Thornton – It wasn’t exactly Romeo and Juliet, but it was as close as you would want to get when it comes to football.
New Mexico Highlands football coach Santos Carrillo saw Northglenn High School defensive end Nate Baldwin through a crowd of bodies and knew he wanted a closer look. Carrillo liked Baldwin’s burst in the three-cone drill at the Rocky Mountain Football Combine on Saturday at Five Star Stadium and thought the senior might fit in with the Cowboys.
Next thing anybody knew, Baldwin was yelling for his dad in the stands, asking him to go home and get some game tapes to give to the college coach.
Carrillo will look at the film later, but in that moment he saw a potential recruit up close and personal – his size, quickness and strength, along with a glimpse of a kid’s attitude.
More important, tens of coaches like Carrillo get to see hundreds of athletes similar to Baldwin, all wanting one more chance to be noticed and considered for a scholarship.
“To me, it’s huge. You don’t have to go to every school, all over the place. We can come here and see all these kids at once. You kill I don’t know how many birds with one stone,” said Carrillo, one of the many coaches from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference on hand with clipboards and stopwatches.
Nearly 200 high school athletes, most juniors and seniors, participated in the two-day event that is run like an NFL combine.
It’s the usual measurements and drills: height, weight, 40-yard dash, bench press and agility tests. The coaches, many brought in from across the state, also organized the more popular passing and 1-on-1 workouts.
It would be a longshot if anybody earned a free ride to play for the top- ranked Southern California Trojans, but there was plenty of interest from NCAA Division II and Division III schools.
“I’m just looking for a coach to see me,” said Baldwin, who led Northglenn with seven sacks despite missing two games because of an injury.
“I’m shooting for D-II. I think I could get a chance to play at that level instead of going to Division I and not play at all,” he said.
Jerry Howard, who started the program three years ago, said more than 50 participants have received full or partial scholarships to schools across the country.
Howard played football in college and had a hard time tracking down a scholarship, and that was the reason behind creating the combine.
“There are a lot of kids not being recruited. If you don’t play (Class) 4A or 5A, or you don’t make the championship game in 3A and 2A, most college coaches don’t know about them,” Howard said.
C.J. Hammond, a senior specialist for the 1-9 Chatfield Chargers, said the combine offered him a better chance to catch the attention of college coaches who might dismiss players from a team with a poor record.
“Coaches might not look at teams with losing records because they might think there aren’t any good players on the team,” Hammond said. “I’m here for a scholarship. Everybody is here to get noticed.”
