to get in shape. "That's not true, I'm just trying to keep them from getting stressed," Hester says. "We need to be nailing this stuff."

Hester also remains disappointed with Dorien Bryant's lack of participation in the training, and is looking forward to the MRI results. "In his mind Dorien thinks he's going to run a 4.3, but without the training can he do it? If he can, more power to him, but I don't know." To Hester, Bryant represents a new breed of athlete from the ones he began training for the NFL Combine over ten years ago, "It used to be just about the training, about getting better. Now it's about, 'where's the training going to be?' 'Is it a good city?' 'What's my apartment going to look like?' 'Can you get my girlfriend down here?' The expectations have changed."

As we speak Jason Jones walks over to Hester to quiz him about killing the alligator before a high school football game.

"It's true," says Hester, nodding.

Then he launches into a story about the time he tore a hamstring wrestling a big alligator and found himself trapped in a tree, hanging over a swamp, with an angry alligator beneath him, waiting for him to attempt his getaway. "That big ole Gator was going to eat me," Hester screams.

But before Hester can finish his story Mark Sutton, a 6'5" former college tennis player from Australia who is also assisting with combine training, walks up and co-opts the story. "That's nothing," he says, lifting his shirt, "this is where a croc got me when I was a kid." Sutton has crocodile bite marks above his left pectoral muscle and on his left back. "You got bit by a crocodile?" asks Jones, incredulous. Sutton nods, "See, you guys play Xbox and stuff. We messed with animals when I was growing up in Australia. Sometimes the Crocs bite you." Sutton shrugs.

I contemplate letting everyone know that I once returned a library book one week late, but decide better of it. After only one week training with Kurt Hester, pound for pound, there's not a single person I know I would pit against him in a life or death struggle. He's crazy, he wrestles alligators for fun, he'll scream and yell and fight anyone, but there's also not anyone I would rather trust with ensuring that my client performed as well as he possibly could come the NFL Combine.

But on this Saturday, we've just finished our first week and Hester is ready to cut loose, his wife is visiting town. "I told my woman she better get here quick, or I'll need to make a trip to the Bangkok Spa and get the happy ending," he says.


Over the weekend, it's judgment time for Big Michael Oher. As week two dawns, he has to decide whether to leave college early or return to Ole Miss for his senior season. Right now he's projected as a first round offensive tackle. Kurt Hester is still confident that Oher is leaving. "Oh, he's definitely out. Just a matter of announcing." But Big Mike is more sanguine. At Monday's workout he tells me hasn't decided yet.

But then on Tuesday, January 15, 2008, Michael Oher officially announces he's leaving the University of Mississippi a year early for the NFL. Jason Matthews, a former Tennessee Titans offensive lineman who works as the Nashville facility manager, kids Oher, "Darren McFadden got a press conference and all you got was a press release?"

"They got my name up there," says Oher, gesturing to the ESPN ticker on the television screen.

"Yeah, but they spelled it O-A-R," says Matthews.

Oher grins and heads to the workout. While we're working on training with the elastic bands, jab-stepping across the field, Big Mike gives lady advice to Marcus Monk, wide receiver from Arkansas.

"You're too picky on girls, man. You got to lower your standards," says Oher.

"How low?" asks Monk.

"Five."

Monk rolls his eyes. "How 'bout this, I'll go 10, but it's got to be two girls. I'll do a 7 and a 3, 5 and a 5. But not no 8 and 2."

"I used to chase after 2's and 3's. Back in the day I was happy to get a 2," Oher says. "But now I've upped my standards. I'm up to fives."

"You need to up those standards again, you're going pro now," I say.

Big Mike pauses for several seconds to consider, wrinkles his forehead in thought: "Probably so," he eventually drawls.

His first day as a pro is rather inauspicious for Oher. As he's training with a weighted vest he neglects to snap all the parts of the vest into place. On his first sprint, the vest comes undone and bangs up into his teeth, chipping a tooth. Oher stops abruptly, and runs his tongue over his tooth, "I can take a punch," he says, "but that hurt."

