By Joel Weckerly, Sports Editor

All Britt Lively needs is a chance.

In the past, the big, 6-foot-5, 336-pound lineman from Silsbee has done well with chances: When Texas A&M wouldn’t give his younger brother, Josh, a chance to play football, Lively left for ACU, and took Josh with him. When ACU gave Lively a chance, he gave them an all-American offensive tackle. When an Abilene girl named Joshelyn gave Britt a chance, he married her.

Now, he’s hoping that some team in the National Football League will extend him the same courtesy, a chance that he definitely won’t take for granted.

ASPIRATIONS

It all started back at College Station, where Britt played as a freshman. He had dreamt about playing in the NFL since he was a little boy, but never had it been a realistic goal until he put on an Aggie jersey.

“It’s not one of those things you hope for,” Lively said, “but to actually see some of my teammates go pro from A&M, I realized that if you have the ability and you work hard, your chances are good.”

Certainly Britt had the size, speed, strength and mobility to go along with a solid work ethic. He ran a 5.01 40-yard dash-exceptional for a lineman, had the quick feet necessary to stop speedy defenders along with the quick burst off the line necessary to pancake a linebacker. He even had the platform of a prominent Division I school to make the transition smoother. But that would soon change.

Lively’s one condition before signing with A&M was that they sign Josh a year later. The coaches agreed; but reneged on their promise on signing day. Furious, Britt stormed into his offensive line coach’s office.

“I told him, ‘Coach, now you not only lost one player, you lost two,'” he recalls. “Josh’s next choice was ACU. I wanted to stay close to him, so I came too.”

He came to Abilene as a prized recruit for head coach Gary Gaines and didn’t disappoint in his three seasons for the Wildcats. He was named honorable mention all-LSC South his sophomore year, second team his junior year and this fall was named first team All-America by the Associated Press, the American Football Coaches’ Association and Dopke.com.

Still, Britt was doubtful about his chances at stardom. After all, now he was at ACU-not exactly a hotbed for pro hopefuls.

“I didn’t really know what my chances were from ACU,” Lively says. “But my dad always said, ‘If you’re good enough, they’re gonna find you.’ [Coming to ACU] might have hurt my chances a little, but it was worth it,” he says, grinning over to Joshelyn. “I mean, I found my wife here.”

SIGNING

Britt and Joshelyn were married last summer, capping a relationship that started when Britt’s teammate, wide receiver Roddy Alexander, introduced them to each other when Alexander and Lively transferred to ACU from A&M.

Joshelyn, a first grade teacher at Clyde Elementary, says she worries more for Britt’s future than Britt does.

“I’m nervous for him,” she says, smiling. “Just because I’m the one that stresses. I’m high strung.”

The stress began when Britt received his first letter from an agent last fall. Pretty soon 30 to 40 agents had called his house to encourage him to sign with them.

One agent in particular, Dave Lee from PlayersRep Sports Management, interested Lively. Lee and his three other associates built their agency in 2001, and since then have accumulated 16 NFL clients, as well as 12 Major League Baseball Clients. Lively liked Lee because one of his clients, San Diego Chargers cornerback Drayton Florence, was drafted in the second round of the 2003 NFL Draft out of tiny Division II Tuskegee. Not only did Florence get drafted, but he played in all 16 of the Chargers’ games this season.

PlayersRep was also appealing because of its executive partner, Damon Griffin. Griffin played three seasons in the NFL (from 1999-2002) and gives clients an insider perspective of the league.

“I’m the hands-on person,” Griffin said from his Los Angeles home. “I’ve been through everything. I know how hard it is to make it.”

Lively was convinced. He signed with PlayersRep in November.

CHANCES

“Britt comes from a small school,” says Griffin. “That doesn’t mean nothing. He’s a big boy, and he can beat up some people.”

Lively’s offensive line coach and ACU’s Pro Scout liaison Pat Rippee seems to agree.

“He has all the tools,” Rippee said. “He’s certainly blessed with some things that some players aren’t. He’s got really sweet feet, and you don’t see movement skill on guys as big as him very often. He’s a really good pass protector, and you have to be in the NFL. He’s good at making quick body adjustments on people moving in front of him.”

Britt’s apparent size and skill caught the attention of several pro scouts rather quickly.

“We had a lot of traffic through here last season,” Rippee said. “They like to watch him practice and watch game film. They ask a lot of questions about him. You can tell when they’re really into a guy, and they did a good deal for Britt.”

