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Coming out of high school, I was a baseball player. In high school, we didn’t have football. I graduated with 18 kids so we played baseball and basketball. Graduated high school and went to junior college for a year. Played there for a year then went to the University of Texas. Played baseball there for a year. My junior year, I went back home to Division II in Oklahoma, Cameron University, and I played there for a year. I was fortunate enough to be drafted by the [Atlanta] Braves. Signed with them. Went and played that summer. Came back the next year for spring training, and enjoyed it but I knew that’s not the route I wanted to go with my life and I was ready to try something else and I had one year left of eligibility so that’s when I went back to Oklahoma State. Walked on to the basketball team there. Had a great experience. I was very lucky that they had me, allowed me to walk on. And I enjoyed that, but I was out of eligibility. So I graduated and was coaching baseball and thought I was done with my athletic career. I decided that I didn’t want to coach baseball and the travelling and the recruiting and all that comes with that as a coach. I wanted to be a little more stable. So, I was going back to school to get a safety degree, and I was going to be a safety engineer in the oil field and just decided to play football. And so I hollered at the coach about four days before the first game when I got down there and he said they could use a tight end, so he let me walk on and it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.
And now here we are.
So yeah. The normal route.
Roster battle
Tight end’s one of the most fascinating positions on the 2018 Rams roster. Second-year TE Gerald Everett, the Rams’ first pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, is being tabbed a potential breakout candidate by many (read: me). Third-year TE Tyler Higbee improved on a shaky rookie year in 2017, but, well, just about everyone on the roster had a better 2017 than their 2016 season. TE Temarrick Hemingway is back after breaking his leg in the preseason last year. And then there’s the battlers of TE Johnny Mundt, TE Henry Krieger-Coble and McElroy.
McElroy’s the only rookie; HKC was a 2016 UDFA while Mundt was a rookie last year who initially made the 53-man roster before being waived to add some other depth as Mundt headed to the practice squad. So there’s hope for McElroy.
Expectations
As is always the case with the TST Roster Preview Series, we start at the back of the 90-man roster with the guys fighting for a shot. So this section isn’t ever going to really take much analysis until we get about 2/5 of the way through things.
Suffice to say, anything other than heading back to Oklahoma to work on the oil fields would be a successful outcome for McElroy.
Chances of Making Final Roster (0.1/10)
I’d give it a 0, but I’ll nudge it up a tenth if only because I’m pulling for him.