Four years ago, Ghana native Kwaku Danso had no idea how to play the game of football. Today, he's in Berea, trying to create a future as a Cleveland Browns defensive lineman.
Kwaku Danso, a 28-year-old rookie who could even crack the first string at East Carolina, grew up in Ghana and learned to play football only three years ago.
Cleveland, Ohio -- Sports is all about the dream. Kids dream of scoring the touchdown that wins a Super Bowl, of crushing the title-grabbing homer in Game 7 of a World Series, of completing a hat trick and filling the Stanley Cup with grape Kool-Aid.
Starting Blocks is going to let you in on a little secret: Those kids can be 5 or 55; the dreams remain the same.
Which is why the story of Kwaku Danso is so heartwarming. He is, as yahoo.com writer Les Carpenter says, the unlikeliest of Browns rookies.
Who could have imagined? Rarely is there such a thing as a 28-year-old rookie in the NFL – let alone one raised in Ghana who learned to play the game just three years earlier, after walking into the head coach's office at East Carolina and saying he wanted to join the team, then never once making a tackle. Sometimes he must wonder if one of the Browns coaches will run onto the field and pull him off, saying it is all a mistake.
But there is no error. The Browns have indeed signed an undrafted free agent whose entire college career consists of three brief appearances at the end of ECU blowouts. And they did so because a few weeks earlier, defensive coordinator Rob Ryan – observing on East Carolina's pro day – noticed Danso step through a door at 6-foot-5, 336 pounds and gasped "Who the hell is that?" to the Cleveland scouts standing beside him.
Unfazed by the information that Danso had never advanced beyond a brief appearance at second string on the East Carolina depth charts, Ryan was transfixed as the player bench-pressed 225 pounds 39 times. So much so that even after Ryan continued to scout players with much better pedigrees at more important schools, Danso was the one he kept remembering. And when Browns head coach Eric Mangini told him he could have one player to bring in with the intent of keeping around for most of the year to develop, Ryan knew immediately whom he wanted.
"I like the look in his eye," Ryan says. "You have to root for a guy like that."
Yeah, coach. You do.
Not in a New York state of mindBaltimore Ravens owner Steven Bisciotti said he's opposed to a Super Bowl in the New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
Despite his contention that a blizzard of epic proportions could force postponement of the biggest event in sports, owners are likely to go ahead and approve the holding of the 2014 Super Bowl in Jersey, according to digitalsportsdaily.com.
Michael David Smith, who writes for profootballtalk.com, doesn't quite buy Bisciotti's logic.
"I'm not sold on it," Bisciotti said. "The idea of cold weather certainly doesn't scare us. The idea of a two-foot snowstorm does. After what we've been through in Baltimore in the last three months, you really have to wonder if logistically it's possible the darn thing could get postponed. I don't think you could get people into the Meadowlands, 70,000 people into the Meadowlands, in a two-foot snowstorm in New York."
True, it's theoretically possible that a blizzard could postpone the Super Bowl. It's also possible that a blizzard in Detroit or Minneapolis could have made it impossible for 70,000 fans to get to the domed stadiums that have hosted Super Bowls in those cities. And it's possible that a blizzard in Baltimore could postpone the AFC Championship Game. Does Bisciotti also think the Ravens shouldn't be permitted to host postseason games?
For that matter, it's possible that an earthquake could postpone a Super Bowl in California, or that severe storms and flooding could postpone a Super Bowl in Florida. There's no place on earth that's immune to a natural disaster.
These doomsday scenarios about weather affecting the Super Bowl are getting ridiculous. Football always has been and always will be played outdoors in bad weather. There's no reason the Super Bowl should be any different.
Starting Blocks is no fan of New York, to be honest. But look at it this way: A blizzard there would mean a certain locale froze over, which in turn MUST mean that the Browns made the Super Bowl.
It's all jake with JakeMaria Ridenour of the Akron Beacon-Journal spent a little time with the 35-year-old kid -- well, the 35-year-old man with the exuberance of a kid -- and found out that Jake Delhomme is having fun.
Browns president Mike Holmgren was looking for a leader at quarterback and made the leap of faith to sign Delhomme ... jettisoning Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn. If all goes as planned, Delhomme will be the ninth opening-day starter in 12 seasons when the Browns kick off Sept. 12 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Florida.
"To come here, if you'd asked me that before the start of the ['09] season, I would have said, 'Absolutely not.' I wanted to stay in Carolina and finish," Delhomme said on the third day of the Browns' organized team activities.
"But to be here, it's very refreshing. I've been here since March 15, our first day.
"It's just something new. Things might have gotten stale for me. It's like you get new life injected into you."
Browns coach Eric Mangini doesn't like to make comparisons but said Delhomme's exuberance reminds him of Brett Favre, whom Mangini coached in 2008 with the New York Jets.
"He's got great energy," Mangini said of Delhomme. "'He reminds me a little bit of Favre that way. He enjoys practice. He enjoys being around the guys. He is able to be serious and still keep things light."
Well, cool! In the words Starting Blocks is sure Delhomme heard growing up in Breaux Bridge, La., near New Orleans, "Laissez le bon temps rouler!" (Let the good times roll!)