COWBOY NOTEBOOK : Lattany Is Trying to Catch On

If the trend continues, the National Football League might be competing in the 1988 Olympics.

The event: track.

With speedsters from the track world such as Renaldo Nehemiah of the San Francisco 49ers, Willie Gault of the Chicago Bears and Mark Duper of the Miami Dolphins, there’s no telling how many gold medals Pete Rozelle’s gang would bring home.

The Dallas Cowboys certainly know the meaning of having a receiver who runs in the jet stream. When they drafted Olympic sprint champion Bob Hayes in 1964, they were the first team to employ a bolt of lightening as a receiver.

So it is only fitting that the team that started the pattern, continue it.

Among the many speedy receivers at the Cowboys’ training camp at California Lutheran College is world-class sprinter Mel Lattany.

Lattany, a 25-year-old free agent from Georgia, is attempting to make the transition from track to football a smooth one. He hasn’t played football since high school.

“I’m getting used to running in the uniform and everything,” said Lattany, whose best times in the 100 and 200 meters are 9.66 and 20.21. “After running track and field for so long, it was like a job. The fun had gone out of it.

“Going into a sport I haven’t played in a while brings back the competitive edge,” he said.

Lattany, will indeed need an edge. There are 21 receivers in the Cowboys’ camp, who have many of the football tools Lattany lacks. Most notably among those receivers are seventh-round draft pick Karl Powe of Alabama State, and Bethune-Cookman’s Leon Gonzalez, an eighth-round pick.

Even though Lattany hasn’t played football several years, Dallas Coach Tom Landry likes what he sees.

“Of course we’re looking close at Lattany, obviously because of his speed,” Landry said. “The guy’s a competitor. I think he tries awful hard and that’s going to be the key to his success pattern because he has got to pay the price of catching the ball.

“He’s got to catch the ball every day. Lots of balls. And if he does, I would think, just on a first guess, that he would have a chance. I do believe he cares a little bit when doesn’t catch the ball and when he doesn’t do something right. And that’s a good sign.”

Of course, the biggest adjustment for any track man coming into as brutal an arena as the NFL is getting hit. Landry and his staff don’t appear to be too concerned about how Lattany will do in that regard.

“There’s the contact factor; catching the ball in a crowd under scrimmage conditions will all come next week,” Landry said. “That will separate him.”

That’s what defensive backs will have in mind for him.

Landry said he likes Lattany’s hands, but that he has to adjust to catching the deep pass, balls thrown a bit off target and passes thrown in different areas.

Asked if he saw any likenesses between Lattany and Hayes, Landry said: “I think Bobby Hayes came in as a football player. He knew how to catch the ball and run routes. Lattany doesn’t know how to run routes or catch the ball. He’s further away from that standpoint.

“But it’s encouraging to him sometimes when he catches it and runs. He’s got so much speed. He can run by you in a hurry.”

Landry said that there’s a lot of speed and size in this year’s camp, more so than in other years. “For the first time, it didn’t bother us to draft a 290-pound football player,” Landry said. “We’re seeing bigger guys can move better and faster than the bigger guys we were used to all through the ‘70s.”

Landry was specifically referring to 6-4, 290-pound guard Ker Crawford, their No. 3 draft pick from Florida.

Landry also was pleased with the play of second-round draft pick Jessie Penn at outside linebacker. “He’s everything we expected him to be,” Landry said of the 6-3, 255-pound Virginia Tech standout.