Draft Dodger

Draft Dodger

Tonight, Thursday, begins the NFL Draft.  Not Saturday, or Tuesday for that matter.  The NFL Draft, where eligible college stars get selected by NFL teams to become pro football stars, used to be held on Tuesdays in April before 1988.  During high school, knowing I was a huge football fan…and I wasn’t SUCH a bad kid…my Mom would allow me to stay home from school to watch.  This was WAY before the Internet, mobile devices and what not…so television was my only option.  No one understood my addiction then, Mom, friends and football fanatics alike.  I was the original football Draft-Nik…before Mel Kiper Jr. cornered the Aqua Net market.

They say hindsight is 20/20…I say, she has much better vision.  Looking back over the years, I have had a few opportunities to get in on the ground floor.  This is one of those times…

Cable TV came to Valley Stream in late 1979 and a fledgling sports channel came along with it.   ESPN, 24 hour sports…and I was a teenager...and had more than a few hours to kill.  I would watch their offerings of Australian Rules Football and Bass Fishing, switching back and forth with MTV (remember when the V meant Videos?).   In 1980, this little known sports network asked the NFL if they could broadcast coverage of the NFL Draft live.  Although the NFL did not believe it would be entertaining television, I disagreed.  Wow, TV and the NFL Draft?!? I was like a kid in a candy store!…well, actually, I was.  That was where I learned about it flipping through a copy of The New York Times (the Times?  I said I wasn’t SUCH a bad kid).

It was hard to gather information back then.  I would pester the candy store clerk, asking when the new football magazines might arrive.  He put down his chomped cigar, looked me over and huffed…It’s April son, don'tcha mean Basssse-ball.   In spite of such obstacles, I hunted and gathered.  I would cut out any article relating to the draft from ANY newspaper, ANY magazine.  I was the only hormonally challenged teenage boy who actually READ an article in Playboy since the April issue covered the draft…never sneaking a peek once at the centerfold.  I was a kid on a mission.

As the draft approached, I would dissect each bit of information…on teams, players, past history, team’s tendencies to do stupid things (I am looking at you Cardinals) and any other anomalies I could find.  I would place players to teams in the order they drafted…my own draft board at age 14.  Over the next 8 years nobody knew what to make of me.  I would even travel home from college for those draft Tuesdays – since backass Philadelphia didn’t get cable until 2002 or something like that.  The draft was still a mere sideshow of the NFL season.  It was during this time I should have tried harder to make passion my work.  In 1984, I did attempt to start a sports show on Drexel’s radio station…even do the overnight – hell, I was up drinking anyway.  No good.  Those pot-smoking hippies didn’t see a need…but I digress.  I was too easily thwarted in my efforts, and I regret it.

In 1988 the NFL Draft changed forever.  The draft was to start on a Saturday…an ALL day event.  My narcissistic self originally thought this was done specifically for me.   I was no longer in school and out in the working world… asking the boss to take off for draft day wouldn’t go over as easily as it did with Mom.  This move boosted ratings beyond belief.  Mel Kiper Jr. bought out Aqua Net.  The NFL had found a way to make money in April.  Every idiot rushed to become a Draft-Nik  and they popped up everywhere…magazines, books, TV shows.  The market became saturated with a clutter of draft incompetence…and the original Draft-Nik was left behind.  Today, there are still a few from 1980 that stand out in this field…and I somehow should have been among them.  But that ship has sailed.

In 2010, the draft disappeared altogether for me… off into the horizon.  That year the NFL changed to a 3 day draft, a 3 ring circus if you will, starting Thursday in primetime.  The NFL Draft is now a billion dollar year round industry. 

Gone are my Tuesdays off from school…my articles, my newspapers, my predictions…my being glued to the TV set for hours.

Tonight, I will be playing hockey instead.