Emtman Dazzles NFL Officials In Personal Tryout

It didn't take long to see how important he was.

Thirty scouts representing 15 NFL teams, including head coaches Ted Marchibroda of the Indianapolis Colts and Chuck Knox of the Los Angeles Rams, circled like seagulls over a garbage dump yesterday waiting for Steve Emtman to enter the University of Washington weight room.

It didn't take long to see he was worth the wait.

Emtman dug himself into a crouch and leaped toward the ceiling, reaching a mark that showed he had a vertical leap of 36 1/2 inches.

"We've got wide receivers who can't do that," one scout muttered.

Otherwise, they wrote quietly in their notebooks, obviously uncomfortable that other students, including Husky basketball players Katia Foucade and Mark Pope, and a handful of local newspaper and television reporters were watching.

At the official NFL workout in Indianapolis, the players wear ID tags for admittance and absolutely no press is allowed.

But this was Emtman's show. He didn't go to Indianapolis; his agent sent out a fax to teams inviting them to Seattle, instead.

"This is a tribute to Steve; I don't think I could pull this off," joked Ed Cunningham, the UW starting center, who did his vertical leap with 350 other prospects in Indianapolis.

"Steve had just made a major decision - to leave college football - when the Indianapolis tryout was held, and the last thing he was ready to do was give an athletic performance.

"Now he has them here, in his element, when he can do his best. Most of the guys in Indianapolis got too nervous and didn't do their best."

As Emtman headed to the bench press, Cunningham said what the scouts wouldn't.

"They're in awe of what they just saw," he said. "That vertical leap is good for any athlete, but for someone 290 pounds, well, it shows explosive power; and that's what football is, explosive power."

The crowd grew to near 70 as Emtman played a strange sort of pied piper, leading it from the weight room to the stadium.

It was difficult to tell whether Emtman was being courted or conscripted by the NFL.

At times, he was gladiator, slave-on-the-block, the object of nothing more than a meat-market inspection. At other times, he was congenial host to a gathering of some of the NFL's most powerful people.

Just before he ran his 40-yard dash, Dan Conners of the Los Angeles Raiders pulled a small camera from his pocket and took a picture of Emtman, either for his scrapbook or for his boss, Al Davis.

"He does things so effortlessly," said Marchibroda, whose Colts have the first two picks in the draft. Said Jim Irsay, Indianapolis general manager: "He's probably more valued now than before."

There were four people representing the Colts and three from the Rams, who have the No. 3 pick.

Knox, wearing in a trenchcoat, peered from the background at Emtman. His defensive coordinator, George Dyer, had spent the day before interviewing the All-America defensive tackle. John Becker, former Seahawk offensive coordinator, also was there for the Rams.

"We need help in the defensive line, and he would fit right in in our 4-3 defense," Knox said. "He'd be a lot like Cortez Kennedy was for us with the Seahawks."

Emtman was measured at 6 feet 4 3/8 and weighed in at 289.

After prodigious vertical and horizontal standing leaps, Emtman went to the bench-press station. He was to lift 225 pounds as many times as he could.

The record in Indianapolis was 33 consecutive lifts. The scouts knew anything over 25 would be very good for Emtman, anything less a suggestion that he wasn't in good shape.

Emtman powered the weight up 29 times.

"I was disappointed in my bench press and my 40 time," he said later. "I was expecting to do better."

On the track, Emtman ran three 40-yard sprints, instead of the customary two. In every test, he showed a willingness to please and a spirit to compete.

"Darn," said Cricket Marshall, the former UW sprinter who has been coaching Emtman, "last week he consistently ran 4.75, but today he's pressing too hard. The explosion is there in the first half of the race, but there's nothing in the second half."

Emtman ran 4.85. He wanted to do 4.69.

"The heck with the 40, all he has to do is run 8 or 9 yards and get a quarterback," said Knox, who didn't have a watch.

Ron Wolf, general manger of the Green Bay Packers, put his watch in a briefcase and prepared to go to the airport.

"In the 1970s, he said, "we had defensive linemen with the Raiders who ran that fast, but they weighed 250 pounds. This guy is something."

The Packers have the fifth pick.

"You have to be ready," Wolf said. "You never know what might happen."

The Rams have forged a nice relationship with Emtman; the Colts haven't even interviewed him yet.

"How can I draw a conclusion on Indianapolis?" Emtman asked. "I haven't met them. I haven't seen their facilities yet."

Emtman certainly showed them his yesterday.

"Let's not kid ourselves," Cunningham concluded, "this is a meat market. They prod and pry at everything you've got. But when they pay as much as they do, they've got a right to protect their investment."

Yesterday, the price per pound for Steve Emtman did nothing but go up.