This tutor puts it all on the line

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist

What Leo Goeas needed when he came out of University of Hawai'i football in 1990 was somebody like, well, a Leo Goeas.

Which is to say that when his All-Western Athletic Conference playing days on the offensive line ended and his NFL career was about to begin, he needed a mentor who had been around the league and was wise in the ways of the trenches.

When Goeas was getting ready for the NFL draft, there was no Mike Cavanaugh coaching at UH with an NFL resume. Nor, with only one Warrior offensive lineman drafted in the five seasons preceding Goeas, was there a long line of readily available alumni to tap into.

With a little help from friends like Joe Onosai and a lot of learn-as-you-go work on his own, Goeas built himself into a third-round selection by the San Diego Chargers, the launching pad to a nine-year NFL career.

These days, Goeas works for Development International. But lately he has been developing more than commercial space. On the side, he has been drawing upon his stints with the Chargers, Rams, Ravens and Broncos to help shape the NFL dreams of others.

Working with Chicago-based Priority Sports, the same group that once represented him, Goeas now mentors NFL offensive line draft prospects, running a cram school and draft polishing academy for 300-pounders.

"Leo's been a big, big help," said Arizona State lineman Levi Jones, one of the four players Goeas has been tutoring for the April 20 draft. "I mean, he assessed me for 45 minutes and then told me every problem I had and then helped me correct them," Jones said. "What I was doing at the Senior Bowl was night and day above where I was before."

The sessions helped prepare Jones for the Senior Bowl and NFL Combine, two high visibility showings that have helped him vault from a projected fourth-round selection in December into what ESPN and Pro Football Weekly predict as a first-round pick.

It is no insignificant leap, the potential difference between the two rounds being as much as $5 million to $8 million, said Ken Zuckerman of Priority Sports.

Goeas has flown to various sites to work with players, but the sessions have gone so well that Zuckerman says Priority plans to send future clients here for tutoring.

"What I'd like to do, sometime down the road," Goeas said, "is something like what Pete Newell does with basketball, an annual camp for different levels."

That would, indeed, be a big man's camp.