Player goes undrafted, says no thanks to teams...including Jets

[NIGHT STALKER]

Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on April 24, 2010 10:31 PM ET

Can you retire without ever getting drafted?

UNH tight end Scott Sicko essentially did that Saturday after he failed to get taken on day three of the draft. He had numerous offers from teams such as the Jaguars and Jets. His agents even had a deal agreed to with the Cowboys at one point.

But Sicko surprised his agents and the Cowboys with his response.

If he wasn't drafted, he didn't want to play football. The Cowboys tried to personally appeal to Sicko, but it didn't work.

"If I were to be drafted I would have had more confidence of a much longer career in the NFL," Sicko told the Albany Times-Union. "I have to look at my life and decide what will make me the happiest. And the thing that will make me the happiest now and in the long run is to pursue my education."

[SoFlaJets]

perfect last name for an idiot who turns down a dream job that every kid in America would kill for

[Jetsfan80]

Interesting. Part of me says good for him for sticking to his guns ("If I don't get drafted, I'm not playing ball") and valuing his education.

But the louder part of me says he's a moron for not taking the shot. You only get one chance to be a professional athlete, and that window of opportunity doesn't stay open long.

[Blackout]

perfect last name for an idiot who turns down a dream job that every kid in America would kill for

The guy wants to finish his education and you're going to crucify him for it?

very mature response Sofla. i'm disappointed in ya'll.

[Jetsfan80]

[quote name='Blackout

[Blackout]

He has plenty of time to continue his education. Many people take a few years off from school to enter the work force before persuing a masters or doctoral degree.

But you only get 1, maybe 2, chances at being a pro athlete.

maybe he used sports as a way to get a free education and is content with making money with his major?

[Jetsfan80]

maybe he used sports as a way to get a free education and is content with making money with his major?

All I'm saying is this might be a "you'll regret it later" kind of decisions. At the time he may feel his education is more valuable than trying to make an NFL roster. But when he's just your average joe schmoe businessman or lawyer (or whatever he's studying to be), he might ask the "what if?" question to himself.

You regret the things you DIDN'T do more than the things you did as you get older.

[bobby2times]

Backup players make 6 figures. Colleges arent going anywhere. His quote sounds like if he went in for a job interview and didnt get the job, he'll give up looking for one.

[Bruce Banner]

Is this a joke? I'm asking because of the weird name. He could have made over $300K for around half a year's work. Get a bunch of stories to tell clients for years in business life. Tons of people would have bought his jersey just for the name.

So ... he got knocked around in college for four years for nothing more than tuition and now he wants out?

[Bruce Banner]

Anyone else remember Timm Rosenbach? Made a big stink about retiring early and then came crawling back, played a year in Canada a year with the Saints.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/03/sports/walking-away-while-he-still-can-troubled-fearing-injury-timm-rosenbach-quit.html?pagewanted=1

"Timm Rosenbach remembers clearly the beginning of the end because everything was pitch black.

He woke up in a dark room with his head strapped to a table, still wearing his Phoenix Cardinals uniform and shoulder pads and hip pads and cleats. He was frightened and alone, not sure if he was alive or dead. He couldn't move, didn't want to move. He knew he had been hurt, but didn't know how badly. He thought about his friend and former college teammate, Mike Utley of the Lions, who the year before had taken a tumble in a game and been left paralyzed for life from the chest down.

Then Rosenbach remembered the hit he had taken earlier that day. Was it minutes ago? Was it hours? Rosenbach, a 6-foot quarterback, was dropping back to pass in the third quarter of the season opener when he was blindsided by Santana Dodson, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 6--5, 270-pound defensive end, in one of the brutal encounters that is commonplace in a National Football League game.

Rosenbach remembered only the resounding impact, as if being leveled by a tank, and then nothing. Until that moment in the room. And then, just as suddenly, he blacked out again.

