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SPORTS
Crocker's confidence leads to long pro career
Stacey Plummer gets a helmet signed by Chris Crocker a member of the '99 team prior to Saturday's Green-White Game.
Purchase this photoHUNTINGTON -- A knowing smile said it all.
Chris Crocker had just completed his first National Football League mini-camp and had returned to his college home. Sitting on a trainer's table within Marshall University's Shewey Building, the talented defensive back delivered the difference dividing confidence and cockiness.
"I can play in this league," Crocker said with a grin.
Now entering his seventh NFL season, an all-time Thundering Herd defensive standout proved prophetic. The 5-foot-11, 200-pound veteran earned a third-round NFL draft selection from the Cleveland Browns and is now prepping for his second season with the Cincinnati Bengals. Sandwiched were stints with the Atlanta Falcons and Miami Dolphins.
Recently reminded of that training table conversation so long ago, Crocker again laughed.
"A lot of that confidence coming off that first mini-camp, it was a carryover from here because playing here, being here, we just had an unbelievable amount of confidence," said Crocker, who won numerous Mid-American Conference and bowl titles during his Marshall career.
"We had that swagger to come out here in our home stadium. We believed. And I know every team says this every Saturday -- they believe they we can.
"We believed we would have beaten everybody."
Daily competition spurred Crocker's belief in a professional football career. Tested by Chad Pennington, now the Miami Dolphins' quarterback, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers signal-caller Byron Leftwich, along with several eventual NFL wide receivers, Crocker was tested for the next level.
"Coming from this program, being a defensive back, I faced Byron. I faced Chad, so I had already seen NFL-prototype quarterbacks, so being at a skill position, facing our receivers, it really wasn't that hard of a transition," Crocker said. "It was just about learning the system and what I'd be doing within that system. It's been seven years since then. It's crazy."
Crocker, Pennington and other members of Marshall's 1999 undefeated team shared such experiences with current players during a recent reunion, coinciding with the Green-White Game.
A top topic was stressing belief and confidence, oddly similar to Crocker's reaction to his initial mini-camp in 2003.
"I think a lot of it now is, you've got to win," Crocker said. "You win and you start to see this is not rocket science. This is the same game we've all played since we were little kids.
"Now it's about coming together as a team. And what I think is important for all of the underclassmen with the '99 team when I was there, looking at the '99 team, when they left we felt a huge amount of pressure and weight on your shoulders to continue that tradition.
"To go to a senior banquet was an experience you can never, ever replace -- never, ever forget. To see how important it is to continue that tradition, to formulate the 2000 team, the 2001 team.
"We wanted to have the same things the guys above us had."
Current Thundering Herd coach Mark Snyder essentially assigned senior safety Ashton Hall to Crocker for tutelage during Green-White Game weekend. Crocker obliged, recalling lessons learned from his mentor, Rogers Beckett, who also played safety for the Bengals.
Beckett and Crocker represented a large gathering of '99 players and coaches who returned to Huntington.
"It's funny because in '99 I was just a young guy in my redshirt freshman year," Crocker said. "I was still sitting behind Rogers but I still had a role and I took pride in what I did.
"And that's the thing about everyone on that team. Everyone had a role. There was no animosity. We all competed for spots, but at the end of the day, on Saturdays, it was about one thing.
"And that was about winning football games."
