Kelly critical of Oklahoma after disappointing performance

[Dolphin-UK]

http://www.nfl.com/draft/story?id=09000d5d807adeab&template=with-video&confirm=true

ORMAN, Okla. -- Wide receiver Malcolm Kelly lashed out at Oklahoma on Wednesday after a disappointing performance in a 40-yard dash in front of NFL scouts.
Kelly sounds off

"This is my life. You know what I'm saying? This ain't no school. This ain't no classroom. This ain't got nothing to do with that. This has to do with me; my family. This is what I do. I play football. And I'm supposed to come out here and run as fast as I can."

Kelly, who left Oklahoma after his junior season, blamed his slow time of 4.68 seconds on an unexpected change in surfaces at his pro day.

"This is my life. You know what I'm saying? This ain't no school. This ain't no classroom. This ain't got nothing to do with that," Kelly said. "This has to do with me; my family. This is what I do. I play football. And I'm supposed to come out here and run as fast as I can."

Kelly skipped Oklahoma's original pro timing day last month while recuperating from a tear in his quadriceps, and said he had arranged with Oklahoma strength coach Jerry Schmidt to run on the Astroturf infield at the indoor track.

He said he was surprised when he arrived and found out he'd instead be running on the artificial turf inside the Sooners' indoor football facility.

"I already had everything set up for where I want to do it at," Kelly said. "I get out here and it's a whole different deal."

Kelly said he recently ran 40-yard dashes in 4.5 and 4.47 seconds on a firmer surface in Atlanta, where he has been training. The slower time could drop the draft stock for Kelly, who had been projected as a possible first-round pick in the April 26 draft.

"People want to say surface is surface, but it's a lot more to it than that," Kelly said. "You have to think about how much ground time you have running on this mushy surface here and how much ground time you have on Astroturf.

"Just a little bit of time could mean a whole lot of draft money."

Schmidt said he NFL scouts preferred Kelly run on the softer surface because "this is the surface that they run on" and that scouts could add fractions of a second to a 40-yard dash time if they perceive a track to be too fast.

"I told Malcolm it's up to him, wherever he wants to run," Schmidt said.

Kelly's agent, Chad Speck, said the surface was the slowest track that Kelly could have run on and suggested it could have cost him as much as two-tenths of a second.

"When it's a spongy surface and your foot sinks and is on the ground as long as it is on that surface, it's just going to correlate to a slow 40 time," Speck said.

Speck said Kelly had specially fit shoes designed to run on the other surface, but it wouldn't have been wise for him to refuse to workout despite the change in conditions.

"He's really only had about three to four weeks to get ready for this day, and for that short amount of time, every day was critical," Speck said. "He had prepared exactly for what was going to be done -- what surface it was going to be on, what shoes he was going to wear, everything."

Hmmmm, I'm sorry, but you tried to arrange it so that you ran on an artifically faster surface than was realistic, and selected footwear designed to be fast on that surface.

Word to the wise, but in football, you don't get to choose what surface you run on, if the coaches want you on a more realistic surface then you run on it, you should be more worried about the fact that you didn't have the foresight to consider all the options, and failed to pack adequate equipment for turning up at something which as you say "This is my life. You know what I'm saying? This ain't no school. This ain't no classroom. This ain't got nothing to do with that. This has to do with me; my family. This is what I do. I play football. And I'm supposed to come out here and run as fast as I can."

If it's that important to you, don't rely on someone else, hope for the best, plan for the worst, take different shoes and prepare.

Don't even get me started on the distance difference between guys running a tenth of a second faster over 40yds.

[StL FinFan]

A perfect example of today's culture of not taking responsibility for yourself, acting like a victim and blaming others for your problems. 

[Denver_Bronco]

Who cares if he's a late first or an early second ? I don't think the difference in those 2 contracts would be life altering money ? Hey jerk, you have a huge chance to go out on the field and get an enormous contract if you perform. Most of us never get a chance, at least you have one.

[Sunstroke]

Word to the wise, but in football, you don't get to choose what surface you run on, if the coaches want you on a more realistic surface then you run on it, you should be more worried about the fact that you didn't have the foresight to consider all the options, and failed to pack adequate equipment...

Technically, in the NFL, he'll know EXACTLY what surface he is going to be running on that week, and the equipment staff will get the players different spikes should the surface require it. Malcolm didn't have that option, and got caught with the wrong gear. Personally...I might have been a little pissed off as well.

