The Spaz
04-23-2004, 07:32 AM
With the NFL Draft approaching on Saturday, Bills longtime equipment manager Dave Hojnowski is preparing for his yearly draft duties which consist of traveling to New York City and spending more than 15 hours over consecutive days on the phone. While the Bills decision makers are huddled in the draft room in Orchard Park, NY monitoring the progress of the draft, Hojnowski is manning the draft table on the floor of Madison Square Garden waiting to submit the Bills draft pick.
"My basic duty is to write the draft picks name on the card and make sure it gets submitted correctly," Hojnowski said. "I am on an open phone line with Orchard Park from 11:30 am on Saturday until the draft is over. The Bills have a speaker phone in the draft room and the person that I actually talk to is head trainer Bud Carpenter. He relays who the pick is because he will be standing next to Tom Donahoe, Tom Modrak, and Mike Mularkey."
Many may think that a lot of the draft happenings take place in New York City, but the truth is that most of the decisions are made in the draft rooms across the country and are merely finalized by the teams' representatives who are actually at the draft. The Bills send one other person to the draft with Hojnowski, and this year that person is scouting assistant Rob Hanrahan, whose scouting knowledge will be beneficial to the team.
"It will be good to have Rob Hanrahan there," Hojnowski said. "He has sat in on all of the scouting meetings and he is more familiar with the players who may get drafted in the later rounds. It isn't hard when you are drafting a big name collegiate player in the first couple of rounds, but Rob will be able to really help out in the later rounds and make sure everything is correct."
http://www.buffalobills.com/news/index.cfm?cont_id=241312
"My basic duty is to write the draft picks name on the card and make sure it gets submitted correctly," Hojnowski said. "I am on an open phone line with Orchard Park from 11:30 am on Saturday until the draft is over. The Bills have a speaker phone in the draft room and the person that I actually talk to is head trainer Bud Carpenter. He relays who the pick is because he will be standing next to Tom Donahoe, Tom Modrak, and Mike Mularkey."
Many may think that a lot of the draft happenings take place in New York City, but the truth is that most of the decisions are made in the draft rooms across the country and are merely finalized by the teams' representatives who are actually at the draft. The Bills send one other person to the draft with Hojnowski, and this year that person is scouting assistant Rob Hanrahan, whose scouting knowledge will be beneficial to the team.
"It will be good to have Rob Hanrahan there," Hojnowski said. "He has sat in on all of the scouting meetings and he is more familiar with the players who may get drafted in the later rounds. It isn't hard when you are drafting a big name collegiate player in the first couple of rounds, but Rob will be able to really help out in the later rounds and make sure everything is correct."
http://www.buffalobills.com/news/index.cfm?cont_id=241312