The NAC Blog

The excitement is growing as National Athletic Combine nears its first event of 2010, the East Texas Region combine.

We’ll be at the Kilgore High School indoor practice facility at 711 North Longview Street. We’re expecting 60-70 student-athletes to participate both Saturday and Sunday, and they’ll get tested with the latest technology and state-of-the-art tools not previously available in the evaluation of high school athletes.

Check-in is at 7 a.m. with the combine starting at 8 a.m. We’re anticipating going until at least mid-afternoon with drills, sprints, jumps and reps, then after lunch we’ll conclude things with position-specific drills. Check our Facebook page next week for footage, news and quotes from the big weekend.

Our next event will be the North Texas Region combine Feb. 20-21 in Prosper.

The Senior Bowl is the primary showcase for the best seniors eligible for the 2010 NFL Draft. As usual, a considerable number of the 100-plus players making up the North and South rosters are from Texas. Here’s a look at those local to the Lone Star State:

NORTH
Danario Alexander, Missouri, WR (Marlin)
Daryl Washington, TCU, LB (Irving)
Sean Weatherspoon Missouri, LB (Jasper)

SOUTH
Ciron Black, LSU, OT (Tyler)
Perrish Cox, Baylor, CB (Waco)
Roddrick Muckelroy, Texas, LB (Hallsville)
J.D. Walton, Baylor, C (Allen)
Jeremy Williams, Tulane, WR (Baytown)

UCLA WR Terrence Austin, a late entry to the rosters for the 2010 East-West Shrine Game being played in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla., this weekend, is a strong believer in the power of combines for spreading the word about a player’s talent.

“My sophomore year in high school, I got introduced to combines,” he said from the practice field Wednesday. “My coaches told me all the time to go to them, but my parents told me not to worry about it. They said I wasn’t ready, and if I went down there and ran a bad time, it would get around and it would be hard to get noticed anymore, so I sat back and watched.

A year later, combines were becoming so prevalent that his parents relented, and he’s glad they did.

“My junior year, everybody was going to Palo Alto and Los Angeles with combines, so I went,” he said. “I went in with two scholarship offers, but after that, a lot more schools started offering.”