Indianapolis, IN (2/4/12)

Roaf’s selection was more than deserved and he has definitely earned such a magnificent honor.

Willie Roafs position change after his rookie year to left tackle couldn’t have served him any better.  In the first year after he switched he was voted to the Pro Bowl for the first time, named First-Team All-Pro, All-NFC, and honored as the NFLPA’s NFC Offensive Lineman of the Year.

Roaf is viewed as one of the elite tackles of his era and his newest accolade serves to reinforce this.

A member of the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 1990s, Willie also earned First Team All-NFL seven times, All-NFC six times, All-AFC three times. This summer he will be the second player inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame to spend the bulk of his career with the Saints.  The Saints have built a legacy through the years, but Roaf’s selection takes it to another level.

Everyone here at APSE would like to wish Willie Roaf a big congratulations on his induction.  We know Willie Roaf and his family will relish this great feat and all that comes with it. We look forward to the Pro Football Hall of Fame festivities this summer and will be tuned in on Saturday August 4th to witness the enshrinement of an all-time great.

Indianapolis, IN (2/3/2012)

Other than having the same agent, they appeared to have little in common besides that ridiculous Redskins’ test. But somehow, that was enough to build a friendship for a lifetime.

Fifteen men are finalists for the 2012 Pro Football Hall of Fame class, which will be selected Saturday. Many of those 15 undoubtedly know each other. Some might even be good friends. But how many of actually bought a house with another the way Bettis and Roaf did?

At the time it made sense. Bettis and Roaf signed up to be represented by Lamont Smith, who as an African American was something of an anomaly in the agent business at the time. Since Smith lived in Denver, he had this idea that his clients should train in the thin mountain air just like the Olympic athletes did in nearby Colorado Springs. So he arranged for a trainer to work with his players. And since they were going to be spending so much time in Denver, it made sense they not waste their money on hotel rooms.

Why not buy a house?

The house was modest by athlete standards: a three-bedroom, split-level ranch in the Denver suburb of Aurora. It cost just $140,000, which the two men divided evenly. In a time when athletes were building mansions, the home Bettis and Roaf bought had just 1,600 square feet. But the two men didn’t care. It fit the need for a part-time home.

“It had a nice yard,” Roaf recalls. “It was just nice to have a good place.”

Mostly they were there to work out, then drive home and rest. At night they often went out to dinner, then sit around the living room arguing about who was better. In fact, they had a running bet, $1,000, who would have the better career. It was a fight Bettis could first brag about after he was named the league’s rookie of the year after his first season with the Rams.

But as the years went on, Roaf developed a reputation as one of the NFL’s best offensive linemen. Soon Bettis’ rookie of the year award was eclipsed by Roaf’s routine trips to the Pro Bowl.

“We were 22, 23 year old guys and we thought we were going to go out and be studs in the NFL,” Bettis says. “We talked about it all the time. We were both highly-competitive guys and I was messing with him all the time telling him how good I was going to be.

“I don’t know who came up with [the bet] but we decided we were going to put it on the line. Whenever I did something or he did something we would call the other up and announce it. ‘I got another Pro Bowl!’ or whatever it was. We kind of measured ourselves against the other a little bit. I could measure the yards I got and he measured himself by what the running backs he blocked for did.”

Eventually, after a few seasons, they sold the house. Bettis had established himself with the Los Angeles Rams and then with Smith’s help, worked a trade to the Pittsburg Steelers. Roaf, who bought a place in Orange County, Calif., at first because Bettis had been there with the Rams, decided to spend his offseasons in California. The house in Denver wasn’t necessary. They weren’t going there anymore.

Roaf recalls selling it for $180,000, meaning each player got a $20,000 profit – a small sum given the money they were making at the time, but a gain nonetheless. But the friendship lived on. Bettis, for instance, was at the hospital for the birth of Roaf’s first daughter. Almost 20 years have passed since that day they met in Indianapolis and they still call each other. The other day Roaf saw Bettis on television, grabbed the phone and called asking when the running back was going to come to California again.

