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Ex-YSU lineman Mady adjusts to NFL
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
On Nov. 10, less than two months after Lamar Mady overcame long odds to make the Oakland Raiders’ active roster, he was doing his pregame stretching for a game against the Giants at MetLife Stadium when the Jay-Z/Drake song “Pound Cake” started playing overhead.
“Overly focused, it’s far from the time to rest now ...”
“I looked up in the stadium and I think that’s when it set in, ‘I’m in the NFL, this is crazy,’” he said. “I just thought, ‘Man, this is really happening.’”
A year ago, it was no sure thing.
Mady, a former all-conference guard at Youngstown State, spent last spring splitting time between workouts, spring classes (he was enrolled for nine hours’ worth) and his part-time job at Finish Line, hoping to become the first Penguin since 1998 to get drafted.
He wasn’t.
Within minutes after going unselected last April, he chose to sign a free-agent contract with the Raiders and quickly found himself in a rookie minicamp with 50 other players just hoping for a training camp invitation.
“When I first got there, there was a lot of, ‘Am I better than this person or better than that person?’ ” he said. “But as the practices went on, I just kind of tried to do what I do best. I did what I did here [at YSU] and was able to separate myself.”
Mady was released on the NFL’s final cutdown day, but was quickly signed to the team’s practice squad. Three weeks later, he was promoted to the team’s active roster due to injuries to the Raiders’ line.
“At first I was kind of upset about how the whole draft thing went down, but in the end I was still blessed to get the opportunity to go to Oakland,” he said. “I got activated and I worked hard enough to stay activated.”
Mady (6-foot-3, 315 pounds) appeared in seven games last fall as a reserve guard for Oakland, which went 4-12 and finished last in the AFC West.
He was one of two former Penguins on the roster along with safety/cornerback Brandian Ross, who appeared in all 16 games with 13 starts.
“You know about the league, but until you experience it, it’s really like, ‘Whoa, I knew this but now I’m really a part of this. It’s really happening to me,’ ” Mady said. “It really has a business aspect to it.
“You can do what you can as a player and produce, but it comes down to you have to be a professional. You have to do the things to keep yourself on the team. Slacking off just a little bit, you never know. You could be on a new team the next day. It’s that cut-throat.
“It’s fun, but the business aspect does overshadow it a little bit. But it doesn’t take my love for the game away.”
Mady is back in Youngstown this semester finishing up his degree. He’s taking his final three classes toward his minor in criminal justice, as well as his capstone class for his sociology degree.
The Raiders resume minicamps on April 21, so he’ll need to finish up his coursework a few weeks early.
“I’d rather just come back early than wait 10 years into my career to come back,” Mady said.
A few days ago, he visited his former manager at Finish Line and thought to himself, “Man, I was working here last year and now I could buy all the shoes on this wall.”
“I would never do that, though,” he said. “I’ve still got a long ways to go.”
Mady used his first NFL paycheck to pay off all his loans — “Being out of debt was one of my main goals,” he said — and then splurged on a 2013 Chevy Camaro SS.
He looks slimmer than he did at this time last year and spends his afternoons working out with YSU strength coach Mike Cochran, as well as YSU draft hopefuls Kyle Bryant (an offensive tackle) and Chris Elkins (a center).
But Mady said it’s just as important to exercise his mind as his body.
“The physical things are important but it really comes down to being mentally prepared,” he said. “Mentally, you need to know what to do so you can beat the person in front of you, so you can beat them to that spot and know what they’re going to do. You have to know the scheme.
“In the NFL, you’re in meetings in the morning, then you practice, then you have more meetings until about 4 o’clock. Then you go home and you might take an hour break, but you’re back in your playbook to read stuff for tomorrow’s practice, because every practice is different and every meeting adds something. As far as knowing what you’ve got to do, it never stops.”