Long road leads Schmitt to Seattle

KIRKLAND, Wash. – In the months leading up to his inclusion in the exclusive club known as the National Football League, Owen Schmitt had it easy.

Pro scouts spent hundreds of hours looking over his game tapes. The league flew him to Indianapolis for the annual scouting combine, at which Schmitt got to show his stuff against some of the nation’s best college football players. Shortly after the Seattle Seahawks made him a fifth-round pick in last weekend’s NFL draft, he was whisked to the Pacific Northwest and put up in a hotel.

His college recruitment wasn’t quite as glamorous.

Schmitt, a fullback, started his career at Division III Wisconsin-River Falls and finished it as one of the most recognizable players on a nationally ranked West Virginia team. But he had to take an interstate marketing tour with his mother just to give himself a shot at playing D-I football.

Schmitt’s journey from tiny Gilman, Wis., to an NFL roster may well have made its most important stop in January 2003, when he took a road trip with his mother to Morgantown, W.V. Carrying only a game tape from his days at Wisconsin-River Falls and the belief that he could play for a big-time program, Schmitt walked into the West Virginia football office and announced his desire to play.

“I showed up uninvited, dropped off the tape and toured the campus myself,” he said two days ago from his first Seahawks minicamp.

Schmitt had also dropped off tapes at Maryland and James Madison University, but West Virginia was the only one to take him up on his offer.

He joined the West Virginia team in the fall of 2004 and played some special teams before taking over as the starting fullback the following year. Three years later, Schmitt finished his career as a big fan favorites.

The Seahawks were impressed enough with Schmitt that they used a fifth-round pick on him at last weekend’s draft. His shaggy Mohawk has been cut down to what he calls a “business cut,” and Schmitt is slowly starting to win over a new fan base.

“Hard-working guy, I guess,” Schmitt said when asked why he’s become such a fan favorite. “Blue-collar boy. I think a lot of people can connect with that, not just in West Virginia.”

There’s also the other thing.

“Everyone thinks I’m crazy,” Schmitt said. “It’s fun. I play with it.”

Schmitt’s potential has Seahawks coaches excited about the future, but it’s his personality that has everyone taking notice these days.

“He’s a character,” Seahawks team president Tim Ruskell said last weekend, after the Seahawks selected Schmitt in the draft. “What you see is what you get. He wears his emotions on his sleeve.”

Off the field, Schmitt is relatively soft-spoken and unassuming. No one would confuse him for longtime Seahawks fullback Mack Strong, who is known for his quiet demeanor, but Schmitt is also a far cry from the hellion he can be while wearing a football helmet.

“On the field, it’s a totally different thing. You can be an animal out there,” Schmitt said. “You can do things out there that you can’t really do in life. You’re two different people when you step out on the field.”