Second Thoughts

Two go from obscurity to NFL debuts

Nicholas Morrow (35) went from playing at tiny Greenville College last season to making his NFL debut with the Oakland Raiders today.
Nicholas Morrow (35) went from playing at tiny Greenville College last season to making his NFL debut with the Oakland Raiders today.

Oakland Raiders linebacker Nicholas Morrow played in front of only a few hundred fans at Division III Greenville College.

That's a far cry from the atmosphere Morrow will face today in his NFL debut when the Raiders visit Tennessee in front of a crowd of about 70,000.

"It's always been a dream to play in the NFL," Morrow said. "I hope I just go play and don't worry about the crowd and all that. It will be crazy."

Morrow made an immediate impression on the Raiders with his speed and versatility to become the first player ever from Greenville, a small Christian school in Illinois, to make the NFL.

Morrow isn't the only player to go from the obscurity of Division III football to the NFL in less than a year. San Francisco safety Lorenzo Jerome made the team after a successful training camp and could be a key contributor for the 49ers.

"Everyone is proud of me. They want me to stay level-headed," Jerome said. "I have a big chip on my shoulder coming from a small school."

Caffeinated

As he heads into his second NFL season, Dak Prescott is making sure he is surrounded by friends. Well-caffeinated friends.

The 2016 Offensive Rookie of the Year gifted teammates and Dallas Cowboys staff members 176 boxes of Keurig REVV Coffee, and 100 Keurig K-Select brewers, a device that launched last week. Clearly, Prescott has connections.

The quarterback also gifted travel mugs and T-shirts.

Players often hand out such gifts at the end of the schedule, but Prescott got a jump on this season.

He posted on Instagram a message to the Cowboys, which in part read: "4dakGifts for my team. Let's #GetREVVedUp for the season."

Becoming a slugger

When the Arizona Diamondbacks' J.D. Martinez bashed four home runs Monday at Dodger Stadium, the setting was fitting. Martinez became just the 18th player ever to accomplish the feat -- and the second this season, after Cincinnati's Scooter Gennett -- and he did it near the scene of his career transformation.

In 2013, Martinez hit .250 with a meager .378 slugging percentage for the Houston Astros. While nursing a wrist injury that summer, he had studied video of better hitters -- notably Milwaukee's Ryan Braun, who had worked with a hitting instructor in Southern California named Craig Wallenbrock.

Martinez contacted Wallenbrock through a teammate who had also worked with him, Jason Castro. He wasted no time in starting his makeover.

"He came out the first day after the season was over," said Robert Van Scoyoc, who coaches with Wallenbrock. "It was over on a Sunday, and he was in the cage on Monday morning, ready to go, which is his personality."

Van Scoyoc said Martinez seemed to be chopping wood with his swing, giving the ball just a glancing blow. They worked on creating tilt in his swing and keeping his bat in the hitting zone longer. Now, Martinez has told him, he stays through the ball so long that it feels as if he hits it twice. He tries to hit fly balls, not line drives.

"If you aim for a line drive, and you miss a little under or on top, you're going to hit a ground ball or a fly ball," Van Scoyoc said. "If you aim slightly in the air, you can hit the ball hard -- and if you're a bit higher, it can be a home run, and a bit lower, and it's a low line drive. So you're giving yourself more wiggle room for places you can actually drive the ball."

Sports quiz

What is Division III Greenville College's mascot?

Sports answer

The Panthers

Sports on 09/10/2017

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