All Sports Schedule
ESPN: Greenway’s Waiting GameESPN: Greenway’s Waiting Game
Football

ESPN: Greenway’s Waiting Game

Dec. 14, 2006

Editor’s Note: The University of Iowa football programs have sent its fair share of student-athletes to the “Next Level,” the National Football League. Many have prospered – Indianapolis’ Dallas Clark and Bob Sanders, Ladell Betts with the Washington Redskins, Aaron Kampman with the Green Bay Bakers, and the San Diego Chargers’ Mike Goff are just a handful. None, however, have had the heart-wrenching experience of all-Big Ten linebacker Chad Greenway, a four-year starter for Coach Kirk Ferentz’s Hawkeyes and a first-round NFL Draft selection of the Minnesota Vikings.

(Chad) Leber said the team has noticed how Greenway has worked to become a better player in 2007 than he was in 2006. And if Greenway’s performance in training camp is any indication, Leber said, the young player is going to be just fine.

“He’s a kid with an extremely bright future,” Leber says. “I was telling my wife the other night, he must have had really good coaches at Iowa because I didn’t feel I had the depth of knowledge as a rookie that he had. Plus, he is smart. Very athletic. And one of the hardest workers. You couldn’t ask for much more. He is going to prove he is every bit deserving of his draft pick and status.”

MINNEAPOLIS – There are five minutes until kickoff, but Chad Greenway, the first-round NFL draft pick, the multimillion-dollar future of the Minnesota Vikings defense, sits in a cushy suite behind the Metrodome’s north end zone. By himself.

On the field, Greenway’s purple-clad teammates, beckoned by the roar of 65,000 screaming fans, charge onto the field through an inflatable Viking ship. Watching from above, his head resting in his hands, Greenway describes his emotions in two words: “This sucks.”

Seven months ago, the Vikings made the big-time dreams of the small-town Greenway come true, selecting the native of Mount Vernon, S.D., with the 17th overall pick in the 2006 NFL draft. Despite playing nine-man football in high school and receiving just one offer for a college scholarship, Greenway had overcome long odds to become just the third active NFL player from South Dakota.

But on Greenway’s third play of the preseason opener against the Raiders, while trying to bust the wedge on kickoff coverage, his left knee buckled. He’d torn his anterior cruciate ligament, slamming the brakes on a promising rookie season.

Now, as the rest of the 2006 draft class continues to learn and improve, Greenway is left behind at the starting block, waiting for next season’s race to begin.

Click HERE to read the full story about the challenging start to a career that a Viking teammate describes – despite a rookie-season-ending knee injury – as “extremely bright.”