We don't want him...

but we were one of three teams scouting Demetris Summers:

Posted on Wed, Mar. 15, 2006
Summers’ dream alive but ticking
Former USC back displays power for NFL scouts but clocks a subpar time in 40-yard dash
By JOSEPH PERSON
[email protected]

More than a year after playing his last college game, former USC tailback Demetris Summers looked bigger and stronger Tuesday while working out for NFL scouts.

He will have to work on the faster part.

Summers overcame a sluggish time in the 40-yard dash to turn in an otherwise solid showing during a pro timing day at Plex Indoor Sports in Northeast Richland.

Scouts from three NFL teams — the Carolina Panthers, Oakland Raiders and Miami Dolphins — showed up with stopwatches and clipboards to evaluate Summers 16 months after his last action at USC.

The 6-foot-1 Summers weighed in at 214 pounds, up nearly 15 pounds from his USC playing days. But the extra weight might have acted as an anchor, as Summers failed to run the 40 faster than 4.6 seconds in two tries.

“He’s more of a power back now. I’m sure he was a lot quicker (at USC),” said Tony Softli, the Panthers’ director of college scouting. Softli refused to divulge Summers’ exact clocking, but he said “for his size he ran a decent 40.”

Summers, who was kicked off USC’s team a year ago after multiple positive tests for marijuana, said he was hoping to run a faster 40.

“I was looking for a 4.4,” he said. “It didn’t turn out, but I think I made up for it on my bench press and my shuttle drill.”

With his personal trainer, Emery Williams, yelling encouragement and spotting him, Summers pumped out 20 repetitions with 225 pounds on the pro bench. When Summers began working out at Williams’ Powdersville gym in June, he could do six reps at 225, according to Williams.

A few minutes after the bench press, Summers recorded a 39.5-inch vertical jump. Later, he ran through a battery of shuttle drills, then caught passes and showed off some of his trademark cutback moves.

“They said they were trying to tire me out, but I kept sticking with it,” Summers said. “There were a couple times I was back there gassing, but I couldn’t show them that I was going to give up on myself. I’ll give out before I give up.”

Five other area players joined Summers at the nearly three-hour workout, including former USC defensive back Brian Elam and Gaffney native Eddie Montgomery. A two-sport star at Division II St. Augustine’s in North Carolina, Montgomery is the younger brother of sprinter Tim Montgomery, a former world-record holder in the 100-meter dash who is serving a two-year ban for allegedly using performance-enhancing drugs.

Montgomery (5-10, 165), a receiver who averaged 21.8 yards per catch and caught 10 touchdown passes in 2005, turned heads with a sub-4.4 40 and a 43.5-inch vertical leap.

“He’s fearless,” said Kevin Parker, the agent for Summers and Montgomery. “We think he’s going to make it because he has the mentality of (Panthers receiver) Steve Smith.”

The 24-year-old Elam, whose final season at USC was 2002, is holding on to an NFL dream that he carried through one season of Arena League Football (AF2) and two years with the semi-pro Carolina Titans in Columbia.

“I feel I never got to prove myself at Carolina,” said Elam, a reserve cornerback who played behind NFL players Sheldon Brown and Andre Goodman at USC. “I feel once I get into camp they’ll see what kind of player I am. I just have to get past that barrier.”

Summers also has something to prove after a disappointing two-year career with the Gamecocks.

The state’s all-time leader in rushing (9,076 yards) and touchdowns (127) at Lexington High, Summers broke Emmitt Smith’s high school record with 46 100-yard rushing games. But Summers hit the century mark only three times at USC.

Softli thinks Summers has a chance to get drafted, but not as high as he might have had he not been dismissed from USC.

“For the Carolina Panthers, character’s huge. And I know it is for a lot of other teams,” he said. “It’s probably going to knock him down on the board a little bit. But that’s something that he’s going to have to handle on his own on a personal and professional level.

“The onus is on him.”

Reach Person at (803) 771-8496.

 

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If marijuana was the only thing, I'd risk something low on him if he sounds like he's straightened out.

 

Didn't we draft a RB last year that ran with his head too high?

 

Cute.