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Mike Alstott: An all-MoneyLaw fullback

By Jim Chen et al.

Fullback is a football position that MoneyLaw simply has to admire. It lacks glamor — fullbacks are usually asked to block, and most of them weigh less than other blockers, let alone would-be tacklers. When fullbacks run the ball, they leave glamor behind in their pursuit of yards. No speed, no agility, just raw power on power.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will honor retired fullback Mike Alstott this weekend. So should MoneyLaw. ESPN writer Pat Yasinskas explains why:

I think about [Mike Alstott] every year when the draft comes around and people start talking about 40-yard-dash times, vertical leaping ability and potential.

I was sitting in Tampa Bay general manager Rich McKay's office one day during the 1997 season when Tony Dungy's Bucs were just starting to get good. I was working on a story about how the Bucs had used the draft to build this team. We started to talk about Alstott and McKay made a comment that floored me and, then, made me realize how brilliant it was in its simplicity. . . .

"When we drafted Mike Alsott, we drafted a guy with absolutely no potential," McKay said. "We knew he wasn't going to get any better than he was. But he was already a very good football player and that was good enough for us."

Moral of the story: Take the guy that's the good football player over the guy who is just an athlete. The football player has produced. The other guy just has potential. Production should be more important than potential.

Once again, as in football, so too in academia. Production matters more than potential.

Full post as published by MoneyLaw on October 15, 2008 (boomark / email).