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Two Ends of the Draft Spectrum
Copy of article from CFL web page
(link)
Thursday, May 4, 2006 - 05:30PM
By Arash Madani,
CFL.ca
Two kids, same position, same predicament, same day.
Two college graduates, defensive linemen, anxious on the afternoon of the
CFL draft, waiting for the phone to ring.
Adam Braidwood and Dexter Ross. Washington State and Minot State. Both Canadian.
Both pass rushers. Both products of the Canadian grassroots system. Both U.S.
educated.
Two kids, same position, same predicament, same day.
One would go first overall. One second to last.
Braidwood with fanfare and the national spotlight to the City of Champions.
The defending Grey Cup title winning Edmonton Eskimos selected the six-foot-four,
265-pound 21-year-old with NFL prospects and a PAC-10 pedigree.
Ross, nervously watching 48 others picked before him, going to the Winnipeg
Blue Bombers on a flyer, one slot before teams ended the proceedings in the
sixth round.
Braidwood spent the day at his family home in British Columbia and his afternoon
handling media calls. Ross was on the job, at the telecommunications firm
he works for in the off-season, anticipating to hear from his agent of where
he may be headed to next.
Two kids, same position, same predicament, same day.
“It’s an honour and I owe it to the team and to the fans to live
up to that No. 1 pick,” said Braidwood, who is from North Delta, B.C.
“I’m happy I’m getting the chance and I want to get to camp
to show the coaches I can perform,” said Ross, who grew up in the Ottawa
suburb of Kanata.
“My number one goal right now is to get on the starting line-up,”
said Braidwood, who played immediately as a college freshman.
“My goal is to make the team,” admitted Ross, red-shirted as a
rookie at Minot.
Two kids, same position, same predicament, same day.
One took the path down the yellow brick road, the other in the road less traveled.
At WSU, Braidwood played in Bowls -- with and against future NFL draft choices
– and finished a 48-game career with 90 tackles and 13.5 sacks. Ross
went from the Ottawa junior Riders club program, while enrolling as a mechanical
engineering student at Algonquin College, to settling in at Minot State –
a NAIA school in North Dakota. In his second, and final season, there, he
was all-America.
Braidwood was on the radar of every CFL team and atop the eight draft boards,
despite sitting out drills at the league’s evaluation camp this spring.
A chance meeting with newly-hired Winnipeg defensive line coach Richard Harris
got Ross an invite to the Toronto combine. He showed enough for the Bombers
to select him with their last pick.
Two kids, same position, same predicament, same day.
“It’s been something I’ve looked forward to my whole life,”
said Ross on draft day.
“I just hope I can help the Eskimos win another Grey Cup,” said
Braidwood.
The call came to Braidwood moments after the 2006 Draft began. Ross’s
cell phone went off minutes before it ended.
Two kids, same position, same predicament, same day.
Braidwood spent the last weekend in April monitoring the NFL draft. Would
he go with teammate Jerome Harrison in the 2006 class?
Ross’s time was spent working on the different techniques that his new
position coach taught him in a training session the two had days before at
an Ottawa sports facility.
Two kids, same position, same predicament, same day.
Come late May, the past, the draft and the rest is forgotten.
“It will take a full effort,” said Braidwood. “(You) have
to compete with so many skilled guys.”
Arash Madani is a sports anchor/reporter with A-Channel television in Ottawa
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