Lowery takes life & prospects seriously- NY Times

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Jets? Lowery Takes Life and Prospects Seriously


By GREG BISHOP
Published: September 11, 2008
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. ? Teammates rank Dwight Lowery among the most serious of Jets. He speaks softly and rarely, and sometimes, when the silence gets to be too much, they compete to see who can make Lowery laugh.


Linebacker David Bowens thought he had Lowery, a rookie cornerback, as he teased him the other day about the redundancy of wearing armbands and long sleeves at the same time. The slightest hint of a smile followed. Had Bowens blinked, he would have missed it.

?He chuckled, but it wasn?t that long,? Bowens said. ?He doesn?t talk much, doesn?t say much, doesn?t laugh much.?

Teammates regard Lowery as Captain Serious ? age 22, plays as if 32, acts as if 42. Serious has always been his way.

Raised by a single mother, Lowery became a father figure to his younger sister, Aujanae, who was born with holes in her heart and had open-heart surgery at 6 months old.

At San Jose State, Lowery played every practice as if it would be his last. He regarded each play as intense competition. By the time he left, Coach Dick Tomey said Lowery had changed his program?s culture with that attitude.

Chris Owens, a teammate at San Jose State, said Lowery made him a better cornerback without even speaking ? in the way Lowery arrived 90 minutes early before each practice, in the way he stayed after to watch film.

?I never had a player that was as serious, I mean dead serious about being good, as he is,? Tomey said in a telephone interview. ?It?s not something we taught him. He came with that.?

As the N.F.L. draft approached, Tomey told that to every personnel person who would listen. Forget about the knocks on Lowery?s speed, Tomey pleaded, the kid can play.

That Lowery slipped to the Jets in the fourth round did not surprise Tomey. Nor did the fact that Lowery started the opening game of his rookie season.

?I?m just surprised at the continued insistence of the N.F.L. to think that a stopwatch is the determining factor,? Tomey said.

If history serves as any indication, Lowery will be thankful he was not selected earlier. The Jets? list of recent fourth-round picks includes receiver Jerricho Cotchery (2004), safety Kerry Rhodes (2005) and running back Leon Washington (2006) ? perhaps their top three players last season.

Asked to explain the trend Thursday, Coach Eric Mangini deadpanned: ?I don?t know. Maybe we should trade back.?

While first-round picks garner much of the attention, teams build depth through the middle rounds. Before the N.F.L. changed its draft schedule this off-season, third-round picks were selected on the first day and fourth-round picks on the second.

?If you go in the fourth round, you?re thinking you should have gone higher, that you shouldn?t have gone on the second day,? said Washington, spitting out ?second day? as if it were a bad piece of fish. ?You definitely feel the difference ? both mentally and financially.?

Lowery has not been classified as another successful fourth-rounder, not yet anyway, Mangini was quick to remind reporters. Lowery is, after all, still a rookie, still subject to hazing by the veterans, still struck during warm-ups when a superstar walks onto the field.

?I don?t feel like I?m the type of guy that you need to tell that to,? Lowery said. ?I know it?s one game. Guys who make their name in this league, who make a mark on their teams, do it every week.?

Instinct helped ease Lowery?s transition, Tomey said. When San Jose State recruited Lowry from Cabrillo College, two qualities ? instinct and anticipation ? jumped out on film. Tomey once coached Ravens cornerback Chris McAlister at Arizona, and he invokes that Pro Bowl name in way of a comparison.

?Those instincts are God-given,? Tomey said. ?Something else we certainly didn?t teach him. He came with that.?

While the transition on the field has been seamless, being 3,000 miles from his family has been difficult. Lowery thought about that on Thursday morning, about how much he missed Tracy Rivers, the single mother who raised him, and Aujanae, the sister he helped raise.

Aujanae is 10 now and healthy. She had only one operation since the open-heart procedure, a stent replacement several years ago. Every six months, she visits a cardiologist as a precaution. And every day, she calls her older brother, and they talk about school, homework, boys. Everything but football.

Early on-field returns are positive. Lowery called Owens, his old roommate, before the Jets? preseason opener and told him he had never been more ready for anything. This was the same player who Owens said predicted he would intercept a pass in college the play before he did it. And when Owens watched Lowery return a punt for a touchdown in that preseason game, he thought to himself, ?Wow, Dwight was serious.?

Always.

EXTRA POINTS

The Jets signed tight end Chris Baker to a three-year contract extension. Baker criticized the team?s negotiating tactics during training camp but said Thursday, ?I don?t have any hard feelings.?
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