Professional School

Derek Hagan has aspirations of playing in the NFL. How has his education at ASU prepared him for life in — and beyond — pro sports?
By Bill Konigsberg

Not everyone eating lunch in the Memorial Union on a mid-April Friday has hands that are potentially worth millions of dollars. For wide receiver Derek Hagan, that reality may be only a year away. And yet all he can do is keep up with his killer schedule by practicing, studying and playing hard, every day.

His hands are large, but then most of him is large. The 6-3 junior is about 200 pounds of sinewy muscle, with a wide, friendly smile. When he walks, people watch, not because he’s arrogant, but because there’s obviously something special about him as he strides gracefully through the hallways.

It’s all seemed effortless, watching Hagan, who wasn’t even a heavily recruited player out of high school, become among the finest wide receivers in Sun Devil history. The All-America candidate needs just eight catches, 265 yards, and six touchdowns to set ASU career marks in each category. He has more 100-yard receiving games than any other player in team history, and is just the second player in ASU history to record back-to-back 1,000 yard receiving seasons.

Hagan expects to graduate in May 2006 with a dual major in Justice Studies and Business. He currently has a GPA of 2.8. Two college football experts, one here on the Tempe campus and one with the National Football League, believe Hagan is good enough for the pros, but that the education he and his teammates are receiving is most essential to their future success.

According to ASU head coach Dirk Koetter, Hagan isn’t alone in having dreams of playing in the pros.

“ Despite what people might think, most kids who come to a school like ASU, whether it’s legit or not, they all think they’re going to be pros,” said Koetter. “And that’s one thing that caught me off guard when I came here four years ago. We try to educate them about how unrealistic that is, based on the numbers that actually make it.”

Few do. This year, three players were drafted into the NFL from ASU. In the five previous years, NFL teams drafted 18 Sun Devils. That’s a far cry from the total number of players who had ASU football scholarships during that period, given that at any given time the team might have 120 players.

Even for those who make it, an average professional career can be exceedingly short. According to the NFL, the average player is in the league for fewer than four years. So more likely than not, an ASU degree is not a side benefit for an NFL hopeful; it’s elemental to his life.

The reality that not too many college players make it to the pros is one issue; another is that moving from the college level to the pros is a major adjustment. The National Football League’s point man when it comes to helping players adjust to pro life is Mike Haynes, one of three Sun Devil alumni currently in the NFL Hall of Fame. Haynes, who played cornerback at ASU from 1972 to 1975, is vice president of player development for the NFL.

“ Coming into the NFL, these guys need to develop coping skills,” Haynes said, referring to the adjustment of being out in the world for the first time and dealing with finances and life issues, not to mention playing football at a pro level. “Everything is going to be new.”

Haynes learned the importance of education by experiencing strife for the first time as a pro player. He did not have an ASU degree when he was drafted by the New England Patriots with the fifth overall selection in the 1976 draft. But once he saw the uncertainty of the world of the NFL, he decided to return to ASU to get his degree.

“ I can’t say I didn’t value my education, but I thought I wouldn’t need it. When I got into the league and saw it wasn’t what I thought, I went back to school,” he said.
Hagan doesn’t know what he’ll do with his degree yet once his football career is over, but Haynes hopes he’ll think long and hard about a Plan B.

“ No one knows how long a career is going to last,” Haynes said. “You could be a first-round draft choice and only be in the league two or three years. Hopefully you had a good backup plan if you fall in that category.”

Hagan admits he’s not focused on a backup plan at this point, in case the NFL doesn’t work out. But he does plan to graduate, and said he’s learned a lot in classes and is interested in issues of discrimination in the workplace. “Hopefully there will be something that I can fall back on with my degree. Hopefully I’ll figure out what I want to do with that,” he said.

Koetter wants that for Hagan and all of his players. “If a guy is lucky enough to get a career as a pro football player, that’s a great career, but we have other guys preparing to be doctors, lawyers,” he said. “Our job is not to get a guy ready for the NFL. We’re not a minor league for the NFL. We represent ASU and are here to prepare these kids for the world.”

The junior receiver is humble, uneasy about bragging about his skill and what might come of it. Still, mention the NFL and there’s a glimmer in his eye. He doesn’t appear to take anything for granted, but he knows his hard work and talent may pay off. But a mere mention of Andrew Walter, the team’s talented former quarterback, and the air becomes icy around Hagan. With one hit last December against Arizona, Walter suffered a third-degree shoulder separation that ended his chances of being a first-round draft choice and making the money that goes along with it. Instead, Walter was drafted by the Oakland Raiders in the third round of the April NFL draft.

“ That’s one thing you don’t ever want to think about. Injuries are going to happen in football — you just hope it doesn’t happen to you,” Hagan said.

For now, Hagan is focused on the positive, and doesn’t have much time to look to future goals. When he does, he focuses on team goals for the upcoming season. A Rose Bowl bid would be ideal, he said. Is his vision clouded by thoughts of NFL fame? “It’s out of my mind,” he says of anything beyond the coming football season. But then he smiles and allows himself one moment to ponder personal accomplishment. “Hopefully I can break all of the ASU records, the single season records all the receiving records, that would be really nice to leave ASU on a good note.”

To provide feedback on this article, click here.

Derek Hagan

A conversation with new athletics chief Lisa Love