Lovie Smith can order players to do pretty much whatever he deems important for football. But when he decided Devin Hester could help the Bears more on offense than defense, he knew the move would go better if Hester bought into it.
The coach didn’t want to force Hester, whose mentor and football idol is former cornerback/returner Deion Sanders, to give up being a defensive back.
So Smith started making “suggestions” to Hester over the last two months.
“It went from once a month to once a week to every day,” Hester said, laughing. “So I said, ‘There’s no ‘I’ in team,’ and if the head coach thinks it’s going to be better for the team …
“He was like a father raising a kid up and once he gets in high school, then guide him to the right college. That’s the way he is and I have 100 percent trust in Lovie Smith and the decisions he’s making. I’m just hoping I can live up to it and contribute.”
In Friday’s first veterans mini-camp practice, Hester started to do just that, turning a simple passing drill with receivers against defensive backs into must-see viewing. Taking a short slant pass, he turned teammates into cheering fans with a burst of speed that turned the routine throw into a long touchdown catch.
In the course of practice, Hester was taking handoffs on end-arounds and generally making a huge nuisance of himself for the Bears’ defense.
“It was more exciting than I really thought it would be,” Hester said. “Whenever a player gets his hands on the ball and knows what he can do with it, it’s a lot of fun.”
Hester has had more than his share of fun on offense. He started games at cornerback, nickel back, running back and fullback in college at Miami, and spent time at receiver. The Bears drafted him as a returner/cornerback but his impact on offense during his career has been exceptional.
As a senior at Suncoast High School in Riviera Beach, Fla., he rushed for 1,014 yards and 12 touchdowns on 94 attempts, an average of nearly 11 yards per carry and a score every eight times he was handed the ball. He caught 38 passes for 1,028 yards, an average of 27 yards per reception and a TD nearly every four catches.
If the Bears want to have him throw the ball, fine by him: he threw for five TDs as a high school senior. At Miami he averaged 19.6 yards on the 10 passes he caught.
“I’m a back-yard football player,” Hester said. “I grew up playing street football, where you have to play receiver, quarterback, and I’m a ‘Florida’ type football player, so go out and play everything.”
Because he is listed as a running back/receiver, Hester will be allowed to keep his No. 23. The hope is eventually he will develop into the kind of all-field threat that back/receiver Reggie Bush is for New Orleans, although Hester is not entertaining any comparisons to Bush.
“I’m not any Reggie Bush; I’m Devin Hester,” he said. “He and I are two different ballplayers so that’s the way it is.”
Hester is one of eight NFL players, along with San Diego’s LaDanian Tomlinson, Kansas City’s Larry Johnson and Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck, featured in a new soup advertising campaign. His coach figured out a way to include that in the sales pitch to persuade Hester to switch to offense.
“I don’t know about ‘persuade,’ ” Smith said. “Devin is a team player and as I was [telling] Devin, he didn’t get a chance to do that commercial based on backpedaling.”
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jmullin@tribune.com
