A student-athlete is presented with two options: run as fast as you can to chase gold medals on a worldwide stage or play in America’s most popular professional league and make millions of dollars.
This is the dilemma Jeff Demps faces.
The junior running back has flown past defenders to earn the attention of NFL scouts and has broken records on his way to winning a track and field national championship that has many anointing him a potential Olympian.
“It’s definitely not easy if you love each sport,” said Daymon Carroll, who ran track at UF and was a running back on the 1996 national championship team. “It’s just not going to be an easy decision either way. But it’s just making a decision and living with it.”
With pros and cons on each side, there will be plenty for the speedster, who is eligible to enter the NFL Draft after this season, to consider.
Out of the Blocks
Despite running a 9.96 to win the 100-meter national title at the 2010 NCAA Championships in June, running track didn’t always come naturally to Demps.
“He had a lot to learn,” said Teri Batts, a data-entry specialist at Groveland South Lake High School who acted as Demps’ guidance counselor. “He had to do a lot of extra workouts, and then it became an issue of trying to stay in shape year-round and for two entirely different sports. He needed weight for football and less body fat and weight for track.”
Demps took up track at the beginning of his junior year in high school and never looked back, running past the competition in the process.
His legs led him to a 10.37 100-meter dash, the fastest time ever recorded at the Florida state final.
And his success has carried over to UF, where he won a national championship in the sport last spring.
Florida track and field coach Mike Holloway knows Demps could run in the Olympics if that’s what he decides to pursue.
“No doubt in my mind,” he said. “[He’s] that gifted, he’s that poised and he’s that confident in himself.”
But Carroll knows the negative side to running track for a living. He estimates that an average track and field athlete makes $50,000 per year, not accounting for travel expenses.
Only the top runners earn millions of dollars, something Demps is not guaranteed — unlike football.
“If you have a hamstring injury or some little nicks, that can throw your whole season off and you can lose a potential of a quarter-million dollars. That’s what’s so tricky with track and field,” Carroll said.
“As for football, when I was playing they didn’t have guaranteed contracts, now they have guaranteed contracts. So pretty much, you know you have money coming.”
But a chance at an Olympic medal and a career featuring thousands fewer hits from larger men could be enough to offset that.
Out of the Backfield
Unlike track, where he specializes in the shorter events, Demps is known as a back that can break a long play at any moment in football.
His 4.3 40-yard-dash speed earned him that label, and Demps credits track for his straight-ahead running style.
“That had a lot to do with it,” he said of his track mindset compared to football. “It was always go straight or one left turn, then go straight again.”
Before this season, Demps thrived in a system in which he split carries. But this year he is showing he can carry an offense.
The junior is averaging nearly seven yards per rush and is responsible for 33 percent of the Gators’ total offense. He is now an every-down back, a receiver out of the backfield and a kick returner.
Demps ranks third in the country with 196.7 all-purpose yards per game.
Still, his NFL potential is in question.
“He’s a draftable kid, but I don’t see a first-rounder or second-rounder right now,” an NFL scout for one NFC team said. “He’s not going to last as a running back because he doesn’t start and stop like (Tennessee Titans running back) Chris Johnson. I don’t think he’s as strong as (Minnesota Vikings and former UF receiver Percy) Harvin, but there are similarities.
“He’s going to be drafted, it’s just too early to figure out where.”
Many doubt Demps’ ability to run between the tackles and his durability, and others wonder if his track career is getting in the way of his future in football.
One day, like most two-sport athletes, Demps will have to settle that second question for himself.
“I just started to realize how difficult it was to play two sports, especially at a top-notch school like Florida and a top-notch conference like the Southeastern Conference,” Carroll said.
Decision Time
Demps isn’t putting off his choice.
He has been mulling over his two options with Batts — who still calls and texts him after games — since the 11th grade, and she’s certain football is the route Demps wants to pursue.
“It’s just what he loves since he was a very, very young child,” Batts said. “He just loves it.”
Holloway agrees.
Because of the potential money the NFL offers, he’ll support his track star-turned-football star’s decision either way.
“I don’t know how he doesn’t think about it, but it’s not something we talk about,” Holloway said. “But there is no doubt in my mind that Jeff wants to play in the NFL and he wants to be one of those guys that you watch on TV playing on Sundays.”
For now, Demps will keep up his dual-sport role and keep both options open.
Unlike former Gators athlete John Capel, he won’t rush to a final decision.
In 2000, Capel, a UF wide receiver who excelled in track, left after his sophomore season to pursue his sprinting dream. Capel made the 200-meter finals at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney but finished eighth, and he wasn’t able to spin a seventh-round selection in the 2001 NFL Draft into a football career.
Much like waiting for a block before accelerating through the hole, Demps knows he must be patient and wait for the best path to open up.
“It wasn’t that hard,” Demps said of turning down a potential track career early on. “It’s money, but it’s not like what you get in football. Football is my first option.”
