A Guy To Root For

Here's a little something on a guy you can root for. Amid the players at the UMass Pro Day Thursday, a gathering that included an offensive tackle in Vladimir Ducasse that may well be in the Giants' second-round cluster, was a guy in an MIT jersey.

It's not unusual for a school to invite prospects from smaller, surrounding institutes to join in their showcases.

His name was DeRon Brown, a 5-foot-6 running back who averaged more than 150 yards on the ground for the 1-8, NCAA-Division III MIT squad. He's got virtually no shot at being drafted, and even an invitation to the training camp as a college free agent might qualify as a seismic event. But the senior computer engineering major gave it his best shot, anyway.

"I’d rather try than look back five years from now and say, ‘What if I didn’t give it a shot?’ I did my best," he said. "I’m glad I did. If it doesn’t work, I have an MIT degree to get me through the rest of my life."

If somehow he does get his dream, he'll certainly be the smartest guy in camp.

Good luck to him is what I say.

The 6-foot-5, 332-pound Ducasse, meanwhile, actually improved on some of his combine numbers with a 27-inch vertical leap and bettering his broad jump by more than a foot at 8-feet-8. His stock seems to be rising, and some services have him going as high as the low first round.

EP