Staying with football pays off for ex-Jacket in NFL

Foxborough, Mass. — If not for Jim Walsh's persistence, Gary Guyton would never have even played high school football. Guyton's circuitous path from Hinesville to Georgia Tech to undrafted free agent to starting linebacker for the New England Patriots would never have occurred.

As a freshman at Bradwell Institute, Guyton decided to concentrate on basketball. He quit football, a sport he had played since he was 5. For months, Walsh, Bradwell's coach, kept pleading with Guyton, asking him to give football another shot. Nothing worked.

That spring, Guyton made one last desperate attempt. Practice for 10 days, he told Guyton, and then let me know what you think.

“I had told myself I wasn’t going to play anymore,” said Guyton, who ended up starting for three seasons and being named to the AJC’s Top 50 players in Georgia. “Basketball was my thing, but I fell back in love with football. It was a great thing. Look where I am now.”

His hoop dreams a distant memory, Guyton stood in the Patriots' locker room Wednesday morning reflecting on his unexpected journey. Guyton is not just Hinesville’s first NFL player. In his second professional season, Guyton is the defensive signal-caller for an elite franchise, a role that didn’t seem feasible 17 months ago when Guyton faced an uncertain football future.

A two-year starter at Georgia Tech, Guyton watched the 2008 NFL Draft , expecting to hear his name called. His senior season, Guyton had moved from outside linebacker (lined up over the tight end) to inside linebacker, responsible for calling the defensive formations. He had five sacks and 78 tackles, second on the team. And at the scouting combine, Guyton ran the 40-yard dash in 4.47 seconds and had a 36-inch vertical jump, both tops among linebackers.

Still, Guyton wasn’t one of the 252 players selected.

“I really held myself responsible,” said Georgia Tech linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary, who joined the Yellow Jackets staff in 2004, Guyton’s freshman season. “I was almost in disbelief, but he kept trucking, never kept his head down. He made a positive out of it.”

Said Guyton: “A lot of thoughts were going through my head. The next step was just, ‘OK, moving forward, what do I do next? I can’t dwell on what happened.' ”

Several teams expressed interest in signing Guyton as a free agent. Guyton said he joined the Patriots mainly because he respected coach Bill Belichick, wanted to play for a winning organization and believed he would get a fair shot as long as he performed well in camp.

Earlier this month, Belichick said the Patriots had considered Guyton in the sixth round. Instead, they chose Nebraska’s Bo Ruud, who is no longer in the NFL, having been cut by the Patriots, Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the past five months.

Meanwhile, Guyton became the only undrafted rookie to make New England’s 2008 opening day roster. He appeared in 14 games (two starts) and made 26 tackles. This past summer, he worked out with other NFL players at Georgia Tech, determined for a more prominent role.

“You could tell he was extra motivated,” said Jean-Mary, who remains close with Guyton and sends him text messages after most games. “He was in the best condition I’d ever seen.”

So far this season, Guyton has started both games and has a team-high 14 tackles for the 1-1 Patriots. With linebacker Jerod Mayo injured, Guyton relayed the calls from the sideline to his fellow defensive players in last Sunday’s loss to the Jets. He likely will have the same duties this week.

“He continues to impress us and do a good job in whatever role he’s called upon to play,” Belichick said. “It has expanded the last couple of weeks. He’s done a good job with everything that we’ve given him.”

Sunday, Guyton faces another challenge, this time against the team he rooted for growing up. As a young child, he remembers idolizing Deion Sanders. He also recalls watching the “Dirty Bird” Falcons advance to Super Bowl XXXIII. Soon afterward, though, Guyton focused on basketball until finally relenting to his high school coach’s request to return to the gridiron.

Now in his 16th season at Bradwell, Walsh said he wanted Guyton to come out for football for athletic and academic reasons. He could help the team win games. And if Guyton worked hard enough, Walsh thought he could earn a college scholarship and a free education. But a spot on an NFL roster? That never even crossed Walsh’s mind.