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Go to the Head of the Draft
Ken Herock, right, speaks to Auburn punter Kody Bliss, center, and South Florida linebacker Stephen Nicholas during his NFL combine prep class.
(By Erik S. Lesser For The Washington Post)
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Herock started by asking Davis to stand before the room and tell everyone from the team about the drugs. And for 15 minutes, Davis stunned them by eloquently apologizing for the problems at Tennessee and promising they would never happen again. When he was finished, the room was silent. Football men who had become accustomed to insincere expressions of regret were astonished. They decided to move him onto their draft board and eventually picked him in the second round.
But soon there were problems. A positive drug test, then another, and suddenly Davis was suspended for a season. He bounced around, trying to make comebacks, always giving heartfelt declarations of a new, clean lifestyle before finally walking away from the Packers in 2000, while Herock was working in Green Bay.
"He said, 'I can't do it anymore,' and I knew what he meant," Herock said in his class. "If I could dress up Ron Davis and put him in a coat and tie and send him up there and talk and have it work, what can I do for the good guys?"
In a way, it might have helped give Herock the idea to start this class after he left the Packers after the 2001 season. Left with nothing to do but wanting to do something in football, he called agents he had known over the years (including Dye), wondering if they would be interested in him training players on preparing for the combine. The response was overwhelming. No one had thought of such a thing.
A few sessions were put together, always with groups of no more than three players. And the business grew from there, with the only real addition being the fact that Herock tapes the mock interviews so players can see and correct imperfections. In Cornelius's case, the wide receiver moved a little too much as he spoke. Herock asks personal questions about drug and steroid use because he knows the players will be asked about it in their team interviews. The answers remain private, as do the individual sessions in which not even the players' agents who hired Herock are let in the room.
Herock won't say what he charges, though he hints that it pays like a full-time job for the three months that he does it. He has heard that league executives have been complaining about his course, concerned that it is leaving many players too polished for their interviews and not giving teams an unvarnished look at their personalities.
He laughed.
"You can't be a con man all of the time," he said. Eventually, the player's true personality -- if flawed -- would come out. "I'm just making the communication better."
