FROM THE ARCHIVES: April 30, 2003
 
Winning Edge: Cram Course
Helps Players Prep for NFL

Thomas Weatherspoon Trains
Jocks to Excel in Football Tests

By CRAIG KARMIN
With his college days coming to an end, Kyle Boller knew that a solid record at the University of California, Berkeley, would be spoiled unless he did well on one last test.

So he plunked down $6,500 on a prep class. After a couple of months of intensive effort, the cramming worked.

With his body fat trimmed, his vertical leap improved, and his foot speed increased, Mr. Boller aced the most important test of his young career: Last weekend, the Baltimore Ravens selected Mr. Boller, Cal's quarterback, in the first round of the National Football League college draft.

Mr. Boller credits much of his success to the Performance Enhancement for Professional Athletes school in Alameda, Calif., the jock-set equivalent of a Stanley Kaplan cram school. Founded by a former college track star named Thomas Weatherspoon , the school preps athletes over 10 weeks to master the NFL's standardized February fitness exam, known in football circles as the combine.

In this year's NFL exam, 323 of the top pro prospects ran through a battery of grueling tests over three days. They were timed in the 40-yard dash and measured by their vertical and long jumps. They raced back and forth between cones 20 yards apart. They sat down with teams and were quizzed about their character. They were even told to strip to their shorts so that pro coaches could assess their physique.

Just as a few extra points on the LSAT exam can make the difference between an offer from the Ivy League or one from a lower-ranked law school, three-tenths of a second in the 40-yard dash on the NFL's combine can distinguish a first-round draft selection from a fourth. And that jump in draft order comes with a huge prize: a multimillion-dollar signing bonus for first-round picks vs. six figures or less for those in the lower rounds. Since the average NFL career lasts less than four years, players consider a lucrative upfront payout crucial.

Mr. Boller's first-round honors should generate a bonus approaching $5 million, based on last year's signing figures. That would amount to nearly 10 times what a middling third-round pick can command, which at the end of his senior season is where many pro scouts had him at best. "I got the results I was looking for, and more," Mr. Boller says.

Some NFL veterans remain skeptical about the benefits of cram classes. Says Gil Brandt, who spent 20 years as head of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys, "I'm not sure how much faster you can teach someone to run."

Mr. Weatherspoon has dedicated much of his life trying to prove otherwise. A dozen or so programs such as PEPA, as the school is known, exist to help players excel at the combine. But players and agents say that Mr. Weatherspoon's program stands out. With no more than 25 players, his classes are half to a quarter the size of his competitors'. And at a time when the NFL seems obsessed with speed, PEPA has a reputation for guaranteeing an improvement in the 40-yard dash. "Other guys may charge more, but I don't think they get the same results," says Doug Hendrickson, a sports agent for Octagon in Walnut Creek, Calif.

In the NFL draft over the weekend, seven of the Alameda school's students were selected in the top two rounds -- its best year ever. They join more than 100 players who have moved up in the ranks of this draft over the past 17 years after training with Mr. Weatherspoon , a former track-and-field star from the University of Wisconsin.

Mr. Weatherspoon claims every one of his students has shaved at least a couple of tenths of a second off his running time and added a few inches to his jumps. Even so, he is well aware that a lot of what he does is about presentation. "We're dressing 'em up, making 'em look real pretty so that someone will want to date 'em," he says.

At a workout last week, Mr. Weatherspoon glided onto the field inside a cavernous sports complex on the San Francisco Bay. Thin and muscular and constantly in motion, he appears far younger than his 41 years. He was working with a dozen or so high-school football players. Some were preparing for their own football exam on May 12, when many West Coast universities will run these players through drills before awarding athletic scholarships.

The players were backpedaling with a giant rubber band attached to their waists on one end and to a wall on the other. Then they stopped and sprinted forward, some nearly collapsing from the resistance. "I don't need the speed," Mr. Weatherspoon yells out, "just the form."

Half an hour into the morning session, Kevan Barlow, a halfback for the 49ers whose season was marred by a knee injury, joined the group for a workout. A projected first-rounder two years ago, he slipped to the third after a disappointing effort in the combine drills. Mr. Barlow figures he cost himself around $4.5 million in signing bonus. "I wish I knew about these guys when I came out of college," he said ruefully.

Mr. Boller, by contrast, withdrew from Berkeley during his final semester so he could focus full time with Mr. Weatherspoon on improving his draft status. The quarterback recalls running in sand to improve his agility and racing on one foot in a swimming pool to improve his body control. These exercises helped him score the third-fastest time of all the players at the combine's 20-yard shuttle drill.

One of his PEPA classmates was Tyrone Calico, a receiver from little-known Middle Tennessee State who felt he had to make a big splash in the NFL combine to "get the word out." Besides the physical training, he also liked the interview preparation he received at PEPA to ready him for the private sit-down meetings with coaches. "I think I came across as a professional person," says Mr. Calico, who was grabbed in the second round by the Tennessee Titans.

As Mr. Weatherspoon continues to generate millions of dollars for his clients, he has begun to think that he, too, may have left some money on the table. Next year, he plans to raise his fees by $1,500, to $8,000. He is also considering incentive clauses calling for him to be paid his own bonus based on how much the player exceeds his original draft ranking.

Either way, he still clearly loves to compete. "I'll race the kids sometimes," he says. "I win. And they hate that.

Write to Craig Karmin at craig.karmin@wsj.com