Gerry Broome/AP - Marvin Austin, right, and Robert Quinn, both of whom were caught up in an agent scandal that cost them their senior seasons at North Carolina, run drills for scouts at UNC’s pro day in March.
Marvin Austin walked into an IHOP with his 13-year-old sister, Jenae, in Southeast Washington, not far from where he grew up. They ordered a couple of drinks and Austin explained the roughest part of the past few months. It wasn’t necessarily missing his senior season at North Carolina — which was bad — or watching his NFL draft stock plummet — which was frustrating.
Rather, it was Jenae’s questions. She’d hear things and read things and none of it seemed to describe the brother she knew.
“All that stuff that went on this past year, no one knows the real person that I am,” Austin said. “It’s like I was a villain over here. But she knows better. Everyone who knows me knows better.”
Austin, 22, is convinced he’s the best defensive lineman available in the draft, which begins Thursday night. But he was thrown off the UNC team last fall following allegations he improperly accepted gifts from player agents, and likely won’t hear his name called until the latter part of the first round.
While those who know him and have coached him offer unwavering praise, draft analysts question his character and work ethic.
The brother Jenae knows is big — in just about every way possible. Austin stands 6 feet 3, weighs 309 pounds, has a giant personality, huge smile and thick dreadlocks that reach his shoulders. The brother she knows doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke and has spent most of his life preparing for the NFL.
He’s not the guy described in many pre-draft reports.
Said Austin: “All these people talking about how I’m getting Bentleys, money and this and that — my mom doesn’t have a car. If I was getting paid, don’t you think my mom might have a car?”
His mother, Donna Johnson, works at the Jacob Burns Law Library at George Washington University and relies on public transportation. Austin says the first thing he wants to buy when he signs an NFL contract is a car for her.
Pro Football Weekly said Austin has character concerns and noted that in meetings with team officials, none of whom are quoted or named, Austin was “very selfishly throwing his college under the bus and refusing to take responsibility for any of the wrongdoings.” The report further stated that scouts consider him a “finger-pointing, excuse-making con artist.”
Said Austin: “Who am I conning? All my interviews went extremely well at the combine. Where are people getting this from?”
In those interviews, Austin concedes that he had to explain his role in an agent scandal that is the subject of an NCAA investigation and a probe by North Carolina’s secretary of state. The school suspended Austin for the first five games last season. When he and teammates Robert Quinn and Greg Little were ruled in violation of NCAA rules governing agent benefits, preferential treatment and ethical conduct in October, Austin was booted permanently from the team.
At least four trips made by Austin in 2009 — two to Miami, two to California, none of which he paid for — were questioned. He admits to making the trips but withholds much remorse. “I don’t regret anything,” he said. “Everything was a learning experience.”
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