Pro football hopefuls pursuing a dream

GREEN BAY - How far would you go to follow your dream? The answer for one Green Bay Blizzard hopeful, 600 miles, which he traveled from Canton Ohio to Green Bay.

Sean Malafronte made the drive with his fiancé and said during the trip to Green Bay he was already getting in the mindset to compete. "You gotta occupy yourself,” Malafronte said. “You gotta think about how hard you trained and whether you can run a good 40 time or not do stuff good or not it's an experience."

The former Mt. Union wide receiver knows his time to make it in pro football is running out.

"I'm not trying to be an arena league player until I'm 37, 38 years old but I'm just trying to do this when I can and have no regrets."

For John Nicholas of Oneida, after finishing his time as an offensive lineman at UW-Oshkosh, and then a year layoff, he thought his playing days were done. That is until a workout partner convinced him to give the game another try.

"I'm just kind of taking a shot in the dark right now,” Nicholas said. “I'm just trying to work hard show I have athletic ability and impress the coaches."

The players trying out are fighting long odds, of the 28 attending the tryout  only a few will make it to training camp and even fewer will make the 25 man regular season roster.

"You know last year I think we had 2,” said Blizzard Head Coach Robert Fuller. “This year there's the potential for more than that."

Fuller is in his 6th year as an arena football head coach and knows exactly what he's looking for during a try out camp.

"You know number one it's ability, number two it's character, and then I think number three is just being able to learn our game," Fuller told me.

For two days the Blizzard hopefuls tried to raise the bar, show the burst of speed, and push their opponents aside in hopes that the time for dreaming hadn't stopped.

Nicholas left the workout please with how he had performed. "I think I showcased my talent well. I showed the coaches what I have and hopefully I get signed,” Nicholas said. When I asked him what getting invited to training camp would mean he replied, “It'd just be one step in the right direction for me I believe."

Fuller said that Nicholas had been on his radar for a while and he remembered seeing him play in the All-American Bowl following his time with Oshkosh. The skills he displayed then were still evident according to the Head Coach. "He's got a pretty good chance, especially being an offensive lineman. Those guys are worth their weight in gold these days. He definitely has a great skill set and good natural ability."

Things don't look as promising for the furthest a field member of the camp as a shoulder injury left Sean on the outside looking in for much of day  2.

Fuller praised Malafronte’s desire, "You know it's pretty evident, his passion and how bad he wants it,”  but cast no illusions about how the injury affected Sean’s chances, “you gotta be out there and you gotta be making plays."

I asked Sean how hard it was to be in a situation where you're stuck on the sideline because of something that’s beyond his control.

Malafronte said,  "Extremely hard, especially when you travel this far, extremely hard. You don't want that to hold you back because you know what you can do. And you're just waiting for that phone call. It's tough, it's hard especially when you're 10 hours away."