A real picture of what the Jets are looking for now... Hartigan excited he's in running with Jets Nick Hartigan, the tailback who led Brown to its first outright Ivy title, is still working out with New York's rookies. 01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, June 24, 2006 BY MIKE SZOSTAK Journal Sports Writer The best football player in the Ivy League last season finally is getting a chance to show what he can do in the NFL. Nick Hartigan, the indefatigable tailback who led Brown to its first outright Ivy championship in 2005, went through voluntary and mandatory minicamps with the New York Jets last week and still is working out with other Jets rookies at the club's training facility at Hofstra University at Hempstead, N.Y. "It's fun. I feel blessed to be here and have his opportunity," Hartigan said in a telephone interview. Hartigan led I-AA in rushing and was a I-AA All-American and finalist for the Walter Payton Award as the best player in I-AA last fall, but he was neither drafted nor offered a free-agent contract in the days after the draft. "I didn't think I'd go on the first day of the draft. I was hoping for the seventh round or for a free-agent contract. Unfortunately, that didn't come to pass," he said. NFL talent scouts looked at Hartigan as a fullback, not a tailback, because he doesn't have the blinding speed the pros cherish. They seemed to forget that he is a football player who was durable, who rushed for 4,492 yards, the school record, and who scored 54 touchdowns, 52 on the ground. But Hartigan seldom had to block at Brown, and teams were wary as a result. "I definitely think that had something to do with it. For whatever reason, teams weren't excited," he said of the fullback-tailback issue. Perhaps Hartigan also was a victim of the perception in some camps that the Ivy League is not as tough as other I-AA and I-A conferences, even though Ivy alums are playing in the NFL. Sean Morey of Brown won a Super Bowl ring with the Pittsburgh Steelers last season. "I was upset at the time. This is what I had worked for. I just wanted to get a shot somewhere," Hartigan said. Phil Estes, the head coach at Brown, said he should have promoted Hartigan as an NFL tailback, not a fullback. The snub, he added, left Hartigan with a chip on his shoulder and a burning desire to prove all of those gurus wrong. The Jets invited Hartigan to a tryout, and he impressed them when they put the ball in his hands. He ran for 35 yards on his first carry and 12 on his second. "I think I did a pretty good job doing different things," he said. But the Jets didn't have a contract to offer, so they sent him packing, telling him to continue working out and to wait for a call. Hartigan graduated from Brown on May 28, a happy occasion that he shared with his family and football classmates. Football, however, still was on his mind. "After graduation, when I hadn't gotten a call, I kept working out and kept my head up, but it didn't look good." The Jets finally called on June 8. Hartigan signed a rookie free-agent contract the next day and started training with his new team. "It's been a lot of work. The other guys had been here for a couple of weeks, so I had a lot of catching up to do. I've been working on learning the playbook and getting used to the schedule," he said. Learning the playbook has not been a mission impossible for this Rhodes Scholar finalist and National Football Foundation post-graduate scholarship recipient. "We had a pretty complicated playbook at Brown. I felt more prepared coming into this system than going to Brown out of high school. We didn't have much of a playbook in high school. Besides, there's only so much you can do on a football field. You either pass the ball or run it on offense. A lot of it is terminology," he said. Minicamp consisted of long days of meetings, practices and more meetings. Now Hartigan and the other rookies staying in dorm rooms at Hofstra are training, lifting and running in the morning and studying the playbook in the afternoon. He is enjoying almost every minute. "The other rookies have been great. Everyone is working his butt off. No one thinks of taking a day off. We're all fighting for spots. There are only a limited number of these jobs." The coaches are great and the veterans in camp are real nice, he added. The rookies get a two-week break starting July 7, and Hartigan will go home to Fairfax, Va. They will return July 20 for the start of rookie training camp. The veterans will join them about a week later, he said. Hartigan will have to prove every day in camp that he belongs. He knows it won't be easy. Morey, Stephen Campbell, Michael Malan and Chas Gessner, all Brown offensive stars before Hartigan, learned how difficult it is to make the NFL cut. "It's going to be an uphill battle to make this team," Hartigan said. At least he has a chance. And if he doesn't make it to the opening kickoff of the 2006 season, there is a spot reserved for him at Harvard Law School. mszostak@projo.com/ (401) 277-7340 NICK HARTIGAN Position: Running back. Height: 6-foot-2. Weight: 220. Hometown: Fairfax Station, Va. G Att YardS Avg. TD 2002 3 1 4 4.0 0 2203 10 275 1533 5.4 15 2004 10 323 1311 3.9 17 2005 10 314 1767 5.5 20 Career 33 913 4615 5.0 52
