Ex-Leonard Star Garcon has Convincing Combine
By TIM GRAHAM
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
INDIANAPOLIS — Alliance, Ohio, is like many quaint college hamlets that dot the rural Midwest. About 23,000 people live amid rolling pastures and farmland 50 miles southeast of Cleveland.
There are gritty mills and rusted industries within the town limits, but "once you hit the outskirts," said Alliance Mayor Toni E. Middleton, "you're in cornfields up to your yin-yang."
That's a long way from West Palm Beach and maybe even further from the NFL.
"Both of them are pretty far," Pierre Garcon said Friday at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.
Garcon has taken a roundabout journey from John I. Leonard High to the doorstep of dreams. He was invited to the scouting combine after starring at wide receiver for Mount Union College, which is a Division III powerhouse, but also a non-scholarship program that has produced zero NFL draft picks.
"I knew I had a small chance (to play in the NFL), a shot in the dark," Garcon said. "It was always a dream. It was more like a fantasy, too, of being here, of being interviewed, of being in front of the media and waiting to get drafted. I'm kind of lucky."
The scouting combine is a crucial step toward getting drafted, and the fact Garcon was among the 330 or so invited means he made an impression while breaking Mount Union records in career catches and touchdowns. The number of Division III prospects invited each year can be counted on one hand, usually with fingers to spare.
"Just to be here, just to think somebody in the NFL wants me to play on their team ..." Garcon said, shaking his head and unable to complete the thought.
While Delray Beach native Brandon Flowers, a cornerback from Virginia Tech, already is a known commodity and could get drafted in the first round, Garcon is an underdog trying to make a better name for himself.
Garcon will undergo myriad tests and answer a gazillion questions in hopes of impressing as many NFL scouts as possible.
Receivers, running backs and quarterbacks work out Sunday. He said the NFL officially measured him Friday at 5-foot-11 and 205 pounds. He hopes to run the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds, a speed one insider claimed was a little ambitious for Garcon.
"You could be a hero or you could be just another guy in a 40 time," Garcon said. "It is a big life-changing experience. You could become the talk of the town or just another bum who had a shot.
"This weekend could help you or it could break you. There is a lot of pressure. I've got to be good. If not, it was a waste."
By Friday he considered his visit with the Minnesota Vikings his most enjoyable. He also had met with the Dolphins, Cowboys, Bengals and Packers.
"He's very prolific," Packers General Manager Ted Thompson said. "He's big. He's strong. He catches the ball very well. He's good after the catch. He's all the things people are looking for."
Thompson noted the value of Garcon's performance in a Feb. 2 college all-star game in El Paso, Texas. Garcon, competing against Division I opponents, had three catches for 22 yards and returned a punt 62 yards for a touchdown.
"It's not very often a player slips through the hands of the Division I recruiters," Mount Union coach Larry Kehres said. "Pierre did slip, through."
A combination of poor grades and only two less-than-spectacular seasons for the Lancers doomed his college options.
At John I. Leonard, he didn't play as a freshman or sophomore because he was academically ineligible, whiling away his time playing video games and goofing off instead of completing his homework.
Garcon estimated he had 100 yards and one touchdown his entire junior season.
He didn't become a starter until he was a senior.
Garcon said Syracuse, Florida Atlantic and Bethune-Cookman expressed lukewarm interest, but once his grades were ruled inadequate, junior colleges were repelled.
"I had to break through the depression, but that's what happens when your grades aren't good enough," Garcon said.
So he traipsed to Norwich University in Vermont before finding a home at Mount Union, a program that has won nine NCAA championships since 1993.
He finished his college career with 246 catches for 4,200 yards and 60 touchdowns.
Garcon's journey has been a circuitous one. That it's meandering through Indianapolis is confirmation he has been headed in the right direction.
"It is vindication, but it can't stop here," Garcon said. "I have to keep getting better."