RAMSEY: AFA's Hall prepares to invade the NFL

The fear is there for everyone who watched Chad Hall run with a football for the Air Force Academy.

He’s 5-foot-7, minuscule by football standards, and he’s getting ready to collide with snarling 315-pound behemoths as he seeks to earn a roster spot with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Brain-rattling collisions await a running back who hasn’t sustained a big hit since Dec. 31, 2007, his last game as a Falcon.

Funny thing. The fear isn’t there for Hall.

“I don’t remember getting hit,” Hall says. “The only big hits I remember are when I ran over people.”

He busts into a long laugh. He’s never been known for stampeding over tacklers. He runs around them.

He knows extreme violence beckons from just around the bend, but he welcomes the pounding. He actually seems to miss it.

“Getting hit, you know, it’s like riding a bike,” Hall says. “You get those pads on and you put that mouth guard in and every play it’s who wants it more. I’m not scared to stick my face into somebody’s chest.”

That’s true. Hall walks through his football life without fear. He’s the diminutive player who believes the big men should worry about tangling with him.

Air Force football coach Troy Calhoun laughs as he thinks back to his first meeting with Hall.
The Falcons halfback walked into Calhoun’s office in the spring of 2007, and the new coach had a difficult time believing what he was seeing.

Hall “had one of those little mop tops” for a haircut, Calhoun says, and his untucked shirt fell below his knees. He didn’t look like a football warrior.

But he was.

“He played with some confidence, now,” Calhoun says with admiration. “And it was the real stuff.”

In his first three seasons, Hall offered hints of his potential. In his senior season, the hinting was over.

He delivered a spectacular AFA farewell, rushing for 1,478 yards and catching 50 passes. He’s the main reason the Falcons transformed from a 4-8 team in 2006 to a 9-4 team in 2007.

And he was more than a runner. A series of Hall blocks helped spring Jim Ollis for a 71-yard touchdown in a comeback win over TCU. Hall’s unselfish dedication led to one of the biggest offensive plays in AFA history.

Despite his college heroics, he remains, as always, the long shot. The Eagles have shown faith, signing him to a three-season contract, but he faces a massive challenge.

He’s undersized and he’s not especially fast. Plenty of high school halfbacks move faster than Hall’s 4.6 clocking in the 40.

And yet …

Hall has a special knack. He’s not big. He’s not fast. But those traits don’t seem to matter much. He’s frighteningly quick, which means tacklers can’t get their hands on him. He’s an expert at arriving where the arms of tacklers are not.

That was obvious the first time I ever saw Hall. It was an August 2005 practice, and Hall caught a pass in the middle of the field. Three Falcons had a clean shot at him. Three Falcons failed to touch him.

Hall has battled the odds and triumphed before. When Hall finished his high school career in Atlanta, Air Force offered his only Division I scholarship. He found no other believers.

He finished his service commitment in May, and now he prepares for his final, and ultimate, football challenge.

Are there doubters out there?

Hall hopes so. He adores doubters.

“When people sit there and look at you and look you in the eye and tell you can’t do stuff, it just lights a fire,” Hall says. “I love it when the odds are against you. Are you going to just sit there or are you going to prove them wrong?”

Let me offer a bit of advice to any big man who stands in the way of Hall’s goal:

You should be quaking with fear.

(When quarterback Shaun Carney suffered a severe knee injury in 2007 bowl game, coach Troy Calhoun almost went with Chad Hall as replacement QB. For details: http://daveramseysez.freedomblogging.com/ )