Greeson: B.J. Coleman still trying 'to be level-headed'

What would you say if you were hours away from your lifetime dream?

Would you be speechless? Would you be nervous? Would you be so excited you needed an hourly Ritalin cocktail?

Yes, yes, you would.

"It hasn't really hit me yet. I don't think it really will until it happens," B.J. Coleman said about this week's NFL draft. "The most important thing is to be level-headed, I guess, but you always dreamed of being a pro athlete and to be this close..."

He didn't finish his thought, but he didn't have to. Coleman said he's heard from 18 to 20 NFL teams this week, most of them making sure they had his correct cell number and contact information, and all of them saying he was on their draft boards and in their plans.

"They all seem very interested," he said, refusing to divulge even a hint of which teams are the most interested or where he would prefer to go. "They all say, 'We hope to make you a -- whatever the logo is.

"I'll go anywhere and can fit any system. I just want someone to call me."

For Coleman, the hours leading up to this weekend's NFL draft have been a whirlwind. After graduating from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in December -- "My mother made sure of that," he said -- he has trudged through the interviews and the throwing sessions, the prep work and the rehab of a hand injury that forced him to skip parts of the NFL combine.

Sure, playing in the NFL is a dream, but it's a nightmarish four-month job interview for everyone who's not pegged as a sure-fire first-rounder.

But this has been the final chapter of a spinning, non-stop story of the pursuit of football greatness that started at McCallie, stopped ever so briefly in Knoxville and reached the razor's edge of the NFL draft in Chattanooga.

It's how it should have gone, of course, B.J. coming back to Chattanooga. He may be the oldest son of Bryon and Anita Coleman, but in a lot of ways he's the city's quarterback -- and has been since throwing for more than 300 yards at Finley Stadium as a sophomore at McCallie eight years ago.

My, has it been eight years? It feels like it could have been eight months. And now we're less than 80 hours from knowing for sure what we all thought for sure those many years ago -- that B.J. Coleman is an NFL quarterback.

Every red-blooded American boy dreams of growing up and being famous, of turning pro with a baseball bat or bass guitar and getting paid for what we used to do every day, all day throughout the summers of our youth. This was our childhood love that become a lifetime dream that became an emotional blend of highlights and fish stories and of touchdowns and game-winners that weren't.

For B.J. Coleman, it's his weekend. When the dream becomes a phone call.

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