As soon as we finish this conversation, it's time for the guys to run their first laser-timed forty. All of the players gather around the starting point and stare at the lasers mounted on either side of the forty yard line on the field ahead. Ryan Karl, an undersized senior linebacker from UT, stares at the distance. "There's no way this is forty yards," he says, "we're running farther." He calls over former teammate Brad Cottam. "Brad look at this five yards, it's more than five yards."

Cottam grins, "I don't know," he says.

"It's forty damn yards," says their former teammate at UT, defensive back Antwan Stewart, "I marked that shit off myself." Ryan Karl continues to shake his head, stepping off the yardage. "It's further," he says.

"The laser is completely accurate," says Mark Sutton, the Australian man who was bitten by a crocodile as a kid, by way of explanation to the guys. "It doesn't play favorites."

The players begin to run. When they see their times on the laser, I can hear them cursing from the distance. Later Sutton pulls me aside, "The laser consistently times everyone .15 to .2 slower than the handheld times. After this, they'll work harder than they've ever worked." But for right now the players are getting nervous. After he runs a laser timed 4.82, Marcus Monk returns and says to no one in particular, "That mug is killing me."

At the end of the workout, we do slingshot work for the first time. You put on a belt and it's attached to Kurt Hester's waist about ten yards in front of you. There's a long elastic rope hanging between the two of you. Hester stands out front and counts to three. On three you both take off and the elastic band between the two of you tautens. He's running slower than you are so eventually you're supposed to slingshot past him. The goal is to get your body used to moving at a faster speed than it's otherwise used to moving. And it works really well ... in theory.

The first time I attempt it, I start in a three point stance (with my hand on the ground) as opposed to in a two-point stance (standing) as we're supposed to do. As a result, on the count of three, I almost tumble over when Hester starts. When I eventually reach him far down the field, Hester shakes his head, "The idea," he says, "is for you to pass me."

Everyone does three sets of these. After my second set, I ask Hester whether or not he's getting tired. He's breathing hard and sweat is covering his body. "Tiredness is all in the mind," he says. "If you don't think you're ever tired, you're not actually tired." Later I share this with some of the guys. "Kurt Hester is one crazy dude," says Monk.

Hester recovers from the slingshot training to have us work on our lateral movement. The idea is that we're to keep him from getting past us without using our hands. He's basically trying to fake us out with his body movements. His long blond hair is flying around his face, and several of the guys say he looks like Steve Nash. He manages to twist up Brad Cottam which brings howls of laughter. "Steve Nash crossed him over," says someone.

For the first time we do an actual football drill, we're to backpedal and then Hester points the football in a direction and we have to change direction and run that way. Everyone, even the linemen, execute this drill seamlessly from the get-go. Everyone, that is, but me. On my first turn I stumble badly. "Bookman just got beat deep," someone calls. It takes me a few turns, but then I've got it down. By the time we finish we're ready for lunch, where the first bad news of training arrives. In two parts.

First, Turbo Leman has lost his spark. He's been on painkillers since an injury he suffered in the Rose Bowl. His prescription runs out the day before he's to leave for the East/West game. The next morning his ankle immediately balloons to the size of a watermelon. Even worse than that, Leman can't walk on the ankle at all. He calls his agent, and the agent agrees to fly him to see a specialist at Illinois. We don't have the results yet, but the injury is serious enough that it looks like Turbo Leman may not be able to participate in most combine drills. He's probably not returning to workout with us.

As if that weren't enough bad news, Caleb Campbell, safety from Army, has injured his hamstring at the East/West game in Houston, Texas, and will be unable to compete in the game or most of the drills all week. Worse, he'll have to rehab the hamstring as he attempts to prepare for the combine. Worst of all, he'll have to do it at West Point because he hasn't been given leave to be away from the academy any longer.

