At the Mike Hart of the matter

One preseason game an NFL career does not make, but it’s a good bet former Onondaga Central School and University of Michigan star running back Mike Hart proved a few more disbelievers wrong in his pro football debut with the Indianapolis Colts.

 

The 5-foot-9, 206-pound Hart, considered too small by most and too slow by many, rushed for 53 yards on four carries and caught three passes for 28 yards in the Colts’ 30-16 loss to the Washington Redskins in the opener of the NFL’s exhibition season.

 

This Syracuse kid has been proving people wrong for years, since he was leading Onondaga’s Tigers to three straight state championships and rushing for 11,232 yards and scoring 204 touchdowns during a national record-setting high school career. At Michigan, he did it again, rushing for a school-record 5,040 yards and 41 touchdowns.

 

Now, as a rookie chosen in the sixth-round of the draft, Hart is in the NFL, ready, willing, and you’d better believe, able, to prove more people wrong.

 

Small by NFL standards? Slow by NFL standards? So what? If you could measure Mike Hart’s heart, you would find he does measure up. He’s a football player, period, and for his sake, let’s hope the Colts, or some other NFL team, realizes it.