Jim Parmer watched just about every block Stan Thomas threw for the University of Texas last season. When Parmer wasn`t at the games, he watched film back and forth, over and over.
Parmer wasn`t the only Bears scout who liked what he saw. Personnel chief Bill Tobin runs a cross-checking system that leaves college players few excuses if they can`t find work.
Tobin, Parmer and other scouts scour the country in search of blockers and tacklers, runners and catchers. Together, they come up with a Bear grade.
Last year, Parmer would have graded himself a medical reject. He was discovered to have colon cancer more than a year ago, but continued to scout while fighting the disease. He didn`t know whether he would be around for the draft, so Thomas is special. So was the doctors` report that said the cancer is now in remission.
Since Parmer joined the Bears in 1974, followed by Tobin a year later, there hasn`t been a single bust among the club`s No. 1 picks. Walter Payton came in 1975 followed by Dennis Lick, Ted Albrecht, Dan Hampton and Al Harris, Otis Wilson, Keith Van Horne, Jim McMahon, Jim Covert and Willie Gault, Wilber Marshall, William Perry, Neal Anderson, Jim Harbaugh, Brad Muster and Wendell Davis, Donnell Woolford and Trace Armstrong, and Mark Carrier.
No other NFL team can match that success rate.
So when Parmer says he compares Thomas favorably with last year`s rookie Pro Bowl tackle Richmond Webb of the Miami Dolphins, expect Thomas to be in the lineup soon.
Parmer scouts the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. He watched Webb at Texas A&M the year before he watched Thomas at Texas.
”I think this kid is stronger than Webb, and his feet are almost as good. All in all, he might be a better football player-not the way Webb played last year, but the way he played his senior year,” Parmer said.
Pro scouts like Parmer aren`t paid to puff. He and Bear counterparts Rod Graves, Don King, Jeff Shiver and Charlie Mackey can`t go on hearsay or reputation. They can only go on the road and see for themselves.
When Parmer scouted sixth-round running back Darren Lewis at Texas A&M, he saw a kid who gained more yards than anyone in Southwest Conference history.
”He didn`t time out real good, but you see him run 75 yards and nobody catches him. So I don`t know how fast he is. I know how fast he`s supposed to be,” Parmer said.
Scouts check for drugs, too. They can`t test players, but they can ask questions. According to Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum, Lewis was tested by the school and by the Southwest Conference and was clean. He never missed a meeting and never was late. When Lewis tested positive for cocaine at the February scouting combine, the Bears were told-but they misidentified the name, an embarrassing mistake that Tobin said was not Parmer`s fault.
”It looks like a one-time thing to us, and we will give Lewis another chance,” Tobin said.
If Lewis doesn`t make it, he wouldn`t be the highest draft choice the Bears have ever blown on an un-Bear-like pick. In 1985, they wasted a third-round choice on TCU receiver James Maness, who had such a serious abuse problem that his Bears career ended after one reception.
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Mistakes are inevitable when people are grading people. The Bears get more right than wrong.
Parmer overlooked Mike Singletary`s size and saw his heart. Teams that spend too much time measuring tangibles and forget that football is an emotional game usually wind up drafting early every year.
Parmer calls 10th-round defensive end Tom Backes of Oklahoma ”not a great athlete, a little bit awkward. But he gave everything he`s got. He`s going to be a little hard to run off.”
As for eighth-round defensive back Larry Horton of Texas A&M, somebody mentioned he weighed only 180 pounds.
”I said, `The kid you drafted last year weighed only 180 and he played pretty good,` ” Parmer said of Carrier.
It`s hard for Parmer to find anything in football he hasn`t seen. A defensive back and fullback for the world champion Eagles in 1948 and 1949, he coached briefly at Texas Tech before entering scouting, first with the BLESTO combine and then with the Bears. His son-in-law is former player E.J. Holub. His grandson kicks for Baylor.
Last year was different. Surgery helped remove cancer from Parmer`s colon, and the lymph glands as well, but he had to undergo chemotherapy for most of the year.
Doctors told him to have a catheter implanted so he could take the chemo doses more easily. But he took weekly shots in the arm. Sometimes, he would take his medicine, drive to the next town, then take a nap before watching film. Other times, he would arrange for the chemo treatment in whatever town he was visiting.
”I went to bed at 5:30 a lot of nights,” he said.
Parmer read the names of fellow patients in obituaries.
”It was a tough year,” he said.
It was no tougher than Parmer, who didn`t even lose his hair.
”I should have lost it because the hair I have belongs on a dog,” he said. ”I was going to buy me a big old black curly wig.”
Whenever he saw a doctor, he heard stories about getting nausea. What bothered Parmer more was the price of the medicine he was taking. Worth every penny at $8 a pill, it was the same medicine that was used to de-worm sheep. For sheep, it was only 26 cents a pill. You can`t fool scouts.
A few treatments short of the prescribed time period, doctors pronounced Parmer fit, the cancer in remission.
”I had a birthday last week (April 15), and I was glad to see it. I didn`t know if I was going to be around,” Parmer said.
At 64, he doesn`t know whether next year will be his last with the Bears. They have only one employee over 65, research specialist Jim LaRue, who will be 66 in August.
”I really don`t want to retire,” Parmer said. ”I`m not really handy, and I don`t have hobbies. I`d get tired of playing golf after about six months.”
He`d probably get tired of it before that. He plays golf with his wife Mary, who shot a 78 last time out to beat him. Parmer knows talent when he sees it. He`d rather scout it than compete against it.