At Jets' Camp, Every Rookie Tells a Story By KAREN CROUSE Published: May 13, 2006 HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., May 12 ? Anthony Schlegel opened his mouth to talk Friday, and the words came spilling out as if he could not spare a second to inhale. He did not even stop for the periods at the end of his sentences. time has become his adversary. He is a linebacker who was drafted in the third round, and in July he will become a father for the first time. "Everything's coming so fast," Schlegel, a former Ohio State standout, said during a break between practices on the first day of the Jets' rookie minicamp. "You're trying to catch up to everybody who knows what's going on. It's a lot of learning." He added, "I've been very blessed, but it's like a crazy time." To prevent players from joining camp feeling overconfident, Eric Mangini, the Jets' first-year coach, delivered an opening speech that was designed to be unsettling. He said he told them it did not matter what they had accomplished in college. "What matters now is how they fit in to the New York Jets, how they can help this team win," he said. "I can't stress it enough for these guys, the fact that they need to find a way to help us win and the fact that nothing they've done in the past matters." Schlegel made a big impression during his predraft interview when he told Woody Johnson, the Jets' owner, how he enjoyed hunting wild boar. When asked about his hobby Friday, Schlegel said that it had been a long time since he stalked a boar. "People want to talk about it," said Schlegel, who is from Dallas. "But the biggest problem is I haven't done it for a couple of years just because I don't have enough time to go home to do it." His wife, Stephanie, is due to deliver the couple's first child, a boy, at the end of July. Her due date coincides with the start of training camp. Schlegel does not want to think about the potential scheduling conflict. "You've got to worry about the here and now first," he said. "There's just a ton of stuff between now and then. When that time gets there, then we'll talk about it." It can be disorienting when a player's reality catches up to his dreams. Nick Mangold, a center from Ohio State whom the Jets drafted with the 29th pick, was trying to learn a new vocabulary of commands by day and study for a business midterm by night. Mangold, 22, is taking four business classes and a physics course. "It's a full load," he said. After this weekend's minicamp, he will return to Columbus in time for a physics lecture Monday morning. He will take his midterm later in the day and graduate next month. He was talking to reporters when it dawned on him that he had neglected to tell his professors he would be missing classes Friday because he was starting his new job. "I kind of ran out of time to send them an e-mail," Mangold said. He added, "I'm still taking college classes, so to me, I'm still a college player, which makes this even more weird standing in the Jets' locker room." Brad Smith felt strange huddling with the receivers during the morning practice. He was a quarterback at Missouri, where he became the first Division I-A player to throw for 8,000 yards and rush for 4,000. Before the draft, he seemed reluctant to consider a position change. "When you're the quarterback, you have the control to determine the flow of the game," he said Friday. "As a receiver, you have to let the game come to you." After being drafted in the fourth round to be a receiver, Smith said, he decided it was better to be in the N.F.L. as a receiver than not to be in the N.F.L. at all. "Coach Mangini and all the other coaches have said just come in and do what you can and try to fit in on this team and try to help the team more than you try to help yourself," Smith said. "That's what I'm doing, just let my natural ability try to make up for what my skills lack as far as the nuances of playing the position. Then as I learn, I can catch up." He added: "You're out here, you're a rookie anyway. Now it's like being a freshman in college. It's very humbling for me." But it was exhilarating for Mangini. He was finally running the show after years of dreaming about this day and four months of preparing for it after he was hired by the Jets. "I tell you, it was fantastic to finally get out of a meeting room, to stop talking about the scheme and the playbook and the free agency and the draft," he said. "It's been countless hours doing that stuff. Now to actually get these players in here, to see them on the field, to see the staff that took a long time to put together because we're trying to get the right guys, it was really personally satisfying for me."
