Jay, here.

Yesterday, Josh Wilcox wrote about the the lead-up to the meat of the NFL Scouting Combines.

Now he explains what it was like to go through a battery of tests that had him wound tighter than an Evil Knievel toy and stretched further than a Stretch Armstrong doll.

Wilcox At The Combines: Performance Hurt, Didn’t Help Status
By Josh Wilcox
DSN Contributor

After the pee test, it was a day of physicals over the RCA Dome. Telling every doctor and team about your injury history, and your ankle “sprangs” (shout out to my boy Rusty), gets old real fast. We had the Cybex test, a machine strapped to your leg, which helps determine strength of some sort and tells them something. I don’t know when a Cybex ever helped on the field, but that is the old school in me. I think it tests for the knees and make sure they are not getting a bum knee. Teams are making investments and want to look at the meat all different ways. I mean, you take a look at the steaks in the grocery store right?

Due to some sort of elevation on my EKG, they made me do some treadmill test. And my blood pressure was high. Really, I wonder why? So, here I am doing some walk test on a treadmill, and Rich Brooks walks into the room. At the same time it was great to see him, seeing “Big Daddy” probably made my EKG go higher. One of the few men here who really knew me, was there. Deep breaths, deep breaths.

After all of that crap, we had to go back to the hotel and do interviews with the teams, fill out questionnaires, and talk with coaches so they could try to figure out who you are. Everything depends on what kind of prospect you are. If you have a 1st or 2nd round grade coming in, you’re going to get bumped in front of a guys who are not. It’s just the way it is. So, I ended up getting to go up to the room sooner than some guys. I also had filled out some of that stuff before at the Blue Grey, Shrine, and Hula Bowls.

On one of these days we took the Wonder Link test. I think I got something in the range of 17-20, which is not slack jack yokel stupid or Lamda Lamda Lamda smart. We also took all kinds of personality tests. One was over 400 questions. Some of the questions were: “Do you like apples or oranges?”, “Dogs or cats?”, “Coors or Miller?” “Metal or Rap”, “Chili’s ribs or fajita’s?”. You get the drift.

Saturday was our bench press day, including more interviews, in front of the camera. First off all, guys are grouped by position. That year there were 19 tight ends. As I said before, I was last in line. I was TE 19. Still got the t-shirt and sweatshirt to prove it. So, we are in line with a card with TE 19 written on the front. When they call you, up you go up in shorts only. At a time when tattoos were still not the coolest thing and a pale guy with some ink named Wilcox walks, I got a few snickers. That and my 5 dollar haircut.

Then they measure your wingspan, hand span, weight, height, and then your done. Not too bad right. It would have much better if I was not wound like the old Evil Knievel toy. Man, was I at my wit’s end. But I was confident I would do well in the bench.

I know I am not Hercules. And I am not going to be the guy asking you your bench, but I was confident I could rep out about 20 times at 225. I mean I did 18 that Monday at the Cas center. I was sure with adrenaline, Metallica in my head phones, I was good to go. Well, I was wrong. Again. Kind of like the beer before liquor debate. I threw up a whopping 15 times.! Not only did I did not warm up properly, but I over psyched my self.

So, after going back to the hotel and wanting to throw myself off the roof, we had dinner and a few more interviews. I can remember the 49ers’ coach asking me what happened. I flat out told him what I just told you.

We were running our 40 the next day and then we were done. The joy of it being over was out weighed by the anxiety of the 40, shuttle, receiver drills, blocking drills, vertical, and a few more tests. Sunday, we all gathered and started to warm up about 9 or 10 in the morning. All 19 of the TEs. They were all cool guys who supported each other. So, that was a positive experience to take from this.

We warmed up and did our jumps, vertical and standing broad. The best vertical I ever did was like 36″ or something. I know you could slip a credit card underneath me. Then on to the broad jump. I can’t remember, but I think I jumped low to the middle of the pack. Then we sat for about 1 hour before re-warming up before the 40. Man, I was ready. I thought low 4.8’s high 4.7’s. Again, I know that Speedy has never been a nick name of mine. Although, one time at practice in New Orleans, Ricky Williams asked me about a tight end that had some long run against USC when we beat them in 1994. He asked whatever happened to that guy? I said, “Me, too”. The Ducks were the “Gods of Football” on that wonderful day in LA.

So, here I am last up, ready to bust out of my stance. They went over what they expected and that they would stop us if we rolled our start. If your smarter than a 5th grader, you can assume what happened next. Yep, I rolled my start. So then I go, get in my stance, and try to get in the zone. I am trying to run relaxed and I give it my all. They tell us not to ask times, or any of that. But I overheard 4.90. Not what I wanted to hear. A 4.9 and 4.8 is a big difference for a guy like me. So, we go again. Same freaking thing. But this time 4.91. Good and terrible. Then we go off to do blocking drills with us holding bags for guys. Keep in mind we are doing all of this on film. If you tune into NFL Network this week, you will see a lot of this.

After that, receiver drills, something I thought I would do well at. Again, my optimism played a trick on me as I dropped a few and really did not look as graceful as I can (if that’s possible). I was mentally beating myself up as I had been since I had been there. We had the shuttle runs, short and long, and L-Cone drills to finish and then we were done. For some reason, they started to rush me through all these drills and had to get me to the airport. I kept telling them they had the wrong time for me, as I was going to St. Louis to see my agent’s office and meet with his staff. But they didn’t listen. So I ended up back at the hotel. By that time, some of the other guys had showered and left before I did.

