"I definitely feel better from a mental standpoint going into this year. I know a lot more about the game at this level ..." -- Julian Stanford
Julian Stanford is a perfectionist.
Not just about football, either.
?Chess, bowling, you name it,? the second-year Jacksonville Jaguar linebacker said the other day following another marathon conditioning session at Wagner College. ?I like working at things and getting better; it?s just my nature.?
Good thing, too.
How else would a 2012 undrafted free agent out of a way-below-the-radar football program like Wagner?s be currently in the hunt for a starting outside linebacker job in the NFL?
It?s not something that happens every day, after all.
The last Seahawk alum to build a successful pro career was future Eagles and Jets head coach Rich Kotite, who was a six-year backup tight end with the Giants and Steelers. That was almost a half-century ago.
Stanford is already on the way, with his rookie season as a sometime starter for the struggling Jags now in the rearview mirror.
A rookie?s personal assessment of his first year in the league?
MADE SOME MISTAKES
?I was OK,? he said. ?But I made some mistakes.?
Still, the career arc is pretty impressive.
In early 2010, Stanford was a 200-pound college sophomore who didn?t look like anything even remotely resembling an NFL linebacker. The Connecticut product was a 6-footer with a 31-inch vertical leap. He could squat 470 pounds and run an OK time in the 40-yard dash.
He was athletic, even explosive; interesting at the Wagner level, and perhaps even a little better than that. But this was no prototype new-age NFL linebacker of the Aldon Smith or Von Miller mold hiding out in Seahawk green.
?Everything Julian has he worked for,? Wagner strength and conditioning coach Brandon Beach was saying Wednesday of his prize pupil, who is working out on campus before Jacksonville?s camp opens on July 22.
?It?s all him. He wasn?t gifted in the way some kids are. He?s a grinder who built himself into who he is today.?
Stanford?s evolution was a process. First came an internal sense of awareness.
?I started telling myself that playing football is what I really wanted to do,? he said during a chat in the Hall of Fame room at Wagner?s Spiro Sports Center. Once he came to that conclusion, the perfectionist attitude kicked in.
Stanford became just short of obsessed with conditioning and strength work, with building speed and muscle at the same time.
Pretty soon, a positive cycle emerged.
?The more I worked, the more gains I made,? he said. ?That made me even more committed.?
He?d put on close to 30 pounds without losing a step.
In fact, he got quicker.
Pretty soon you could pick Stanford out as special, even in a room of other college players. He was a physical specimen by the time his junior season was ending, and a handful of NFL scouts had already begun checking the Wagner football schedule.
The significance of that interest wasn?t lost on someone like Stanford.
?I started thinking that maybe playing in the NFL was a realistic possibility, and that motivated me even more,? he said.
Of course, anyone trying to climb a hill this high needed all the help they could find. And there was something else about Stanford that was attractive to the interested NFL teams.
Simply put, he is smart, likable, and naturally persistent.
?He believed in doing what it took,? said Beach. ?He?d stay at school during breaks to work out, no taking off or complaining.?
He showed up at the Jags? camp last summer a man on a mission.
?I told myself that this was make or break,? he said. ?I was just trying to give it my all, and thinking that the cards are going to fall however they fall.?
He received encouragement through the process from Jaguars linebacker coach Mark Duffner.
?He told me that the reason he brought me in was that he really believed I could make the team,? said Stanford. ?He helped me to get comfortable.?
WAITED FOR WORD
On the day of final cuts he sat in his hotel room alone.
?I didn?t know what to expect,? Stanford said. ?It was unbelievably stressful.?
He didn?t hear from the Jags until Duffner called a day later.
?Congratulations,? was the message.
Today Stanford is almost 240 pounds of absolute gristle and steel.
He squats 700 pounds, and has a 40-inch vertical leap to help make up for the three or four inches he gives away to the Smiths and Millers.
And he?s heading back to Jacksonville with the goal of beating out free-agent signee Geno Hayes and whoever else is interested in starting at strongside linebacker for the Jaguars.
?I definitely feel better from a mental standpoint going into this year,? said the proverbial long-shot. ?I know a lot more about the game at this level, about the speed and the size.?
That doesn?t mean he?ll be taking anything for granted.
?I treat every day as if it could be my last,? Stanford said. ?I?m on edge all the time.?
It?s the only way for a perfectionist to feel.
Source: http://www.silive.com/sports/advance/gordon/index.ssf/2013/07/former_wagner_college_football.html
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