Lost in this is the role of Smith, who had just started to gain notoriety as the first prominent African American football agent. When Smith recruited Bettis and Roaf, it was only four years after he approached the family of Oklahoma State running back Barry Sanders and pleaded with the player’s parents to let him represent their son. In something of a surprise, they agreed. By the 1993 draft, Smith had a handful of other NFL stars including Bennie Blades, Mark Jackson, Steve Atwater and Alfred Williams. But landing Roaf and Bettis and having them go eighth and 10th in the draft, respectively, helped drive his firm to near “super agent” status. So big was their story at the time, The Sporting News followed Bettis, Roaf and Smith through their draft day.

Still, agents come and go, especially for prominent players like Bettis and Roaf, who had many offers to join with other agents over the years. But neither left.

Roaf stayed, in part, because of the urging Smith gave him to appear tougher when he was a senior at Louisiana Tech. As the son of a dentist and judge, NFL teams felt Roaf might not be hungry enough or mean enough to play professionally. Before a big game against Alabama, Smith stressed to Roaf’s mother that the lineman needed to act mean. Roaf obliged by flattening an Alabama pass rusher at one point, ripping off the player’s helmet and tossing it away.

“After that, there were no more questions about his toughness or his meanness,” Smith says.

Over the phone from his home in Pittsburgh, Bettis raves about the trade from the Rams to the Steelers that Smith maneuvered when the Rams said they were going to a pass-oriented offense and wanted Bettis to become a fullback. “He over-delivered and under-promised,” Bettis says of Smith

And now, because of a suggestion to Roaf that he act mean and a trade for Bettis that saved him from obscurity, the two players are on the verge of immortalization. The voters who meet on Saturday morning will likely select somewhere between four and seven people for the Hall. The early speculation is that the voters won’t elect Roaf this year because next year’s Super Bowl is in New Orleans and it would be a more fitting celebration for a Saint to be elected to the Hall. Likewise, there is a thought that Curtis Martin might be ahead of Bettis in the line of running backs chosen.

Roaf has plans to be in Indianapolis for the selection, waiting in one of the green rooms provided by the league. Bettis has a commitment in Las Vegas but has held a tentative airline reservation to Indianapolis just in case he gets the call. He figures he can be there by late-afternoon if necessary.

Secretly they both hope they get picked together. That would be perfect.

“I’d like us to end where we started,” Smith says. “That’s a culmination.”

Even if it would mean that $1,000 laid down long ago in an Aurora, Colo., living room would remain in dispute.

Could the question of who had the better career really end in a tie?

Article By Les Carpenter, Yahoo! Sports

Detroit, MI (1/31/12) – “Come early to grab a good seat,” Barry Sanders says in a video invite sent to reporters for one of his recent media ventures which links him to Japanese Automaker Nissan. Sanders, the former Heisman Trophy winner, has been busy making appearances all over this past month. Appearances which include one of Nissan’s events at the 2012 North American International Auto Show, a short interview of the Hall of Famer sharing comments on his former team’s promising future, and even a stop to greet a dedicated newlywed fan whose dream was for Barry to attend the couples nuptials. Barry has always been described by many as extremely humble and a player for the fans and
these recent appearances serve to reinforce his commitment to those who respect his contribution to the NFL and society.

Recently, Sanders was asked by Nissan to participate in an introductory party at a downtown Detroit bar for the unveiling of its new Pathfinder SUV Concept vehicle. The event which was not open to the public unveiled a Nissan Pathfinder SUV concept and a commercial van at the auto show. Nissan was able to land the former Detroit Lions running back as a result of its partnership with the Heisman Trophy Trust. This was Nissan’s first return to the North American Detroit Auto Show 2008, and Mr. Sanders was sure to make it a memorable one.

While on the scene in Detroit, Barry Sanders also made himself available to the media for some questions pertaining to his former team. He shared his thoughts with reporters about the Lions’, “bright future” and believes the sky is the limit for the Mathew Stafford and Calvin Johnson led club.

“They have a really talented young quarterback, maybe the top receiver in the NFL. I mean, as a passing game, if they can get Jahvid Best healthy and possibly shore up some places on defense, you never know what they can do next year.” The Lions met Barry’s playoff expectations and he believes the team is on the right path toward success.

