2B
Wednesday, April 26, 1995
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
A few Jayhawks are headed for new football horizons
Tackle signs as free agent in CFL
Paul Kotz / KANSAN
Kansas offensive tackle Derek Brown, left, and Kansas offensive guard John Jones, right, were not picked in the National Football League draft last weekend. But both have signed free-agent contracts with professional teams.
By Matt Irwin Kansan sportswriter
Derrick Brown's ex-teammates probably are lethal.
In fact, the 6-foot-8-inch, 274-pound offensive tackle didn't begin playing football until the fall of 1992.
Brown is the first Kansas football player from the 1994 team who signed a contract to play professional football—and he started only two games last fall.
Brown, who signed as a free agent with the Memphis Mad Dogs of the Canadian Football League, said he would be one of 13 or 14 linemen trying to fill the eight roster spots the Mad Dogs will use for offensive linemen.
Brown said that beginning May 22 he would receive $3 a day and money for room, board and meals while he participated in the training camp of the league's newest team.
"My main goals are to go in prepared, take football as far as I can and to try to reach my potential," Brown said. "There's no question that my drive stems from the fact that I have not reached my potential yet. Maybe I'm mad at myself for not starting earlier."
Some see Brown's late start as a possible advantage. His brother Jason, a 6-foot-4-inch, 238-pound defensive end, quit the Kansas football team this spring after having five knee surgeries, four during his career at Kansas.
"Seeing how he didn't play in high school, I never thought he would play football longer than I did." Jason said. "I'm real happy for him. Maybe it's good that he didn't play that much. His body might be a little bit fresher."
A negative side to Derek's late start is that he may have been a better player now if he had started earlier. Kansas assistant head coach Golden Pat Ruel said that Brown may have had a chance at playing in the National Football League right now if he had started playing football earlier.
Brown's late start partly was due to basketball. He played in high school and continued his career at Hampden Sydney College in Farnville, Va., from 1989 to 1991 as a 6-7, 215-pound athlete. Brown said he wanted a change and joined the Marines during the 1991-1992 school year.
In 1992, Derek transferred to Kansas and decided to join the football team's scout team. Derek said he was inspired to try football because his brother was good enough to be awarded a scholarship out of high school.
Brown played his first game of organized football two years ago
against 1993 National Champion Florida State and was a second-string tackle that season.
Despite one year of eligibility remaining, Brown quit the team to concentrate on law school.
Brown said he ran into Ruell last fall when the Jayhawks had some injured offensive linemen. After being asked to rejoin the team, Brown dropped a few hours and returned to the team.
"It wasn't that hard of a decision," Brown said. "I really wanted to play."
Brown said it was difficult to play football and take law classes during the same semester.
"I really had to get my priorities straight," Brown said. "Sometimes
However, Brown still managed to accomplish his goal of obtaining at least a 3.0 grade point average in 12 hours of classes, and he isn't worried about his future.
football won out."
"Maybe in the future, if I made a practice roster in the NFL, it might fall by the wayide," Brown said.
"I definitely have something to come back to," Brown said about what he would do if he failed to make the Mad Dogs' team. "I guess it would be a dream come true if I got to play professional football at any level."
Brown said that even if he made the team, he still planned to finish law school during spring semesters.
Safety and guard are drafted late
By Matt Irwin Kansan sportswriter
After being drafted by a National Football League team, one would think that a college player's head might grow big and that he might even forget his former teammates.
But former Kansas safety Gerald McBurrows, who was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in the seventh round Sunday, acted as if he needed to justify why he was chosen as one of Kansas' co-captains last fall.
"I want to thank everybody at KU for helping me out," McBurrows said and quickly named some of the people involved in the Kansas football program.
"The best thing about the process was that a lot of us at Kansas still were able to work together," McBurrows said.
The only other Kansas player drafted was guard Hessley Hempstead. He was drafted in the seventh round by the Detroit Lions.
"It's a place I definitely wanted to go," Hempstead said. "It's my birthplace."
Hempstead graduated from high school in California but has many family members in the Detroit area.
Other Jayhawks who may have a chance at the NFL have been trying to get free-agent tryouts with teams.
"You can't worry about it too much," he said. "You never know if you're going to go in the last couple of rounds or have to be a free agent. I can't blame teams for their normal draft process."
Guard John Jones signed a freeagent contract with the Dallas Cowboys and will report to the Cowboys' minicamp tomorrow. Jones said that it didn't bother him that he wasn't drafted.
drafted in an earlier round, it did bother their coach.
Golden Pat Ruel, Kansas offensive line coach, said that because Hempstead and Jones were about 6-feet-1 inches tall, teams overlooked their talent.
"I butters me because if I would have said that, we wouldn't have had two All-Big Eight guards the last two years," Ruel said. "The rule is that the bigger you are, you have to prove you can't play, and the smaller you are, you have to prove you can play."
Like the rest of the Kansas players, McBurrows and Hempstead did not know whether they would be drafted when ESPN stopped its draft coverage on Sunday. They sat by the phone and waited for it to ring.
Hempstead said that he had received calls from teams letting him know that they were interested in drafting him. Sometimes the teams told him that they were going to draft someone else because they thought that the other player was better but didn't expect that player to be available when they were ready to draft.
"It's been a very interesting time”<sup>1</sup>
Hemstead said.
He said he was excited and relieved when Detroit called him to let him know they had drafted him.
Hempstead said because draft analysts were wrong half of the time, he was trying to keep his sanity late on Sunday.
McBurrows spent the weekend with his family in Detroit. His brother, Geoffrey, a 16-year-old sophomore who also plays football, said Gerald was a role model.
"He's up there now and I'm still trying to make it," Geoffrey said. "I know he's good, He'll make a team."
He added that he didn't have to brag to his friends about his brother being drafted.
"It seems like the whole school knew about it," he said.
Gerald McBurrows emphasized that being drafted wasn't the final step in realizing his dream of being an NFL player.
"I can finally say the dream has come true when I finally make a team and put a uniform on," he said. "I'm the only one I can blame if I don't make it."
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