Like Ezekiel Elliott, Rico Gathers has played a game at AT&T Stadium. Like Elliott, Gathers’ team won.

Unlike Elliott, it wasn’t a football game. Gathers was a sophomore power forward when Baylor beat Kentucky 67-62, scoring six points and grabbing 13 rebounds.

Like Elliott, Gathers was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys, just in the sixth round of last weekend’s draft and nine years after he played his last football game.

“I was playing tight end, and I played mostly in-line, but they also used to play me on the outside as well to create mismatches,” Gathers said. “Those mismatches were really exposed because I was so big. But now I understand I’ll be playing against grown men who want it just as bad as I do, who have been doing it way longer than what I have been doing it now. It’s going to be much harder than the eight grade was.”

Gathers is now a 6-foot-7, 270-pound tight end prospect, attempting to do what Antonio Gates did so many years ago at Kent State. Gates was a power forward on a basketball team that made an Elite Eight run before turning to football, where he became one of the most prolific tight ends in NFL history with the San Diego Chargers.

Expecting Gathers to do anything close to what Gates has done is folly. Hoping he could potentially make the practice squad is a solid first step. At this weekend’s rookie minicamp he will practice football for the first time since the eighth grade. If he doesn’t work out at tight end, the Cowboys might give him a look as a defensive end.

The Cowboys sent senior offensive assistant Steve Loney, who will assist with the tight ends this season, to work out Gathers privately. At his open workout, 26 teams attended. The Cowboys knew they were not going to be able to sign him as an undrafted free agent and did not have a seventh-round pick.

“Clearly he is determined to do this, and so we just felt at the bottom of our draft, this was a worthwhile opportunity for us to take a shot at somebody,” coach Jason Garrett said. “It seems like he has some really good traits as an athlete. His style as a basketball player is one that was very physical; prolific rebounder. We felt like that could translate. Clearly he is a developmental player, but if he turns into something, it might be something we really like.”

Gathers led the Big 12 in rebounding as a junior and was third last season. But he made the decision to forego a potential professional basketball career before his senior seasons. He was set on giving football a try. Instead of playing a year in college, he opted to go straight to the NFL.

“That was pretty much the first grown-man decision I’ve ever made in my life,” Gathers said. “A lot of people thought I was crazy. They were like, ‘Why are you giving up basketball to go play football?’ But I knew what I wanted to do. I never saw myself being a first-round guy; I always saw myself making the team and working my way up because a lot of people thought this was a mistake because I haven’t played since I was 13. But I see it differently because of the hard worker that I am.”

He'll be in the tight end room with a player even more prolific than Gates: Jason Witten. The Cowboys also re-signed James Hanna and have Geoff Swaim entering his second season. Gavin Escobar, a second-round pick in 2013, is rehabbing from a torn Achilles.

“I think I match up pretty well,” Gathers said. “My big frame, my big 6-6, 6-7, 270, 275 pounds definitely carries weight. I’m about that physicality as a player. I’ve just got it in my mindset. Really what’s going to carry me to a long career in this league is just being able to use my size to my advantage to block and create space.”

Source:
courtesy of ESPN

by Todd Archer

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