Wiegie do you know this guy?

[Randall]

GRAND RAPIDS -- The balls spiral through the air as if released from a catapult. Thirty yards, then 40, then 50, each time hitting the target like a programmed mortar shell.

It's a quiet and graceful sight to watch Cullen Finnerty launch passes down the field, the torque of the release, the arc of the flight, the smack as the ball falls into the hands of a receiver.

 

 

Over and over, day after day, Finnerty drops back, plants and fires the deep post, or the deep out, or the sideline comeback. He has no choice. The velocity and placement of those balls could be key to his future.

Which is why, at the moment, Finnerty is spending his afternoons at an indoor soccer field on the south side of Grand Rapids. His path to the NFL begins here.

Finnerty, who followed Drew Henson at Brighton High School and who walked on at Toledo before transferring to Grand Valley State after his freshman season, became the most prolific quarterback in college football history.

 

He had a 51-4 record as a starter at Grand Valley State, three Division II national championships, more than 10,000 yards passing.

 

"I'm not ready to hang it up quite yet," he said.

So he spends his days at the Woodland Sports Center in Grand Rapids, working on the shuttle run, the L-cone weave, the 40-yard dash, the broad jump -- the tests that will measure his future. He is also slinging spirals to local high school receivers honored to catch his passes, hoping that someone, somewhere, will give him a shot at his dream.

 

Pro scouts will arrive at nearby Grand Valley in a month to size him up. The NFL draft follows in April.

The experts will see a 6-foot-2, 230-pound, small-college quarterback built like a linebacker. They will see the mobility. They will see the arm.

 

Finnerty hopes they will see, as his Grand Valley coach, Chuck Martin, said, "the toughest, most competitive football player I've ever been around."

But that can't be measured with a stopwatch. That's where faith comes in.

"All I want for him is a shot," Martin said.

 

Is Finnerty the next Tony Romo, the Dallas Cowboys star who played at a small school in Illinois? Or is he headed to Europe, or Canada, or, simply, to the rest of his life in the workaday world?

Finnerty has four weeks to prepare for the scouts and, if he's lucky, a training camp somewhere to convince the coaches.

 

Pass or fail?

 

One of every 1,223 high school football players will make it to the NFL. The odds are even less if a player goes to a Division II school. There are success stories, of course, most notably Hall of Famer Walter Payton. And other former Division II players dot NFL rosters, including David Kircus, a Grand Valley alum who plays for the Denver Broncos.

 

But scouts remain wary. They can measure speed and arm strength, but not the quality of competition.

Finnerty's biggest challenge is not only proving he can adapt to a pro-style offense -- he played primarily out of the shotgun at Grand Valley -- but also showing he can hit receivers covered by much faster cornerbacks and safeties.

 

He must show he can stay in the pocket and make reads, quickly looking downfield, then to the middle of the field, then to just beyond the line of scrimmage, all while evading stronger and quicker linemen.

Last summer, after Finnerty's junior season, and second national championship, an agent began asking around the NFL: Did Finnerty have a chance to make the pros?

"Scouts told me he did," said Justin VanFulpen, a young agent at Verius Football, a Grand Rapids-based sports agency. "Some thought he would get a shot as a rookie free agent."

So VanFulpen introduced himself to Finnerty, told him about his initial inquiries and began building a relationship.

 

Meanwhile, Finnerty went out and won another national championship, playing with beefy abandon, cementing his style as an elusive, crazy-legged gunner fond of lowering his shoulder into linebackers.

He finished his career with more than 2,000 yards rushing, on a 28-game winning streak. He played on ESPN2 during the playoffs. He was the subject of a small write-up in Sports Illustrated.

"All of a sudden, there was some buzz," VanFulpen said. "And I began hearing he might go in the late rounds, maybe sixth or seventh."

During the Division II championship game in December in Alabama, Finnerty couldn't find his passing rhythm. The game was tight. In the fourth quarter, Martin asked him to throw down the field.

"I can't hit the broad side of a barn," Finnerty told Martin. "If the receiver isn't wide open, I'm going to run."

He did. He kept the drive going.

 

"He just made plays," Martin said.

"He has great football sense. He is Dick Butkus playing quarterback. When he takes the field, it's like turning on a blender."

 

It was a long way from his first start, in California against UC Davis. Finnerty, who hadn't played in two years after transferring from Toledo, threw up in the locker room before the game.

"We had to sit him out the first series because of nerves," said Todd Kolster, his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Grand Valley. "After that, he went in, we won the game, and he never looked back."

VanFulpen signed Finnerty in December. They devised a marketing plan, brought in a dietitian, hired Daimond Dixon, a local trainer who played running back at Miami (Fla.) in the early '90s, and dove in after the first of the year.

Will love conquer all?

Finnerty, 24, can't fully explain why he craves football. He offers the usual platitudes about being part of a team, about competing, about rifling a ball 40 yards down the field to a streaking receiver.

The game is simply something he has always done. He put pads on in the third grade; he has been in them ever since. And, as much as he enjoys hitting -- Martin said Finnerty's favorite moment on the field may have been the blocks he laid on unsuspecting defensive ends during reverses -- there is something about playing quarterback.

 

"You can dictate the situation; you can call the shots," Finnerty said. "You have the ball in your hands every play."

 

At Brighton High, he passed for 460 yards and five touchdowns during a playoff game. He still smiles as he recalls this. There is a freedom in watching a ball in flight, knowing it's going to drop from the sky precisely where it's supposed to. There is an adrenaline push the moment he decides to run, leaving the safety of the pocket, venturing into violent and chaotic turf.

He dreamed of the pros then, but forgot about it for a while as he tried to discover a place for himself in college ball. Last year, the NFL tumbled back into his mind, and he began wondering if he seriously had a chance.

 

"I've seen other guys get there," he said recently. "I know my abilities are just as good as theirs."

He has to think this way. It's what keeps him driving through brutal cold and blizzards to the indoor soccer field, to the gym, to the practice facility at Grand Valley, where he still tosses the ball with former teammates.

 

"This is my life now," he said. "I'm willing to follow this wherever it takes me."

Contact SHAWN WINDSOR at 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com.

 

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007702100336

[spain]

Two words for you:

 

Brock Forsey

[twiley]

Two words for you:

 

Brock Forsey

 

The man, the myth, the legend.

[wiegie]

I don't know him personally (never had him as a student). I would be surprised if he made it in the pros. (I'll be rooting for him, for sure, but he didn't seem to me to be as good a WB as Curt Anes was for GVSU a few years ago (Anes had his knee get torn up in his junior year and wasn't the same afterwards although he was signed briefly by the Lions).)

[Randall]

I don't know him personally (never had him as a student). I would be surprised if he made it in the pros. (I'll be rooting for him, for sure, but he didn't seem to me to be as good a WB as Curt Anes was for GVSU a few years ago (Anes had his knee get torn up in his junior year and wasn't the same afterwards although he was signed briefly by the Lions).)

 

 

 

Cool. Small school players do have a difficult time trying to make it.