Nevertheless, I did not have any sort of performance that was going to help me. In fact, it probably hurt me, putting me between the middle rounds and free agency. It is all on me. I was prepared, but I did not go to any speed camp, full-on training thing, like they have today. If I was to do it over, I would want to do that, but who knows how much that would really have helped me. One thing I have learned is you can’t look back. Even though I did not get drafted, I got a chance, and that is all I can ask for. Plus, it would not have given me a chance to wrestle in Portland, go to Amsterdam to play for the Forest Dragons, go to the Saints, and then become the first ever XFL Hall of Famer!

In my mind at least.

Josh Wilcox, a Junction City, Oregon native was a four-year letterman with Ducks. In the Rose Bowl Season of 1994 against Arizona, Danny O’Neil threw 15 yards to Josh for the game’s only touchdown early in the fourth quarter as Oregon came from behind to win 10-9. Arizona was ranked No. 11 by The Associated Press and ranked 23d by The New York Times computer. Josh went on to catch 11 passes for 135 yards against Penn State in the 1995 Rose Bowl. After finishing his career at Oregon, Josh went on to play for the New Orleans Saints in the NFL.

Jay, here.

As a follow-up to Peter’s entry on the NFL Scouting Combines, I decided to ask Josh what he thought about the experience.

His response: it was bowling shoe ugly.

By the Power of Grayskull, here’s the first part of Josh’s experience.

Wilcox At The Combines: Bowling Shoe Ugly!
By Josh Wilcox
DSN Contributor

As a “journalist”, I have had the opportunity to talk about a lot of the good times I have had throughout my athletic journey in life.  But I guess you sometimes need to show your inner fortitude and allow some of the darker moments to come to light and talk about those, as well. What am I talking about? With the NFL Combine acting as the North Star in football junkies eyes everywhere, lets talk about the experience I had in good old Indy.

To steal a line from one of my favorite announcers, and a friend, Jim Ross from the WWE, and XFL, “It was Bowling Shoe Ugly!”

Before we start to speak about this, let’s get a few things straight, or just keep these overtones in mind when reading this. For some of you that might be difficult, but give it a shot:

• Going in to Indy, I knew that my chances at being a top round pick were slim, but a decent performance could help.

• I am not going to lie. I am not a combine type of guy because it does not play to my strengths. Some of the things that helped me in my short career you can’t teach, it comes from good jeans and good genes. Thanks, Dad. I am not bragging either. It is what it is. And the reason I actually got a chance to go to this meat market was because of my instincts, and knowing the game. I have never been called graceful. In fact, friends have told me that I was one of the most athletic un-athletic guys they have ever seen. Chew on that for a while.

• The person in this universe besides the Big Dog upstairs that is my worst critic is Josh Wilcox. Not one person ever puts more pressure on me than me. This has gotten me far in life, but what gets you to the party does not always get you the hottest chick. Sometimes you get bombed and do stupid things. Huh? Whole heartedly, this is a time when being hard on myself was not the best thing for me.

Keep in mind this was 1997 and I did not have my He-Man Trapper Keeper journal, so I can’t remember if it started on a Wednesday or not. And some of the times and numbers might be off, but will be close. Honestly, I really don’t want to remember some of this. But here it goes.

I got to the Eugene airport early in the morning. I believe we flew in on Thursday. On my flight to Denver was Derrick Barnes, an OLB on my team. I think that year it was Derrick, Paul Wiggy, Kenny and myself. Graz, who ended up getting drafted, did not get invited for some unknown dumb reason. When we got to Denver on our way to Indy, we saw James Darling from WSU, Tony Gonzales, and more. It was cool. Here I am with the best players in the country and most of them are good guys.

We arrive in Denver and waiting for our bags we were met by representatives from the teams that helped all of us get into shuttle vans and go to the hotel. I remember talking with Chad Lewis in our van, the TE from BYU. He was a great guy and later played with both Jed Weaver and my favorite Duck TE of all time, Jeff Thomason. We talked about me playing with Steve Sarkisian in the Shrine and Hula Bowls. Steve is a good dude, and is doing well at USC, but I still hate SC.

We get to the hotel and they help us check in to our rooms, with bags, bags, hats, hats, packets, shirts, shirts, hats, hats. I swear I am glad I got an extra bag with all the gear you get from the teams. I came home and gave three quarters of it to my friends and roommates. When does one have too many football shirts? Now Harley, Wrestling, and Concert shirts is a different conversation, so don’t start.

I got to the room and threw my bags down for a minute, and got my schedule. The tight ends were the last group for everything at the combine, and with a last name like Wilcox, I was not at the front of any alphabetical line.

Now here is when some of it gets blurry, a couple of tall cans blurry. We went to the hospital and got blood taken, EKG, X-Ray’s on any major injury. At that time, concussions were examined and I had no surgeries. So, it was not too bad. We got back to the hotel and went to a meeting about what to expect, and then went to bed. Jake Plummer was kind enough to put my bags in my shower. I roomed with Scott Von Der Ahe, aLB from ASU, and he slipped and told me about it at dinner. So, I didn’t have to worry about the stress. I mean, I was kind of like Cameron. I was so tight that in two weeks you could have had a diamond at the end of it. If you get that reference cool, if not watch Ferris Buller.

So they next day I think we had to get up early and take our pee test. Don’t you love to get up at 6 am Eastern time to sit in line, chug water and apple juice, and have a guy watch you take a whiz in a cup?

Morning!