MALLORY GETS A SHOT AT PRO FOOTBALL
By Brittany Burke
Despite going undrafted and unsigned by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the initial rookie minicamp in April, former CCSU Blue Devils running back and football captain James Mallory, 22, is still optimistic for his NFL future.
“It was an awesome experience,.I represented CCSU in the right way and hopefully I’ll be a Buccaneer this 2010-2011 football season. I’m just going to keep working hard and hopefully you guys will hear something real soon about me signing,” Mallory said of his time with the Bucs.
If he does not get picked up by Tampa Bay in the offseason despite having a successful tryout, Mallory still has a variety of options with other NFL organizations.
“Right now four or five teams have been in contact with my agent that still has a lot of interest in me so right now it’s just kind of a waiting game. I guess this is the business part of it,” Mallory said.
“My agent is taking care of all that stuff, but the Bucs liked me a lot after minicamp, but right now it’s just a numbers thing with other positions they needed to fill right now, which does not mean they didn’t want to sign me.”
Mallory attended the three-day Bucs minicamp for rookies that began on April 30 and ended May 2. During the three-day stint Mallory was given the chance to make an impression on Bucs’ head coach Raheem Morris and the Tampa Bay coordinators while running through a number of individual and special team drills and team periods, which pit the defensive rookies against the offensive rookies.
At the end of the minicamp, Mallory was not one of the five tryout players signed to the Tampa Bay organization, but that didn’t seem to matter to Mallory because the opportunity and experience to work out with an NFL team is something he had been working towards for 16 years.
“It’s a dream come true,” he said.
“It’s something that you work for, for me since I was six years old. I’ve been playing football since I was six years old and I’ve been working towards that so to be finally living that dream and have the opportunity for it to finally come true is just awesome. I just got to keep working hard and pray for the best. It’s a blessing to be in this situation.”
Mallory entered the Bucs minicamp representing CCSU by giving it his all and looking to prove that he is one of the best at his position. Every day was thought of as a competition against the other rookies fighting for the same spot.
He quickly learned that it didn’t matter that he didn’t come from a dominant school such as the Universities of Florida, Texas and Oklahoma. As long as he could play, the teams would be interested.
“I thought going into Tampa Bay, there wasn’t many small school guys there at all. Everybody’s from big schools that you see on ESPN all the time. And I thought I’m a small school player; that was my thought process. But they didn’t care where you came from as long as you can play,” he said.
“Nobody looked down on small school players. We’re all equal so that was pretty cool too. The thing is if you can play you can play. There are players everywhere. If you can play it doesn’t matter where you come from, it’s about what you do when you get to the league and if you can play you can play, period.”
His senior season and time as a CCSU Blue Devil finally came to a close with the Gladstone award, which is given each year to the top male athlete in the senior class.
While he could not make it to the ceremony, he is grateful for the opportunities and support that CCSU has provided for him, and is looking forward to being able to play in the NFL in the future.