According to Lee, about a dozen teams have shown significant interest in Britt, including Cleveland, Baltimore, Kansas City and Chicago. The various scouts, he said, will look at several factors before further pursuing a player.

“Coming from Texas A&M was huge,” Lee said. “There’s a lot of stories of guys going from big to small schools and getting drafted. When teams start evaluating, they look at test numbers. There’s so many prospects out there, they have to go by numbers first. He’s passed all those tests; he’s got all the numbers. Now it’s about them doing their research.”

According to Lively, the research has been extensive.

“They asked all kinds of questions, like if I’d ever been arrested or if they drafted me, what would come up in my past,” Lively said. They pulled my credit report to check for bankruptcy, repos, all that. You gotta realize, if they’re gonna drop a lot of money on one guy, it has to be a good investment.”

Lively showed himself to be a good investment at the Cactus Bowl-the Division II all-star game-Jan. 9 in Kingsville. Not only did Lively help his West team win the game 30-27 in overtime, but he also showcased his talents throughout several practices leading up to the game day.

“There were about 45 to 50 scouts there the day I was there,” Rippee said. “They’re allowed to talk to the players and get a lot of business done there.”

“The first day of practice, he was hounded by everyone,” said Griffin, who also made the trip to Kingsville to see his client. “There was a scout there from the Ravens who only came to see Britt.”

Although Lee acknowledged Lively was projected as a fourth- to seventh-round draft pick, he said predicting where a player will go is nothing more than a crapshoot.

“It’s like setting yourself up for a fall,” Lee said. “You just have to see who wants who the most, and sometimes you don’t figure that out until draft day.”

Griffin knows this all too well. As he anxiously sat with his mother in the players’ seating area at the 1999 Draft, he began getting calls from teams.

“The 49ers called me up and told me I was a 49er in the sixth round. The camera was on me and everything, and I looked on the TV and it was somebody else’s name. That was about the worst day of my life.”

The 49ers instead went with Michigan’s Tai Streets, and picked Griffin up as an undrafted free agent. Although he had a solid preseason, the Oregon graduate was placed on the 49ers practice squad.

“I was thinking, ‘what the [heck] is going on?'” he said. “It’s just a lot of B.S. that they give you.”

San Francisco placed Griffin on the waiver wire, where he was picked up by the Cincinnati Bengals and played for the 1999 and 2000 seasons. In 2001 he was picked up by the St. Louis Rams. Unfortunately, he tore his hamstring completely off his bone running a deep route in preseason practice and was on the sideline the entire year-including Superbowl XXXVI, where he watched his final game as a player before retiring early.

“It’s very stressful,” says Griffin. “I’ve seen grown men cry. A lot of people say the NFL stands for Not For Long; you just try to stay as many Mondays as possible. Luckily, I had a marketing degree from Oregon, and I was already prepared for post-NFL life.”

PREPARATION

Lively knows he’s not a sure thing. He knows that it might not work out the way he wants it to, and it scares him.

“It would be pretty hard on me,” he said. “I’ve played this game for a long time. But I’ve got a wife now. I’d have to finish up school and be a regular person.”

But Britt’s not ready to be regular just yet. Scouts indicated to him that if he trimmed his weight down to 320 pounds, he could elevate his draft status.

“I want to get down to about a 5.1 40,” he said. “That’s my goal right now.”

So, after working his 8-4 job at Big S Construction, Britt comes home and eats a healthy supper-“No dessert,” says Joshelyn- before heading to Powell Fitness Center to lift weights for about an hour, stretch out and run for another hour or two.

The training is mainly preparation for the Pro Timing Day at ACU on March 1, when scouts will travel to Abilene-as will Lee and Griffin-to do a series of tests on Lively.

“He had a good all-star week,” says Lee. “Now he has to have good individual workouts. They’re going to evaluate if he can play at a faster level. He’s very intelligent, and I’m sure they’ll be impressed with him.”

“We’ll find out more about where he’s at after the workout date,” Griffin said. “Right now, Britt’s a late-rounder, but he can move up very easily. He has to shine, and these workouts are very important.”

FUTURE

Six months from now, Lively wants to be in a pro camp somewhere, training and preparing to put on new colors beside Purple & White. His journey has been lengthy thus far, but the distance to that point looms even longer.

“I just wanna make it,” he says. “I want to do it personally, but more for my family and for our future. Thinking about kids and setting up money for them to go to college-that makes it stressful.”

Britt and Joshelyn glance at each other, uncertainty in their eyes, then Britt speaks again, this time more confident.

“If I don’t make it, those things can still happen. It’ll just take longer.”