NFL Draft | Wait ends for two Kentucky football stars
Guy, Trevathan go in 6th round
10:23 PM, Apr. 28, 2012 |
Winston Guy had eaten enough pizza. He’d paced and worried. He’d been faked out by phone calls from his also-anxious father and well-meaning friends.
“Every time my phone rang, I
thought it was a team calling. It never was, and I was getting
frustrated,” said Guy, who was the Southeastern Conference’s
third-leading tackler with 120 stops last season as a University of
Kentucky safety.
Despite
his credentials, Guy had waited through three days and more than five
rounds of the NFL draft without getting the call he wanted. He began to
think late Saturday afternoon that the best way to pass time was to take
a nap. Then the Seattle Seahawks rang. They selected him with the 11th
pick of the sixth round, 181st overall.
“Honestly,
before I got that call, I was on the verge of falling asleep,” Guy
said, sounding suddenly wide awake. “This is very exciting. It hasn’t
hit me yet. Eventually it will, but it’s just unbelievable.”
The
Lexington native was the first player from any of the state’s schools
to be drafted this year. UK teammate Danny Trevathan (Leesburg High School, Leesburg Florida) was right behind
him, taken by the Denver Broncos with the 18th pick of the sixth round,
188th overall.
Trevathan
led the SEC in tackles the past two seasons, but at only 6 feet and 237
pounds, he lacks ideal size for his position in the NFL. It wasn’t easy
for Trevathan, who racked up 374 career tackles at UK and was named
National Linebacker of the Year by the College Football Performance
Awards, to watch 18 other outside linebackers get drafted ahead of him.
Although
he didn’t return multiple phone calls Sunday, Trevathan shared his
feelings via Twitter, writing that his “hard work goes unnoticed.” Just
before he was drafted, he tweeted that he was “down but motivated.” And
right after his selection he wrote that others — presumably NFL
ballcarriers — are going to “feel my pain.”
“In
this world, they are looking for you to fail,” Trevathan told the
Broncos’ official website. “You can’t be one of those dudes that gives
up when times get hard.”
He
did end up in a place that should feel a lot like home. He’ll be
joining former Wildcats Wesley Woodyard, Jacob Tamme and Jeremy Jarmon
in Denver.
“I’m
proud of him,” Guy said. “I feel like God had a plan for both of us. I
feel like he’s put us in the best situation possible.”
Guy, a 6-1, 218-pound athlete who played a hybrid linebacker/safety spot last season, said the Seahawks like his versatility.
“I’ll
do whatever it takes to play,” he said. “I’m going to go in with a chip
on my shoulder, with something to prove. … I’m just glad that one team
actually took a chance on me. That’s all it takes, and then from there
it’s just straight hard work and humility.
“It’s a dream come true, just a blessing, but it isn’t over yet. Just because I’m drafted doesn’t mean anything.”
Well, it does mean he’s moving across the country.
“I never thought I’d be playing way out there,” he said. “That’s a different time zone than Kentucky.”
No comments:
Post a Comment