JU football hosts annual pro day

Players from JU and other schools worked out in front of pro scouts Friday

JAKCSONVILLE, Fla. – For many college graduates, you would not normally wear gym shorts and no shirt to a job interview.  However, for a few now former Jacksonville University football players, that was exactly the dress for their biggest job interview so far.

"They are looking to join one of the biggest corporations in our nation in the NFL," said head football coach Ian Shields.  "The chance to go pro there or in the CFL or the arena league is huge so this is a celebration of their great careers at JU and hopefully they can take a step forward with a great day today."

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Scouts from the Jaguars, Colts, Packers, and the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League were on had to put the prospective pros through the bench press, broad jump, vertical leap and many on-field drills.  The former Dolphins said that they hope that the scouts saw their best.

"I hope I showed that I am athletic, I was coachable, and I was able to get better and do the right things and just show them that I can play multiple positions if they needed me to," said linebacker Harrison Rodormer.

Rodormer's Dolphins teammate Pernel Rattray also was part of the pro day on Friday.  After playing for four years at JU, Rattray said that he can't believe that his time in green and gold is over.

"One thing that I can say is believe everybody when they say that time flies by," said Rattray.  "It feels like yesterday I was stepping on campus as a scared freshman.  I didn't know anybody, showering at the dorms because I was scared to shower in the locker room.  I managed, but it is a family here.  Even with the new coaching staff coming in we still had a lot of the same guys, so we just made it a brotherhood."

As far as the Dolphins that are here for another season building those bonds, head coach Ian Shields says that spring practice is going very well despite being a very young team.

"We are seven practices down in our spring ball, we are going to come back here after the Easter holiday and finish up spring.  We have our spring game on April 14th and we are making great progress.  We have a young team and won't have many seniors but we are excited.  We are going to be athletic and fast and playing an exciting brand of ball."