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IN MY OPINION / TOM SORENSEN
Former Wingate tight end hopes to catch break in NFL
TOM SORENSEN
The other rookies came to Charlotte in an airplane. Tight end Chris Conklin arrived in a Jeep Grand Cherokee with about 62,000 miles on the odometer, few of them from the drive to Bank of America Stadium.
Conklin is from Snow Camp, played three sports at Southern Alamance High in Graham and starred at Wingate.
"I knew where to go," he says after Carolina's Saturday morning practice.
Wingate to the NFL is not as long a trip as you would think. Last season cornerback David Jones became the first Wingate player selected in the NFL draft when New Orleans took him in the fifth round. The Saints cut him but he played two games for Cincinnati.
This season Wingate defensive end Kenwin Cummings signed a free-agent contract with the New York Jets and Conklin signed one with Carolina.
Conklin, who has close-cropped dark hair and smiles a lot, was watching the sixth round of the NFL draft when the Panthers called. Baltimore and Green Bay also called. By the time the Packers called, Conklin had committed to Carolina.
I ask him which Panther he most wanted to meet, the one he might be awed by.
"Brad Hoover," says Conklin. "He's a North Carolina boy."
Hoover is from Thomasville and played at Western Carolina. Conklin figured Hoover would be a nice guy and was happy to find out he was right.
If Conklin had not gone to Wingate, he would have gone to East Carolina.
Good program, I say. And good party school.
Conklin figured out the party part. So did his parents.
"Family decision," he says about Wingate.
Conklin is 6-foot-3 and 249 pounds, a good athlete and blocker who led all South Atlantic Conference receivers last season with 10 touchdown catches. He admits he was nervous when Panthers tight ends coach Geep Chryst came to campus to watch him work out.
He also admits he was nervous when he was summoned to his first practice-field huddle and looked around.
"I saw Muhsin Muhammad and Steve Smith," he says.
Then he ran a play. And he ceased to be a guy from a 1,600-student school and became a tight end playing a game he has always played well.
"Football is football," says Conklin. "It doesn't matter what level."
On the Panthers' roster are players from Ohio State, Florida, Virginia Tech, Miami, Tennessee and Georgia. On the roster also are players from Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Morris Brown, William & Mary, Buffalo, Tusculum and North Carolina.
Your college pedigree matters only when your school beats a teammate's.
"I wouldn't change anything about where I went," says Conklin. "I met a lot of really good people."
He has had one small-school moment. After he was assigned a locker, he sat in front of it for 30 minutes, he says, "taking it all in."
Conklin says the locker room is as big as the first floor of the Wingate athletic complex.
He's moved on and up and life is good. He has a locker. He has an opportunity. And he got to meet Brad Hoover.
