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South Tampa

There's no place like home for NFL draft

When Plant High alum Mike Williams got picked, he was surrounded by friends and family at a Dale Mabry restaurant.

By FRANK PASTOR
Published April 29, 2005

Mike Williams could have worn a custom suit and waited in the green room at NFL draft headquarters Saturday in New York with other projected early picks. When his name was called, he could have posed on stage holding a jersey with his last name on the back.

Instead, the 2002 Plant High graduate followed the draft from the relative obscurity of Fred Fleming's Famous Bar-B-Que on Dale Mabry Highway, just up the street from his alma mater.

Every time an ESPN camera zoomed in on the face of California quarterback Aaron Rodgers in New York, Williams knew he'd made the right decision.

Although Williams waited longer than expected to get picked, it was nothing compared to Rodgers' free fall from the top of the draft to No. 24, when the Green Bay Packers called him.

"If I'm going to sit there and watch other people get picked before me, I'd rather do it at home," said Williams, the 10th overall pick who went to the Detroit Lions. "That's how I felt, and I had great support people, all my family and all my friends there."

Many locals speculated Williams, a former Southern Cal receiver, would go to his hometown team. Instead, the Bucs took Auburn running back Carnell "Cadillac" Williams as their first pick - the draft's fifth overall.

But Mike Williams' well-wishers had plenty to celebrate when the Lions made him the third-highest player selected from the bay area, behind Robinson High's Larry Smith (eighth by the Rams in 1969) and Hernando High's Jerome Brown (ninth by the Eagles in 1987).

"It definitely surprised me, but I'm glad they took me," Williams said. "It's a good situation for me, and as I sit back and look at the guys we have, it could be a good situation for me."

Williams was projected as a first-round pick in last year's draft after a sophomore season during which he was a consensus All-American and finished eighth in Heisman Trophy voting. When former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett successfully challenged the NFL rule requiring players to be three years out of high school before being eligible for the draft, Williams left USC and hired an agent. But an appeals court overturned the ruling, and the NCAA denied Williams' petitions for reinstatement.

Looking back, Williams doesn't think the year away from football hurt his draft standing.

"All I know is, where I went this year is probably the same place I might have been projected to go last year," he said.

[Last modified April 28, 2005, 08:33:09]