For McInally, Perfect Test Score Something to Phone Home About

Pat McInally, the only NFL player to record a perfect score on the Wonderlic Personnel Test, still marvels at his achievement.

“I always said if I was Debra Winger, the thing that would be on the top of my resume would be being the voice of ‘E.T.’ . . . forget about being an Academy Award winner,” said McInally, a Corona del Mar-based author who was a punter and wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals.

“So, for me, this Wonderlic thing has got to be the coolest of the cool.”

McInally, a Harvard graduate, said he did the 12-minute, 50-question test in half the time allotted.

“I waited six minutes . . . just to be cool about it, then sprinted through it,” he said. “I’m sure if I had thought about it, I would have missed lots of them. . . . So that’s my tip: Go as fast as you can and do it instinctively.”

In his case, scoring high might have been a detriment on draft day.

“I always felt I was drafted in the fifth round instead of the first or second because I did too well on the tests,” he said, later acknowledging, “I wasn’t your typical player and I did question a lot of things. It seemed kind of silly to me that we weren’t allowed to drink (water) during practice, for instance.”