Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 25, 1990 TAG: 9007250077
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HAL BOCK ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
When Rob Hinckley got to Stanford in 1985, he was a high school hotshot from Walnut Creek, Calif., an all-state linebacker with can't-miss credentials.
Then came the bad news. He would not start as a freshman. In fact, he would not play very much at all. Had he ever thought about redshirting?
"You think you know everything about football when you get to college," Hinckley said. "It became apparent to me that I didn't. I couldn't read offenses. I didn't know the system."
The solution was to redshirt, substitute a year of eligibility at the end of his college career for one at the beginning. That didn't sound like such a bad idea to Hinckley.
"You want to play, but when it's obvious you're not going to, well, there was no controversy about it," he said. "If you develop the way you should, I figured I'd be better in my fifth year than in my first."
And that's how Rob Hinckley happened to arrive at the NFL draft equipped not only with his bachelor's degree, but with his master's as well. In a sea of unfinished studies, he is an island of educational achievement.
Hinckley majored in communications and his redshirt freshman year gave him a running start academically at one of the nation's more demanding universities.
"Mentally, if you know you're not playing, it's easier to focus in," he said. "It's those people who screw up in their first year who find it tough to catch up."
He would practice with the team, suit up for home games, go through all the rituals of football Saturdays except playing. He spent the extra hours on his studies.
By the time Hinckley was a sophomore, he had developed a system of combining athletics and academics. It was a good thing, too. College football, he found, can be a drain on days that contain just 24 hours.
"It's more time-consuming than you think," he said. "I liked it, especially when it was new. But all of a sudden, you're not doing anything else. If you schedule an hour to do your homework, you'd better do it then or it's not going to happen. It's a matter of priorities.
"You're 19 or 20 years old, you want to socialize. And you do, but you also have to take care of the chapter you have to read. There's a test tomorrow, so what do I do first?"
For Hinckley, it was hitting the books, avoiding procrastination. Fall behind and the demands of football and studies can snowball. Hinckley never did.
Football players receive no special treatment at Stanford. Occasionally, Hinckley got permission to take an exam on a Friday before leaving for a road trip instead of the next Monday, when the test was scheduled. Other than that, though, he was on his own, fitting the demands of academics into the constraints of football.
"It's pretty much a 12-hour day, 8 in the morning until 8 at night," he said. "They say football practice is just a couple of hours, but that doesn't count the film time, the time you spend in the trainer's room getting treated, the time getting taped. It all adds up."
So did his credits.
"Halfway through my fourth year, I realized that I'd be done with school," Hinckley said.
That meant he would have been eligible for the NFL draft. He needed only petition the league for inclusion in the draft. "I could have left, but I didn't think about it," he said. "I still had another year of football here."
And since he was going to stick around for it, he decided to enroll in Stanford's one-year graduate program in sociology. "I figured I was going to be here anyway," Hinckley said with a shrug, "so what the heck."
A year later, Detroit drafted Hinckley in the fourth round. He was the 90th player chosen in the draft and one of very few to arrive in the NFL with two diplomas hanging on his wall.
NEXT: The future
by CNB