Troy's Ware climbs up draft charts, stays grounded in small-town roots

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Here is a great story about DeMarcus Ware, Troy University, located in Alabama, draft status and his climb up the charts. What a refreshing young man.

Ware stays grounded

Troy's Ware climbs up draft charts, stays grounded in small-town roots
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
MIKE PERRIN
News staff writer

DeMarcus Ware doesn't know where he's going, but he knows where he is coming from as Saturday's NFL draft approaches.

A small-town guy from a small-town school, Troy University's all-time sack leader is expected to be a first-round pick, perhaps as high as No.11 to the Dallas Cowboys.

A defensive end at Troy, Ware may be converted to an outside linebacker in the pros. He is not expected to change from the kind of man he is.

"When I talk to teams about his character, I tell them I waited for the other shoe to drop," said Ware's agent, Pat Dye Jr. "There's not one there. He is what he is.

"He's an extraordinary young man. To be as talented as he is and to work as hard as he does and to be as grounded as he is makes him very unique."

Ware was not recruited by many Division I schools after playing two years at Auburn High School. He was a 190-pound linebacker and wide receiver, but he won his team's most valuable linebacker and wide receiver awards as well as a leadership honor.

Ware, now 6-foot-4 and 251 pounds, fit right in with the Trojans' speedy defense. Clocked at 4.5 in the 40-yard dash, he leaves Troy as the team's all-time leader in sacks and tackles for loss as well as sack yardage and tackles for loss yardage. He owned the tackles for loss record following his break-out junior season with 39 and finished his career with 58 for minus-252 yards. His 27.5 sacks for minus-198 yards surpassed Osi Umenyiora's previous record of 22 from 2001-02.

Ware is also expected to push Umenyiora down another notch in Troy's record book. Umenyiora is the Trojans' highest draft pick as a second-rounder (No.56 overall) in 2003 by the New York Giants.

"It's been weird," Ware said early this week after being interrupted by a call from the Giants. "It's like college recruiting all over again, but they make the decision instead of you.

"I think about being the highest draft pick from Troy all the time. There have been some really nice guys who came out of Troy and been drafted or played in the NFL - Mareno Philyaw, Al Lucas, Branden Hall, Osi Umenyiora.

"To be the first one drafted in the first round means a lot to everybody at Troy."

Ware is not quite ready to leave Troy behind, despite his trips to meet team higher-ups with the San Diego Chargers, the Kansas City Chiefs, the New York Jets and the Carolina Panthers. Ware, whose mother, Betty Ware, catered for Auburn's city schools, is finishing his degree in business information systems. He works out twice a day, commuting from Troy to Montgomery, and keeps up with his classwork.

"Some days I stay in Troy to work out if I have papers to do," Ware said. "I work out at 6 in the morning, have class from 9 to 12, and then work out at 2 in the afternoon.

"If you go to school, you know it's free. Why quit when you're three-quarters of the way there? I wanted to get it done and get it out of the way and focus on football afterward."

Dye said NFL executives are impressed by Ware's work ethic in the classroom as well as on the field.

"It's a further affirmation of what kind of character and the priorities of this young man," Dye said. "We had a lot of dialogues over whether he should pull out of school and focus solely on training or let us identify training solutions that would allow him to stay in school.

"Most guys in his position do pull out of school and focus on training and I don't blame them for that. You only get drafted once. DeMarcus has the commitment and energy to stay in school and go perform well at the Senior Bowl, at the (NFL) Combine and at his pro day.

"I was sharing that story with one of the teams that is very interested in him and they were unaware he was staying in school and going back and forth to finish his degree. That was icing on the cake for them."

Ware has done some day-dreaming about the NFL and it involves his family.

"My mom, we never really like to talk about football," he said. "We talk about values, about how you're doing. I want to get her a new car.

"She's been living in an apartment for as long as I've been living, so I want to get her a home. I want to show her how much I love her and get her out of that apartment."

E-mail: mperrin@bhamnews.com