Quickly, what do Jordy Nelson, Clay Matthews, Logan Mankins, and J.J. Watt have in common?
All began their careers as walk-ons in college before making it big in professional football. Actually, Watt began as a tight end at Central Michigan before he returned to his home state of Wisconsin to play for the Badgers.
Watt is now the best defensive player in the NFL after being branded a 2-star athlete coming out of high school. So, remember these names, high school seniors, if you're a lightly recruited athlete with a desire to play college ball.
Too short, too slow, too stiff, and just not good enough.
Those were some of the remarks Justin Hardy and Scooby Wright heard when they went searching for a team after high school. Wright was particularly stung by an evaluation after attending football camps at California in the Pac-12 Conference.
"I went to all the combines and the camps, performed really well," said Wright, who played high school football in Santa Rosa, Calif. "I knew I could play and I was waiting for a team that believed in me. They told me to go to Sacramento State."
Nearly 3,000 miles away, Hardy also faced rejection on the east coast after graduating high school in North Carolina. His only scholarship offer came from Fayetteville (N.C.) State, a Division II school near his hometown.
Fast forward to last week's award ceremonies, where Hardy and Wright are the latest to show how the star-system for high school athletes is overblown.
Hardy was in Springdale to accept the Brandon Burlsworth Trophy for the best college football player who began his career as a walk-on. Those early rejections fueled Hardy (6-foot, 188 pounds), who became a record-setting receiver at East Carolina after beginning his college career on the scout team. He'll play in the Senior Bowl after the Pirates face the Florida Gators in the Birmingham (Ala.) Bowl.
"Having that chip on my shoulder in the reason I'm here," Hardy said after being presented the Burlsworth Trophy by the Springdale Rotary Club. "Some of the same things he (Burlsworth) went through, I went through, just going from a walk-on to a starter to a team captain."
Arizona struck gold by offering Wright (6-1, 245) a scholarship after he was turned away by his favorite team in California. The sophomore linebacker was recently named the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year and he won the Bronko Nagurski Award as the nations' top college defensive player.
Not bad for a California reject whose twitter account reads @TwostarsScoob.
"It just burns him," Phil Wright said of his son's early rejections. "It's not that he's vindictive. He's just always trying to prove people wrong who said he couldn't do it."
Most Sundays in this newspaper recruiting junkies can read about Arkansas trying to land top high school prospects. Many of the players are identified by whether they're considered 5-star, 4-star, or 3-star prospects. Guys like Scooby and Justin aren't mentioned because people from Rivals.com and Scout.com have labeled them 2-star recruits and more worthy of places like Arkansas-Monticello, Southern Arkansas and Ouachita Baptist.
Most of the time they're right, but not always.
Arkansas' recruiting class in 1994 included in-state stars like Made Hill of Malvern, Grant Garrett of Lake Hamilton, and Tyrone Henry of Rivercrest, but not Burlsworth, who decided to try and make an impact with the Razorbacks as a walk-on.
Boy, did he ever.
Burlsworth was an academic ace who became an All-SEC player in 1998 and an All-American in 1998. He was drafted in the third round by the Indianapolis Colts before being killed in an auto accident near Alpena.
The Burlsworth Trophy is now named in his honor for all of those who refuse to be defined by a star system that rates high school athletes. Justin and Scooter are award winners who've shown the will to succeed is far more important than how stars are attached to your name.
RICK FIRES IS A SPORTS WRITER FOR NWA NEWSPAPERS
Sports on 12/14/2014