How many roles for Sproles?
Size belies strength, speed of dynamic fourth-rounder
By Kevin Acee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 28, 2005
The details are sketchy, varying slightly with every witness.
One of the participants is too humble and quiet to confirm anything. The other acknowledges a spectacular showing but denies he was vanquished.
Whether Darren Sproles (who is a tad under 5-foot-6 and maybe 180 pounds) actually bench-pressed more than first-round pick Shawne Merriman (6-4, almost 270 pounds) on a spring day at Gold's Gym in Venice is up for debate.
"Uh-huh," Sproles said with a laugh when asked whether he remembered lifting more than Merriman.
"He did not throw up more weight than me," Merriman said by phone recently. "He had me thinking, though, 'This little guy might outlift me today.' I'd have been embarrassed."
Said Travis Johnson, a first-round draft pick of the Houston Texans and a witness to the event: "He put Shawne to shame. It was crazy. We're in Venice. That's the mecca of bodybuilders. All these steroid freaks standing around watching. These guys are looking at Darren. All of them were stunned."
It doesn't really matter what actually happened. Even getting close to the absolute facts in this story says loads about Darren Sproles.
"To me, size doesn't really matter," Sproles said. "It's all about the size of your heart."
Talent to contribute
Bill Snyder told Marty Schottenheimer he might want to take a pass on Sproles.
What the Kansas State coach remembers telling the Chargers coach before the NFL draft is this: "If it were me, I wouldn't take him as a return specialist. I know you have a wonderfully talented running back there. But Darren is a full-time player. If you do, indeed, take him for different reasons, what you'll find out is he will become a full-time player of interest for you."
When Sproles was drafted by the Chargers in the fourth round in April, there was not much talk about him being used from the line of scrimmage. Maybe in some third-down situations, but there's a guy named LaDainian Tomlinson already in the Chargers' backfield, and Sproles was acquired to create some magic on kick returns.
Now Schottenheimer sees some packages in which Sproles could line up alongside Tomlinson. While Jesse Chatman ballooning to 250 pounds had something to do with his release, so did Sproles' emergence.
Sproles was the talk of offseason workouts. He had veterans grasping for air when he ran by, shaking their heads when he zigged and zagged and singing his praises when practice was finished.
You wonder what Sproles would say if he cared to, if he were comfortable doing so.
Would he say what his father says?
"When he was a freshman at K-State everyone said he is strictly special teams, that he wouldn't be able to hold up in the Big 12," Larry Sproles said. "Now, it's the same thing. He wants to get it started. He realizes he's playing with the best back in the league, but he knows what he can do."
We may never know. Sproles' words are as elusive as he is.
Even if he were not impeded by a stutter that shows itself mostly only in public, Sproles just isn't much into talking about himself.
When Kansas State was hyping him for the Heisman Trophy in 2004, he told those close to him he didn't want to win. "I don't want to have to make a speech," he would say.
It's not that he is unfriendly or impolite. In fact, he exudes a sort of warmth. He just doesn't like to talk.
Fortunately, so many others love to talk for him.
Too good to sit
Snyder, notoriously recluse with the media, is on the phone the morning after a message is left for him asking for a few moments to talk about Sproles.
Same with SMU coach Phil Bennett, the defensive coordinator at Kansas State when Sproles was there.
That the two coaches are so eager to speak about Sproles is especially significant, since they hardly knew who he was when they first saw him his freshman summer.
Sproles was sixth or seventh on the depth chart when Kansas State began preparing for its 2001 season opener against USC. In came this tiny scout team tailback against a K-State defense loaded with future NFL talent, including the Chargers' Ben Leber.
Sproles made three runs of 60-plus yards, bouncing off people, hardly touched, touchdowns. Directing the defense, Bennett figured, "Well, we had a bad day."
The next day, Bennett's squad was stellar against the No. 1 offense. But the day after that, the little tailback from the scout team peeled off a series of runs that made Bennett scream.
It also made him march into Snyder's office.
"I know you don't like hearing this," Bennett told Snyder. "But our best running back is playing on the scout team."
Snyder was incredulous, but he went out the next day and watched Sproles.
"That was his last day on the scout team," Bennett said.
It's been the same everywhere, at every level.
Gene Weir, who coached Sproles at Olathe North High in Kansas, has been hearing the same knock for years and he still hears it. He saw Sproles get passed over by every major college except Kansas State. He knows it takes a lot for a short guy to get noticed in football.
"All the way through youth football it was 'Wait until the other kids get bigger and faster; he'll eventually fade away,' " Weir said. "It never did happen."
Have mercy
Sproles was 9 when the youth football program in Johnson County, Kan., virtually pushed him out of its league.
There was a mercy rule in the lightweight division that stated a game would be called if one team led another by three touchdowns.
Well, pretty much every time Sproles touched the ball he scored. Game over, first quarter. So the coach started sitting Sproles, which didn't sit well with the kid.
When Larry Sproles offered to sign a waiver to have his son moved up to the heavyweight division, the league commissioner said: "No. We can't catch him either."
So the Sproleses began making the 40-minute drive to Kansas City to play in the city league, where Darren scored something like 40 touchdowns in a season, three times the league's previous record. And that was in a division with older and bigger kids.
That's the way it always had to be.
"He never played with kids his own age," Larry Sproles said. "He was rough. The kids in the neighborhood never picked him when they picked sides to play basketball or football. They said they would never get the ball or be able to catch him, or they would get hurt. He used to go over to the next block and play with the older kids."
His nickname has been "Tank" since about two seconds after he popped out of his momma. He weighed 10 pounds, 8 of it seemingly in those gargantuan legs.
"His legs were always so much ahead of his upper body," Larry said. "We always had to buy him husky size and take the waist in."
Always amazingly balanced, Darren was riding a bike by age 3. And he wasn't much older than that when he started tagging along with his dad to the gym. While Larry lifted weights, Darren did pushups and walked on his hands. Larry didn't let Darren start lifting until junior high, and he instantly became a gym rat.
"He passed me on the lower body in eighth grade," admitted Larry, who still won't acknowledge his son can bench press more than him on a regular basis.
"When he's on," Larry said, "I can't touch him."
Strength and speed
Whether Sproles has ever bench-pressed more than him or not, Merriman knows this: "You are not going to arm tackle this guy. He is too strong."
It has already become cliché to say that if Sproles were two or three inches taller he would have been a first-round pick. But it's cliché because it's true.
Sproles bench-pressed 225 pounds 23 times at the NFL combine. Carnell Williams (the fifth pick overall) did 19 reps. Ronnie Brown (the second pick) did 18. Cedric Benson (the fourth pick) did 18 reps at his pro day.
Sproles' 4.46 time in the 40-yard dash was tied with J.J. Arrington as the fastest among running backs at the combine.
"You can't measure what he's got by no measuring stick," Johnson said. "He's a football player. The first time I saw him go through some of those drills, I was in awe. I was in absolute awe. I haven't seen anybody with foot speed like that."
Rico McClinton and Darren Willis, trainers who worked with Sproles before the draft and have worked with professional athletes for years, concurred they had rarely, if ever, seen anything like Sproles.
"If D was 5-10 he would have been a top-10 draft choice based on what he did on the field," Willis said. "But because he was 5-5, in the NFL that's looked upon as taboo. He's going to be great in the NFL. Mark my words: After this what will be said is, 'Wow! I can't believe what he can do at his size.' "