Jasmine Reidemann, longtime fan of the Detroit Lions and her now-husband, Aric Reidemann, planned a super-hero themed wedding and decided to invite Jas’ real-life hero, Barry Sanders. “I thought more and more about it, and I was like, this is it, I’m getting married, lets blow it out of the water,” she said. “I thought it’d be so cool if he came because it’s a wedding about heroes, and he’s mine.”

Last May, Jas, who works as a social media specialist for Well’s Enterprises started her own blog with the sole intent of inviting Barry to the couple’s wedding. Through her blog she posted emails, Twitter and Facebook messages, and even video posts which helped rally anyone interested in her cause. A fan of Sanders since her youth from watching the Lions with her brothers and father, Jas was sending in letters of her admiration to his fan club at the age of 10. While not able to attend the wedding, Barry sent the couple his congratulations through a Twitter post and arranged for a private meet-and-greet at a sport memorabilia show appearance in Chicago. “There aren’t people like Barry anymore, it was what I was hoping he’d be like, and he totally was,” Jas said after the meeting. The meeting helped her realize why Barry became her hero in the first place and his humble actions served to reinforce this.

(1/24/12)- Former Steelers great Jerome Bettis made an appearance in the latest Papa John’s pizza commercial on Sunday that was a promo for the Super Bowl XLVI Coin Toss Experience. The commercial features Peyton Manning as the referee and recreates the famous 1998 coin-toss mishap on Thanksgiving Day when the Pittsburgh Steelers faced the Detroit Lions.

Papa John’s is offering the chance at free pizza if America accurately guesses the Super Bowl toss. People can vote for heads or tails at www.freepapajohns.com through Wednesday, Feb. 1.

Papa John’s founder, chairman and CEO John Schatter will announce the result of the vote Feb. 2 on the Papa John’s website, the NFL Network in Indianapolis and through social media outlets.

If the voters correctly guess the toss, which will take place before the Feb. 5 Super Bowl, people enrolled in Papa John’s Papa Rewards program will receive one large one-topping pizza and a two-liter Pepsi Max.

In 2011, Papa John’s sold more that 1 million pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday.

Smithfield, RI (1/20/12) –

Tracey had a very accomplished career at Bryant University, becoming what many believe, the best tight end in school history. He finished his career as the all-time leader in touchdown receptions and second in catches.  We applaud Tracey for his continuous recognition and awards and have faith they will continue at the next level.

St. Petersburg, FL (1/19/11)

Thus far University of Pittsburg OLB Brandon Lindsey has performed very well.  Especially in Wednesday’s 1 on 1 drills exhibiting his ability to rush off the edge.  He showcased a good first step and after one day looks the most natural of the group of pass rushers so far this week. He displays the ability to cleanly change directions off his speed rush and keep tackles off balance with the spin as well.

Lindsey is also making a strong showing at SAM linebacker for the East squad. He has shown sound instincts and awareness, and doesn’t look out of place playing from an upright position. He has displayed better athleticism than anticipated in zone drops, which is important considering several 3-4 teams view him as a possible rush linebacker. As a pass rusher, his ability to develop into an effective edge player could enhance his value on draft day.

New Orleans, LA (1/18/12)

Pierre Thomas’ consistent play throughout the season helped lead the New Orleans Saints to a 13-3 record, the divisional round of the playoffs and the most potent offense in the league. Besides running the ball he contributed in the passing game as well. Thomas totaled 50 catches for 425 yards this season making a strong impact on offense. We hope for an injury free 2012/2013 football season and wish Pierre well in his time off.

He averaged 5.4 yards per carry, tying him for third in that category among running backs with at least 100 rushing attempts. Tate ran for 115 yards against the Cleveland Browns in Week 9 while Arian Foster ran for 124 yards in the same contest giving the two running backs a combined 261 yards on the ground, a Houston Texans’ franchise record.

Tate’s performance helped propel the Texans to their best-ever season record finishing at 10-6. The Texans also added the team’s first AFC South Divisional Championship and also their playoff appearance during their historic 2011 season.