This was Sunday, Sept. 6, 1992, in an X-ray room at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. Rosenbach was not aware that he had been taken, unmoving, from the field at Sun Devils Stadium on a stretcher and rushed to the emergency room. He was not aware that he had suffered only a severe concussion when his head slammed into the turf.

He would walk and talk normally again, even report back for work two days later, but the grim experience would not leave him. In the following game, he returned to the lineup only to be blindsided again, this time by Clyde Simmons, Philadelphia's 6-6, 280-pound defensive end, on the Cardinals' second series of the game.

"I made sure that the next time I get hit, I don't go head first," Rosenbach recalled, "and I didn't. I went shoulder first." And he suffered a separated shoulder. He was out of action for a month.

After the last game of the season, Dec. 27, 1992, Rosenbach, at age 26, did what some thought was unthinkable: He walked away from professional football and $1.05 million, the salary for the fifth and last year of his $5.3 million contract. He left the field and the money because he had developed fears that he might be crippled if he continued to play and because he began to "despise," as he said, the dehumanizing aspects of football that "can turn you into an animal."

It wasn't always that way. Two years earlier, in 1990, in his second year in the N.F.L., he took every snap for the Cardinals, all 1,001 of them, throwing for 3,098 yards to rank third in the National Football Conference. He ranked second in the N.F.L. in rushing yardage for a quarterback, behind Randall Cunningham. He threw 16 touchdown passes. He was admired, as one Phoenix sports reporter wrote, because "He was feisty. Gutsy. Combative. Ornery." His coach, Joe Bugel, called him "a throwback," a "gun-slingin', beer-drinkin' tough" in the mold of the late and colorful Bobby Layne.

Last summer, when it became apparent that Rosenbach had made his decision to quit football and return to Washington State University -- where he had starred in football and where he was 38 hours short of a bachelor's degree in general studies with an emphasis in psychology -- he didn't call the team. His agent, Gary Wichard, did. Rosenbach changed his unlisted phone number so that no one from the Cardinals organization could call to try to talk him out of retiring and no reporter could call and ask why.

Football generally had been fun for Rosenbach in school, and even into the pros -- he once relished the contact, proudly looking in the mirror at his bruises as an affirmation of manhood. But he was not prepared, as a 22-year-old right out of college for the hard-edged business of professional football, nor for the debilitating injuries that had sidelined him. And while his associations with a number of his teammates remained close, his view of this odd occupation became deeper, and darker."

[serphnx]

You get an education to get a job. You get a job to make money. The only times this isn't true is of course if you're a pro athlete or some other celebrity, or if you are born into money or otherwise have another method of being financially secure.

He would make more money as an athlete in the NFL, even if it is only for a month (being cut in preseason, which probably wasn't going to happen even). Most people graduating these days don't get jobs anyway, or they get crappy jobs they are overqualified in and don't make much money.

[Ghost]

Everything happens for a reason.

[uart]

He has plenty of time to continue his education. Many people take a few years off from school to enter the work force before persuing a masters or doctoral degree.

But you only get 1, maybe 2, chances at being a pro athlete.

Yeah, listen, if he had an offer to join an investment bank's training program, it'd be a different story, but grad school can be put off for a year to take a shot at the NFL.

[bobby2times]

Everything happens for a reason.

Thats a great quote for people trying the rationalize the irrational.

[Mistalava]

I am officially with Sicko.

[tparich]

[quote name='Blackout

[#27TheDominator]

If that is what he wanted to do then he wouldn't of declared for the draft.

He just comes of as someone that got their ego bruised by not getting to hear his name called in the draft.

Exactly. It sounds pretty bitchy for a guy that went to New Hampshire. They aren't exactly a football factory. It's possible that he's just tired of dealing with keeping his body in that kind of shape. It's a ton of work and in my opinion a ton of pharmacueticals to keep it up.

[L.S. Dylan]

What a boring move on his part.

[CoachTsurfing]

Interesting. Part of me says good for him for sticking to his guns ("If I don't get drafted, I'm not playing ball") and valuing his education.

