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Daren Stone, Mike DeVito and Matt King can rest easy tonight – their football careers are not over. Lifelong dreams came true for the trio of the University of Maine gridiron stars yesterday, as the National Football League came calling for their services.
The Atlanta Falcons tabbed Stone with the 203rd choice in the NFL draft, while DeVito and King each signed rookie free agent deals with the New York Jets.
Stone’s selection marks the first time that a Black Bear has been drafted in back-to-back years. Last season, UMaine had more players on NFL rosters than any other I-AA school with four. The three newest members of the pro football fraternity are hoping to add to that incredible feat.
“We call ourselves the land of the misfits in Maine,” King quipped. “We’re all guys that fell through the cracks. Coach Cos’ finds low-key people and gives them a chance and they flourish.”
When the Falcons chose Stone in the draft’s sixth-round, he became one of just four UMaine players to be selected in the top six rounds. His selection was not a surprise, as he had been rated as highly as seventh among the nation’s safety prospects and projected as a third-to-fifth round choice.
“I was getting a little antsy because I expected them to take me earlier,” said Stone. “Atlanta was one of the teams I heard from yesterday; they were thinking about taking me in the third round and again in the fifth round. It was a little nerve racking, but in the end everything worked out.”
“We were joking around for most of the day, but I started getting serious in the fifth round when I thought Daren would go,” King said. “I had a feeling when I saw Atlanta come up that they’d grab him.”
In the 6-3, 218 pound Stone, the Falcons are getting a player with tremendous upside. Stone started at both cornerback and safety over his Black Bears career and garnered All Atlantic-10 honors in both his junior and senior seasons. He had the longest broad jump among safeties at the NFL combine, with his tremendous leaping ability making a surefire selection at some point during the draft.
After Stone’s name flashed across the television screen as the 203rd pick, ESPN showed a video package including highlight plays from UMaine and a video of Stone leaping over a parked car in the Alfond Stadium parking lot, a feat that impressed the crowd on hand at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
“I didn’t actually see the highlights, but my family did and they were pretty excited,” Stone said. “I first jumped over a car probably two years ago, and I found out I still had it in me last summer. I was just outside messing around.”
A Buffalo native, Stone is looking forward to the chance to play with and learn from aging star Lawyer Milloy, formerly of the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills. ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper said on-air that he expects Stone to get a long, hard look from Atlanta because he possesses the natural athleticism to develop with the right coaching.
“They’re expecting me to come out and make an impact right away,” Stone said. “My goal is to go to Atlanta, put my best foot forward, earn the respect of my teammates and contribute wherever I can, whether it’s special teams or in nickel and dime packages.”
As for DeVito and King, each was picked up by the Jets as free agent signings in the hours following the draft. All four of UMaine’s NFL alums – Jacksonville’s Montell Owens, San Diego’s Stephen Cooper, Baltimore’s Mike Flynn and Chicago’s Brandon McGowan – were signed as free agents, meaning the Black Hole’s signature duo have a decent shot at making the final cut.
“I talked to the Jets at the beginning of the seventh round,” DeVito explained. “They were thinking about taking me with their last pick, but they said if things didn’t fall the right way I could go as one of their priority free agents.”
Though he grew up on Cape Cod in Mass., the 6-3, 300-pound defensive tackle was born in New York and was raised a Jets fan – making the opportunity to play at the next level that much sweeter.
“This has been a dream since I was a kid,” he said. “It’s funny how that worked out. My agent has whole program that lines up where the best place is for you to make the team and the Jets were near the top of the list.”
For King, a 257-pound linebacker who led I-AA in sacks as a senior, the call from head coach Eric Mangini’s Jets was a surprise.
“Montell told me to expect the unexpected,” King said. “I never heard from the Jets at all through the drafting process, but in the fifth round their linebacker coach called and said they were interested in drafting me at 235. Immediately afterward, they called and were interested in me as a free agent.”
DeVito’s pre-draft experience with the Jets was nearly the exact opposite.
“I started talking to their D-line coach in December and Janaury; they had the most communication out of any team,” the former UMaine captain said. “[Today] he said I have a chance to make this team and fight for a position. He just said good luck.”
The Jets will ask King, a Stoughton, Mass., native, to play linebacker, a departure from his defensive end position in college. However, he often dropped into coverage at UMaine and in New York’s 3-4 scheme, that type of versatility is at a premium.
“A lot of teams were surprised at the weight I put on and how I moved with that weight. That was something they hadn’t seen of me on tape,” explained King, who gained 12 pounds of muscle since the season ended in December.
King and DeVito are not the first Black Bears to be teammates at the next level, as the Chargers signed Chad Hayes a year after Cooper made the team. That doesn’t lessen the significance of the event for UMaine’s 2006 defensive captains, however.
“I don’t think that’s quite sunk in yet,” said DeVito. “Matty is an amazing player, and it’ll be great to be back with him.”
“It’s not going to be as hard having a familiar face around,” King agreed. “It’s going to be good to have someone you know who can push you; we’ll probably fly out of Logan on the same day.
“We’ll try to bring that swagger we had in Maine to the Jets.”
