Landing The Sleeper Requires Luck and Preparation
By Jerry DiPaola

Sometimes, it does matter where you sit at a football game. Just ask former Steelers' personnel director Art Rooney Jr., who was both lucky and good during his time with the team.

Rooney, who was running the Steelers' drafts along with former coach Chuck Noll when the team selected nine Pro Football Hall of Famers from 1969 through 1974, admits luck is a big part of success in the draft.

Rooney was a master craftsman when the Steelers were building their dynasty in the early 1970s. He identified great players and ­ in the case of Hall of Famers John Stallworth and Mike Webster in 1974 ­ was savvy enough to wait until the fourth and fifth rounds to take them. Stallworth, in fact, was the ultimate sleeper, coming out of Alabama A&M without a definite position to play.

Rooney realizes that luck played a big part in the Steelers' success over the years. Especially with the signing of undrafted players such as Glen Edwards, Donnie Shell, Sam Davis, Jim Clack and Randy Grossman, all of whom became Super Bowl starters, and the drafting of sleepers such as Stallworth, Texas Southern's Ernie Holmes (second of two eighth-round picks in 1969) and Western Illinois' Mike Wagner (11th round in 1971). Today, those players might have to beg to get on NFL training-camp rosters, with the draft limited to seven rounds.

"Noll would always say, `Luck is being prepared to take advantage of your opportunities,' " said Rooney, who is a son of Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. and brother of president Dan Rooney. "My dad used to tell me, `I've seen a lot of talented guys who can't hold a job and smart guys who all they could do is work for someone else and hard workers who all they were were hard workers. For some reason, a lucky guy does all right in life and everyone likes him. Don't rap good luck.' "

Which is why Rooney isn't ashamed of telling the story of how he drafted linebacker Loren Toews in 1973.

In 1972, Rooney attended the spring football game at the University of California-Berkeley and ended up sitting in the end zone with a group of Boy Scouts who were eating their lunch after serving as ushers. The boys were curious to find out why this middle-aged man sitting among them was scribbling furiously on a notepad.

Rooney identified himself as a Steelers' scout and, as luck would have it, Toews' younger brother was one of the Boy Scouts. "They told me, `This kid's brother is the best player on the team.' "

Rooney liked what he saw of Toews and the name was filed in the back of his mind. During the next season, Steelers scouts watched Toews a little closer than they normally would have, and he looked like a player worth drafting. But because he was a college safety who projected as a linebacker in the NFL, the Steelers could wait until the eighth round, and there he was: a Super Bowl starter served up to the Steelers by a bunch of Boy Scouts.

Toews, who played at a prominent school in a well-respected Division I conference (PAC 10), wasn't a sleeper in the classic sense, but, then, there really are no sleepers anymore.

Scouting has become such a comprehensive exercise for all 32 NFL teams that if a player is known by only a few of them, he probably isn't worth drafting.

The best recent example of a player who was unearthed from a small school ­ and might be classified as a sleeper ­ is defensive end Aaron Smith, who played at Division II Northern Colorado. He came to the Steelers in the fourth round in 1999.

Steelers' scout Bob Lane, who is responsible for many of the schools in the western part of the United States, saw video of Smith during his junior season that indicated that he was a productive, but undersized, pass rusher at 250 pounds. "He wasn't a guy who would fit our system the way we play our defensive ends," Lane said.

But Smith wouldn't go away. An exceptionally hard-worker, he recorded 44 career sacks and became a Division II All-American. Eventually, every team in the league had a grade for him.

He bulked up nearly 30 pounds by his senior year and started looking the part of the 3-4 defensive ends that the Steelers crave. He did himself no favors, however, when he pulled a hamstring running the 40-yard dash at a campus workout in the spring of '99.

But Smith had a friend in Lane, a former coach at the Division II level with an admitted bias toward those players. Others in the organization, including then-director of football operations Tom Donahoe, also liked Smith's potential and his ability to put on weight without sacrificing quickness and speed.

"He wasn't an obvious guy who could say, `I'm going to come from a small school, but I'm going to be a great player,' " Lane said, "but he was a very hard-working guy. Every once in a while, a guy pops up like that. But there are no crystal balls."

Now, Smith weighs more than 290 pounds and is one of the Steelers' most coveted defensive players. He recorded eight sacks last season, and seems to have a bright future.

Smith would be almost ashamed to know that, although he and Stallworth were both fourth-rounders, Smith was the more widely known player coming out of college. In fact, the Steelers tried to hide Stallworth from the rest of the league.

Dick Haley, who directed the Steelers' college scouting department for many years, had film of Stallworth from the 1973 season. "We watched it one day and were finished with it," Rooney said, "and I said to him, `You better send that back to the school.' Haley said, `I'll get that in the afternoon mail.' "

He did ­ but it turned out to be several afternoons later, limiting the number of other teams that eventually could get their hands on the tape. Rooney is an honest man, but he didn't reprimand Haley. "Being a good Catholic, I know there are venial sins and mortal sins," Rooney said. "Haley was a real, good guy."

Noll wanted to draft Stallworth in the first round, but Rooney convinced him that he would be available in the fourth, giving the Steelers the opportunity to draft Hall of Famers Lynn Swann and Jack Lambert before him. Rooney was smart enough to know that some teams were looking at Stallworth as a defensive back because that was where he played in the Senior Bowl, and he probably would slip through the cracks.

But as draft day proceeded and the picks went off the board one by one, Rooney admits, "We did, indeed, sweat out Stallworth."

"I did feel very self-righteous about it. You can be self-righteous, obstinate and a pain in the ass when your dad owns the team. Well, most of the time, anyway.

"I had some sour moments with Noll in that draft. I pretty well spoke my mind. I wanted to be loved, but I had to be a stand-up guy."

Although running back Rocky Bleier came from the football factory known as Notre Dame in 1968, he can be labeled a sleeper because he had marginal speed and size.

"Rocky was a bit like Webster in that you could fail him on height, weight and speed," Rooney said, "but his production and intangibles were outstanding. You called them computer players because the computer was programmed to knock out those guys."

Rooney was intrigued and ordered backfield coach Don Heinrich to Notre Dame to work him out. "Heinrich told me that the kid only had marginal 4.8 speed and was 185 pounds. However, if you were going to take a chance on a late round, that was the guy to do it with. He would not get faster, but he could put on 10 or more pounds."

The Steelers drafted him in the 16th (next-to-last) round. Bleier showed up at training camp 10 pounds heavier and won a roster spot by covering kicks.

"The rest of the story is a movie," Rooney said.

There are many other tales of draft sleepers, such as offensive lineman Tunch Ilkin of Indiana State, who was a sixth-rounder in 1980. "He wasn't real heavy, but he kept catching our eye in film study," Rooney said.

Ilkin, who played 14 years in the NFL and earned two Pro Bowl nods, wasn't a highly touted prospect. So, when his mother, who did not follow the draft, took the call from a Steelers coach who said her son had just been drafted, she got a little nervous. "She thought I got drafted into the army," he said.