Nakamura, Craig get their calls

I can only imagine what it’s like to sit around all day watching TV waiting to hear if you’re going to be drafted by an NFL team.

Every year I do the story about the UC players who get drafted and every year I try to put myself in their shoes. This year it was free safety Haruki Nakamura and defensive end Angelo Craig who got the call.

Nakamura was drafted in the sixth round by the Baltimore Ravens, where he’ll play for former UC assistant coach John Harbaugh. Craig was taken in the seventh round by the Bengals.
Both were thrilled to be drafted, of course, but for Craig there was mild disappointment that he wasn’t taken higher.

“It’s been a rough day,” he said.

But he also said he was looking forward to helping the Bengals with their anemic pass rush.

For Nakamura the call meant that all the hard work he did at UC paid off exactly the way he hoped it would. It also left him thinking about his father, the judo expert who died of cancer when Haruki was five years old.

“I know, as much as he loved judo, this moment here would have made him proud,” Nakamura said. “I wish he was here to be a part of it. I’m thankful for everything he instilled in my family, the judo, the discipline. Everything about my family is built around what he was about.”

On a personal note, I have to say that Haruki has been a class act ever since he arrived at UC four years ago. He was always polite, accessible, eager to talk and articulate. Angelo Craig also conducted himself with class, but he was much quieter than Haruki and I didn’t get to know him as well.

After I talked to Haruki tonight, I wished him well and thanked him for being so cooperative during the past four years.

He then thanked me for the things I wrote about him. As a sportswriter, you just don’t hear that very often.

In addition to Nakamura and Craig, four UC players agreed to free agent contracts Sunday night: Bradley Glatthaar and Anthony Hoke with the Bengals; Digger Bujnoch with the Giants and Doug Jones with the Rams.