Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 24, 1994 TAG: 9407240001
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogazcyk
DATELINE: CARLISLE, PA. LENGTH: Medium
If new coach Norv Turner was basing his lineup on intrigue, then Willie Hinchcliff would be at wide receiver instead of Desmond Howard.
Hinchcliff appears to be just one of the no-names and little-chances on the 80-man roster. If you ask those familiar with track and field, however, Hinchcliff is anything but unknown.
He's also the only Redskin who has competed in the Olympics - the Summer and Winter Games - and is the only player working on Biddle Field with a degree from a foreign university.
He may have been born in New Jersey, but his accent says New Zealand. His family moved to Auckland (check spelling, Aukland?) when he was 4.
Now, he's back in his native lane with his third NFL opportunity. He's already played in the Canadian and World leagues.
"I never played football until 1991," Hinchcliff said. "I can't make up for 16 years of experience, which some of these players have, but I consider myself a competent football player.
"I just want to compete for a job. It all depends on getting the chance. I can't get better if I don't have that. The team controls my ability to be the best football player I can be.
"Mentally, I'm there. I've competed at the world-class level. I'm only 25, and I've traveled the world as an athlete. Can being a football player be that much different."
Hinchcliff, 25, signed with the Redskins in April. He saw a rebuilding club that had lost its established receiving Posse. The Redskins saw a player who could run and catch the football.
In 1988, while attending the Auckland Institute of Technology, he competed in the Summer and Winter Olympics. He was 19, a sprinter and long jumper in the Seoul Games and a mamber of New Zealand's two-man bobsled team in the Calgary Games.
He was the country's junior decathlon champion. In international competition, he has run the 100 meters in 10.28 seconds and long jumped 27 feet, 4 inches. In the CFL, he ran the 40 in 4.2 seconds.
He started his football career in 1991 in Winnipeg, on the Blue Bombers practice squad, then went to Montreal of the World League in the spring of '92. The Los Angeles Raiders were intrigued by him.
"I was a track guy, and the Raiders love to sign people like me," he said of a club that has an Olympic tradition at receiver that includes Willie Gault, Alexander Wright and John Jett. "The best thing that happened to me there was I was taught about catching the ball and running patterns by Fred Biletnikoff."
Hinchcliff lasted only two weeks in the Raiders' camp, but receiver coach Terry Robiskie remembered him - and when Turner hired Robiskie for the Redskins' new staff, Hinchcliff was suggested.
After he was cut by the Raiders, Hinchcliff landed with the B.C. Lions of the CFL. He started on special teams by midseason, but when he was placed on the team's practice squad the last week of the season, he got out of his contract. He had a midseason tryout with the 49ers last year.
"I think I'm competing at an even level with a lot of people at my position," said Hinchcliff. "I'm not the biggest guy in the world (6 feet, 190 pounds), but I understand the game after working with Biletnikoff.
"I played rugby as a boy, and I think I came into football a little blind. I do have an advantage in that I haven't been hit like these other guys have. My body isn't as beaten up.
"I'm not afraid to get hit. I want the chance to get hit. Because I'm smaller, I can avoid some of those hits. Only time will tell what will happen."
Behind Henry Ellard, Howard, rookie Tydus Winans and veteran backup Stephen Hobbs, it would appear Hinchcliff is battling two former VMI players, Mark Stock and Gregory Clifton, for the last receiver spot on the team and another spot on the practice squad.
"Willie is a very interesting player," Turner said.
He did take a long road from Trenton to get here.
by CNB