But the louder part of me says he's a moron for not taking the shot. You only get one chance to be a professional athlete, and that window of opportunity doesn't stay open long.

undrafted fa that makes a football team for the season is going to make a heck of a lot more money then someone going to school and bagging groceries. What's a few more months to see if you could make it???

[talisaynon]

He's taking his ball and going home cause he's catching feelings.

I for one say this is an example of the pussification of America.

[Maxman]

The guy wants to finish his education and you're going to crucify him for it?

very mature response Sofla. i'm disappointed in ya'll.

He has a chance and making hundreds of thousands of dollars this year.

You don't need a degree to tell you to chase that money in the short term. Plenty of time for education in 1-3 years if you didn't stick in the NFL that long. If he was the last draft pick he would play. If he is the first UDFA to receive an offer, he won't.

I am all for principles but this sounds like sour grapes.

[PatriotReign37]

I have a funny feeling this guy will change his mind when NFL teams come calling in August after injuries in camp. Its a lot easier to say no when youre peeved on draft weekend.

[Larz]

ummmmmm

if he couldn't make the cut, he would have found out by the end of august

and he could then go back to school

I think the education thing is a cop out, he either is one of those guys who just doesn't like the game and only played it for the perks, or his wittle ego was hurt by not being drafted, so this is a wittle hissy fit

[NIGHT STALKER]

undrafted fa that makes a football team for the season is going to make a heck of a lot more money then someone going to school and bagging groceries. What's a few more months to see if you could make it???

I'm sure Wayne Chrebet would agree with you.

[SoFlaJets]

two words: Sore. Loser.

[Bergen Jet]

I'm sure Wayne Chrebet would agree with you.

...and Ryan Grant, Kurt Warner, Bart Scott, Warren Moon, Jeff Garcia, Antonio Gates, Wes Welker, James Harrison, Priest Holmes and tons of others.

[SoFlaJets]

...and Ryan Grant, Kurt Warner, Bart Scott, Warren Moon, Jeff Garcia, Antonio Gates, Wes Welker, James Harrison, Priest Holmes and tons of others.

even though Blackout is disappointed in me the tens of thousands of young football players around this country would agree I'm sure

[slats]

It's obvious the kid never loved football that much in the first place. He's probably right. With that attitude he probably would fizzle out quickly.

Good luck with that edjumacation, Sicko!

[SoFlaJets]

It's obvious the kid never loved football that much in the first place. He's probably right. With that attitude he probably would fizzle out quickly.

Good luck with that edjumacation, Sicko!

shades of another TE we all knew well back in the late 90's? One; Johnny Mitchell...the dude's probably a janitor at a HS by now

[slats]

shades of another TE we all knew well back in the late 90's? One; Johnny Mitchell...the dude's probably a janitor at a HS by now

God Jimmy, I loved Johnny Mitchell. Look at his numbers today. Extrapolated, they rival the greatest TE's to ever play. What a colossal disappointment he was.

[i remember shea]

shades of another TE we all knew well back in the late 90's? One; Johnny Mitchell...the dude's probably a janitor at a HS by now

For you, my friend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mitchell

[SoFlaJets]

God Jimmy, I loved Johnny Mitchell. Look at his numbers today. Extrapolated, they rival the greatest TE's to ever play. What a colossal disappointment he was.

wasn't he another one of "the genius" Bill Parcells' draft picks?

[slats]

wasn't he another one of "the genius" Bill Parcells' draft picks?

Nah, he goes all the way back to the genuis of Steinberg/Coslet.

[Bergen Jet]

God Jimmy, I loved Johnny Mitchell. Look at his numbers today. Extrapolated, they rival the greatest TE's to ever play. What a colossal disappointment he was.

He had the tools to go down as one of the greatest pass catching TEs to play the position. He showed signs for 3 solid years and was more productive than people care to remember. Sadly his heart and mind just weren't into it.

[SouthernJet]

he is hurt and pissed..a few days from now cooler heads will prevail and he will sign..