Talk at Shoeshine Stand Led LoCasale to Ladd : Draft Directors of Pro Football Teams Recall Some of Their Finest Selections

Pro football personnel men seek information from hundreds of sources when scouting players. Just ask Al LoCasale.

“I was at a shoeshine stand in Los Angeles and the shoeshine man sees I’m wearing a Chargers blazer,” said LoCasale, now the Raiders’ executive assistant but the Chargers’ player personnel director in 1961. “He mentioned that some NFL guy had been by talking about some gigantic player from Grambling College by the name of Boy or Kid. Then he turns to me and says ‘No, Ladd.’

“That’s the first time I had ever heard of Ernie Ladd.”

It started a saga that was familiar in the American Football League of pursuit and intrigue when it came to getting top players. This particular chase included dogged research to prove Ladd was indeed a fourth-year junior, and a 15-minute deadline on draft day to prove the 6-9, 280-pound defensive lineman was eligible to be taken.

That’s why, nearly 30 years later and another NFL draft coming up April 24-25, LoCasale looks back at the selection of Ladd as the best drafting experience of his life.

“Probably from a steal standpoint, nothing was more thrilling than Ladd,” LoCasale said.

When players are asked to remember their finest moment the answers are diverse, an 80-yard touchdown run or a key block. And, with personnel men, it is no different.

Some are enamored with special first-round talent, others with particular players they have spent a lot of time researching or feel a unique kinship to. A few pointed to hunches who panned out, but the most popular was the late-round pick who possessed something special to attract attention then proved that assumption correct.

“When you draft a guy like Karl Mecklenburg in the 12th round, a Gene Lang in the 10th round or a Clarence Kay in the seventh round, those are highlights to me,” said Reed Johnson, Broncos director of player personnel, in recalling his selection of three players who started on the AFC championship team last year.

“In a sense those kids prove you wrong because for whatever reason they had the tools to overcome where they were picked. But it also tells you that you did something right in picking them for some singular talent you might have noticed.”

Some teams are known more than others for their hunches.

The Raiders are one such franchise as the selection of Bo Jackson in the seventh round of the last draft illustrated. Jackson was under contract with baseball’s Kansas City Royals and pledging never to play pro football when the Raiders selected him. A five-year, $7.6-million contract at least helped convince Jackson to take football up as a “hobby.”

Perhaps no team has played more hunches than the Dallas Cowboys. Among others the Cowboys gambled on sprinter Carl Lewis on the 12th round of the 1984 draft. Lewis never played a pro down. But you can’t blame the Cowboys for trying.

In 1964, they reached for Olympic sprint gold medalist Bob Hayes on the seventh round though his football experience was limited. Hayes’s dynamic speed helped change the passing game. In the same draft, Dallas used its 10th-round pick to grab a fellow named Roger Staubach, though he had a five-year commitment to the Navy. He eventually wound up in the Hall of Fame.

In 1985, Dallas chose Herschel Walker on the fifth round, though the star running back was still under contract in the U.S. Football League. The USFL folded and Walker is now the Cowboys’ top offensive threat.

“There is an air of excitement with certain players you talk about,” said the Cowboys vice president-personnel development, Gil Brandt, who has been in charge of the team’s draft since the club’s inception in 1960. “There’s players you look forward to picking, not necessarily in the first round but maybe in the fifth or sixth.

“We refer to them as ‘pocket picks’ because it is a place you feel that certain individual fits in. After you reach a point where you maybe aren’t picking players you are sure can help you, that’s where you take a Herschel Walker, Bob Hayes or Roger Staubach.

“There are always 10th-rounders who come on to make it, but the odds are so small. When you have a ‘pocket pick’ you have a feel for him. That’s why I have such a special feeling for Hayes, Staubach and Walker.”

Sometimes the fondest memories arise from frustrating moments. Such was the case for Mike Hickey, Jets director of player personnel, in his first draft with the team in 1978.

“It got to the third round and the guy I really wanted was (defensive end) Barry Bennett from a small school called Concordia (Minn.),” Hickey recalls. “I thought for sure we’d get him in the third round. We had given him a heckuva grade. It comes down to New Orleans picking right before us.

“Then someone comes into the draft room and says ‘Mike, you don’t have anything to worry about. New Orleans just took some guy from a little school in Minnesota.’ I just cracked the table in front of me in two. We had to replace a table in the middle of the action. It wasn’t something I did to be dramatic, it was something I did out of complete frustration.

“But,” Hickey continued, “the problem now was who to pick. The guy I really liked most was Mickey Shuler. It turned out well because Mickey has turned into a Pro Bowl tight end and we eventually got Barry Bennett (off waivers), also.”

Dick Steinberg, New England director of player development, says he has never felt that special glow about a draft pick.

“To be honest I’ve never thought about it,” Steinberg said. “I’m always looking to the next draft. Really, the only time we refer back to past drafts is to analyze our approach for future drafts.”