I definitely wouldn't have gone on a public whining binge though, because if Malcom thinks that a slow .40 time will kill his draft stock, wait 'til he sees how GMs treat whiney primadonas on their draft board.

[Phishfan]

He is a pussy. The article says he could have run at the facility he wanted.

"I told Malcolm it's up to him, wherever he wants to run," Schmidt said.


He made his choice and then it bit him in the ass.

[Sunstroke]

He is a pussy. The article says he could have run at the facility he wanted.

"I told Malcolm it's up to him, wherever he wants to run," Schmidt said.


He made his choice and then it bit him in the ass.

Phish...when you read that comment, did it REALLY appear to you as though Malcolm had a choice? I read it as a "you'll run here or you don't know how much time we'll add to your time"

He still shouldn't have whined, but he did get shafted...


 

[Phishfan]

It was still a choice and I think he would have complained either way. Still a pussy in my book.

[Spider-Dan]

Realistically, the choice was, "run where we tell you to run," "run where you want to run and we'll add whatever arbitrary amount we decide to your time," or "don't run at all and send us home with nothing."  This is not a serious decision.

Saying "he had a choice" is a statement that is devoid of information.  I have a choice whether or not to pay taxes, but one of the "choices" involves me being hauled off to jail, so paying taxes isn't exactly optional, is it?  Similarly, if the scouts tell you to Run Here, your college staff agrees, and you choose to Run Somewhere Else, you're defeating the whole purpose of the run in the first place.  He isn't running because he enjoys it; he's running for the scouts.

OU's staff should have told the scouts, "this is where he trained, this is where he's running," or they should have told Kelly that his desired surface was a bad location from the start.  Instead, they told him he'd be running on a fast track, stood by while he trained for that surface for weeks, and then hung him out to dry at the last second.

[Phishfan]

Either way he was guaranteed to lose time. He was going to complain either way. Which argument would sound better and less whiney. "They added an arbitrary amount of time to my run" or "they forced me to wear my pretty new shoes on a different surface"?

[Spider-Dan]

I didn't think his argument was either of those.  Read the topic.

He complained that OU moved the run to the indoor field after telling him that it would be on the astroturf track.  These are world-class athletes that have weeks of preparation for this type of event.  I mean, look at Ronnie Brown... his outstanding 40 time almost single-handedly earned him millions of dollars.  If he had run a crappy 40, there's no way he would have been picked ahead of Cadillac, much less #2 overall.

This is serious business, and OU's staff took hundreds of thousands of dollars (almost certainly millions) out of Malcolm Kelly's pocket.  Now we can sit here like bitter chumps and say, "well I make $8/hr at Blockbuster, so he should be happy to make whatever he gets," or we can realize that any person who just lost a lot of money is going to be upset.

[StL FinFan]

Maybe it was just him and not the surface he ran on.

[MaineDolFan]

Run, Forrest, Run!

[Dolphin-UK]

I can understand that he's upset that he lost out on money, I don't have a problem with that part really.

What I have a problem with is that he was venting his frustration at being moved to a surface which would give a more representative time in the NFL, and is moaning about it.

If I go to my football training, I know we play on Astroturf, but I still take my studded boots with me.....why? Because you never know when we'll have to switch surface.  And I do that without knowing it could cost me millions of dollars.

[Spider-Dan]

Again, I don't think his objection was that he had to run on a slower surface.  His objection was that he wasn't allowed to run on the surface he trained for.  And the OU staff had previously told him that he would be running on the astroturf.

Now again, we can sit here and talk about how if we are going to a beer league softball game, we bring whatever equipment we might need, and that's all well and good.  But that has nothing whatsoever to do with a timed 40 for pro scouts.  In the scouting world, two-tenths of a second is the difference between stunningly fast and unacceptably slow, and wearing the wrong kind of shoes can easily cause that kind of a drop.

He didn't bring shoes for the indoor football field (or dirt, or concrete, or any other surface that he hadn't previously arranged to run on) because there wasn't any reason to believe he needed to.  It's not like he just showed up and they randomly picked a surface; he had already discussed the matter with OU's staff, and they told him he'd be running on astroturf.  Given that everyone involved should understand quite clearly how important this run was, that should have been the end of it... but for whatever reason, OU's staff threw him under the bus at the last minute.

THAT'S why he's mad.

[Phishfan]

sure OU's staff did it. The NFL scouts are who asked for him to run on the other surface, not OU. OU told him he could run on his chosen surface if he wanted, he chose the slower surface. Still OU caused all the problems.