I'll be attending my 25th NFL scouting combine next week.
The evolution of the event has been startling. At my first combine in 1992, there were eight members of the media in attendance. I thought it was the league's best-kept secret. The combine was the only week in the NFL's calendar year that every general manager, personnel director, scout, head coach and assistant coach was in one city at one time. It was a great time and place to build your league contacts.
There were no NFL public-relations types there, no one to arrange any interviews for us. We stood in the compact lobby of the downtown Crowne Plaza in Indianapolis and snagged whatever interviews we could from whichever players and coaches walked through during the four-day event.
In 1993, we received some surprising help. Notre Dame tailback Jerome Bettis, who projected as a high pick, would stop by the lobby each morning and ask if we needed him or anyone else. We'd give him a few names, and he'd bring those players out to us. The eight of us agreed he should be the charter member of the NFL combine Hall of Fame.
Well, the combine is no longer a secret. There figure to be about 1,200 members of the media credentialed for this year's event. The NFL will have a public-relations staff in attendance and close to 300 of the 332 players in attendance will be ushered into the media workroom for interviews.
Back when the draft was my life at this time of year, I would go to the combine having researched all 334 of the players invited. I knew their backgrounds, their stories and their stats. My goal was to try to talk with every player the PR staff brought in to be interviewed. At my peak, I was interviewing 230 players at a given combine. I was always on the hunt for a good story. There were times when a small-college player or a deep snapper came into the room that I was the only person to interview them.
Twitter @RickGosselinDMN
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