At lunch Hester is fuming about Campbell's injury. "I talked to him and he told me the way they warmed them up down there. It's freezing, and they're f*****g cold-stretching them on the field. That type of training is fifty years old." Hester continues, "Just once I'd like to have a group of guys that's completely healthy, that doesn't get them sent off to play in these stupid games where they get injured. I have to rehab these guys while training them for the events. It's impossible." Hester slams down his glass harder on the table than he needs to. "It just makes me so mad some of the guys that do the training."

Later we work on our verticals. Hester lays out a series of metal stands of increasing height. He instructs us to land on both feet and then immediately spring over the metal stands without bending our knees. I'm last in line so I have plenty of time to watch Big Mike Oher at 6'5" 330 easily completing the drill, Brad Cottam, tight end from Tennessee at 6'7", 270 springs easily between the stands as well. None of the guys bend their knees. They look like they're jumping on pogo sticks. Then, it's my turn.

I tested at 21 inches in my vertical. Which is bad. But that was only one jump. This time I have to do a series of jumps. The first two passes go fine. On the third pass, I clip one of the hurdles, knock it over to howls of delighted laughter behind me, and then have to side-step twice to avoid taking down the next two hurdles.

Hester is ready with commentary. "Y'all can see the hurdles are different sizes because people like Bookman here have knocked them over in the past."

Big Mike drapes his hand on my shoulder. "Bookman," he says, "you a trip."

It's to be the last thing Big Michael Oher says to me, the next day he returns to college and renounces his decision to turn pro.

Kurt Hester takes it particularly rough, "I talked to him at 9:30 this morning (Wednesday January 17th) when he was riding the bike and he told me everything was cool." (Large men are required to participate in what Geoff Schwartz and Frank Okam call "fat man workouts" early in the morning before training actually starts. These workouts are low intensity and involve riding the bike or walking on the treadmill to lose weight.) "Then before we could even get to the pool (Wednesday is the pool workout) he called me and said he was going back to Ole Miss. He was already in his truck on the way back there, before I could get back here."

Hester tells me this as we eat lunch. He's agitated over losing Mike. "Houston Nutt (Ole Miss's new coach) was calling him, Patrick Willis (former Ole Miss linebacker who was a first round pick of the San Francisco 49ers) was calling him. They were all trying to scare the shit out of him. Telling him he was going to be a third round pick at best. It was bullshit, he's a first rounder now and he'll be one again next year. But they were telling him he had to come back to be a first rounder. Mike's such a good kid he hates to make anyone unhappy." Hester pauses and stabs at the chicken on his plate with his fork. "I hope it works out for him but dang it -- he was ready. He was working hard, he'd lost a lot of weight. I think he got a little scared and they convinced him to go back."

Hester pauses a bit longer, stares ruminatively at the ESPN television screen where Oher's return to Ole Miss is already being reported. "I just hate losing a guy who is going to do well at the combine. I feel like I've failed him even though there was nothing I could do. Mike was going to do great at the combine, he'd lost 22 pounds. His footwork was excellent. He was going to be a first round pick. Guaranteed." Hester stabs his fork at his plate once again. "I just hate to lose a kid," he says.

The reaction in the locker room is similarly stunned. "Hey, yo, Bookman, we lost one, Big Mike's gone," says Marcus Monk as I enter the locker room later that day. Oher's locker is cleaned out, vintage Air Jordan sneakers gone for good. Only his nameplate is left. Purdue wide receiver Dorien Bryant steps into the conversation, "I saw him grabbing his shit out of his locker and I was like, 'Big Mike what you doing?' And Big Mike was like, 'I'm outta here. Going back to college.' I thought he was joking, but he's gone.'"

One of FanHouse's newest additions, Clay Travis is the author of Dixieland Delight and the forthcoming On Rocky Top: A Front-Row Seat to the End of an Era. For several years he wrote the ClayNation column for CBS Sportsline, worked as an editor for Deadspin.com, and practiced law, where his love for the billable hour rivaled only his love for the WNBA. He's convinced that his 40 time is much better than yours.