I remember one of my first pro days. It was at Texas A&M, probably sometime in the early 00s. This was during the Slocum era, before the school had built its luxurious athletic complex, and it was held in the weight room. Yes, they even ran 40s there, right between the benches and the squat racks.

The strength coach, while eyeing me the whole time and suspecting I was an agent, never threw me out. But then again, it was a pretty intimate affair — no crowds, no pushing to see the players, no cameras. It was me, about a half-dozen scouts, and 6-7 players. Those were the days. You could get some work done in relative peace.

Those days are gone. Even at the smallest schools and the coziest venues, it’s way different running a pro day in 2018. Here are a few things scouts have to deal with now that just a few years ago were unheard of.

Families: I was watching a sitcom last week, and the opening scene involves a man going to meet a potential investor in a big, fancy office, and he has his kid with him (he couldn’t find a babysitter). It was done for a laugh on television, yet every pro day you go to today involves extended families showing up, and yes, that often involves little kids. At the very least, a young man’s parents are there, and at the bigger schools, they’re allowed to bring about anyone they want, within reason. But that’s even true at the smaller schools these days.

I was at Prairie View A&M last week, and crowded into a big room waiting for the players to work out were several men that looked like players’ dads to me (which is to be expected) but also moms, brothers and sisters, and yes, girlfriends and kids. That not only makes scouts’ jobs harder, but also the pro liaison on staff at the school who now has dozens of people he has to manage. Here’s another thing: many of the parents come dressed up, wearing long dresses and ties. Others will show up wearing themed shirts. I don’t mean to minimize the event, and I respect that this is a big day and they want to look their best, but geez, that has no impact on a scout. Having generations of families there just tends to slow things down.

Media: As recently as 10 years ago, most people in the media didn’t know what a pro day was, or at least, acted like they didn’t. These days, a scout has to often weave his way through writers and dodge cameras simply to get heights, weights and times. What also cracks me up is how so often reporters try to ask scouts about specific players and their draft chances. Come on, man. This is proprietary information. You think a lowly area scout will risk his job to give you a few comments for your story? I totally recognize that members of the media have a job to do, but it’s asking a lot to expect scouts to give up morsels during a pro day so a writer has something to toss onto Twitter. I asked one scout last week at Texas A&M if he’d be at Texas the following day. His response? He was headed to another state entirely, presumably by air, but I wouldn’t rule out his driving it. The point is, most scouts have a plane to catch afterward or another pro day to drive to. They just want to get their jobs done and move on.

Greater and greater numbers: Again, I think that it wasn’t long ago (maybe a decade) when players realized that playing in the NFL was for the privileged few. The seniors got workouts, and there might be a handful of players from smaller schools that worked out, but these kids were highly decorated, all-conference types. Now, the drill is that if a kid isn’t signed by an agent, he calls around until he finds one. There are always agents willing to sign a small-school kid, hoping they get lucky, as long as there are no costs involved. The kid then expects the agent to call around and try to get him into a pro day. Sometimes, a big school relents, though most of the time, these kids are just not NFL material. I’ve seen the looks on the faces of scouts that show up at some of these workouts, hoping to see a half-dozen kids, but seeing 10-15, and knowing that their 90 minutes of work just turned into three hours, and they’re hoping to get home before 9 p.m. that night. Fat chance.

Two or three times every March, I try to get out and hit pro days that are not too far from me in South Houston. Monday was one of those days; I attended the workout held by Packers scout Alonzo Highsmith at Lamar University in Beaumont, about two-and-a-half hours from me.

Here are a few things I found interesting.

• Highsmith came to Beaumont to work out a handful of players, probably 10-12, who are far from blue-chip prospects. At best, two of them will be in camps, and it would be a real long shot if either get drafted. Still, Highsmith was there, doing his due diligence. That’s a real credit to him. He’s a true old-school scout who does his job the old-fashioned way, watching film and relying on his network to find undiscovered gems. He’s pretty much the antithesis of the modern view of scouting, which is moving way more to ‘analytics’ and a view of evaluation that is more related to measurables and less to what happens during a game.
• This catch has made an indelible mark on players across the country, and maybe not in a good way. It’s become so bad that I saw multiple receivers yesterday catching the ball one-handed in warmups, as if this is supposed to impress Highsmith. One kid, a transfer from a bigger school who has had multiple off-field issues and didn’t even finish the season with Lamar, caught every pass thrown his way (warmup throws, drills, tosses from the ball-boy) one-handed, as if he thinks this will translate to the NFL. Want to impress a scout? Run good routes, put up good numbers, listen to your coaches, make plays, train hard and catch everything thrown your way with two hands.
• Even though Lamar is a smallish school without a whole lot of tradition, yesterday was the school’s second of three pro days. The first was on March 10, which was run by scouts from the Texans and Chiefs. On Saturday, a Rams scout will have a workout for a handful of invited Cardinals. This is why, when it comes to college football and pursuing a chance in the NFL, geography counts. An FCS school that’s only been playing football for five years may not even have a pro day if it’s located in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest or even parts of the Northeast, but the Cardinals seniors almost have to prove they can’t play after getting three separate audiences with NFL scouts. Texas and the Southeast are different, special, when it comes to football.
• There are some parents that overdo it a little. I know they are well-intentioned, but that doesn’t help a young man’s prospects. I’ll leave it at that.
• On the way back, I stopped at a restaurant. I was wearing my ITL gear and a waiter (probably about 5-8 and wiry, around 150 pounds) noticed the logo. We had this conversation:

Waiter: “What’s that (gesturing at my shirt)? What do you do?”

Me: “I have a football consulting service. I work with agents, financial planners, combine trainers, some scouts, some coaches, some parents, lots of people who are in college and pro football.”

Waiter (eyes lighting up): “Oh really? I need to get an agent. I was supposed to play in college but I had an incident in high school.”

Me: “Where did you wind up playing in college?”

Waiter: “I didn’t. I was supposed to but I didn’t.”

Me: “Have you played since then?”

Waiter: “No.”

I recommended he attend an open tryout for a CFL or Arena League team. Which is to say, I probably didn’t practice what I preach, which is to tell young men like that to move on with life. I guess my strategy was for him to attend a workout, find out how long his odds are, and hope that he comes to his own realization.