NCAA Football Nfl Fans

Darren McFadden attended EA Sports' launch party for NCAA Football '09 last night, and the Arkansas standout who will likely be the first running back selected on Saturday took a couple minutes to answer questions about the most pressing subjects a blogger could have on the eve of the NFL draft: the pimped-out Ford Crown Victoria he owns, and his penchant for dressing in drag.

McFadden stated that his first priority after signing his first pro contract will be to take care of his mother and father, but when pressed, he admitted that he may also get some new cars. Although his present ride is a black Escalade, he assured me that he still had the Crown Vic and had no intention of selling it. All is well in the world.

Knowing D-Mac's zest for costumes -- that's him as Fred Flintstone -- I encouraged him to wear a dress to the Draft on Saturday. C'mon! No first-rounder has ever done that before! (Although on Day 2 of the draft, anything goes.) "I don't think so," he chuckled, "I'm trying to take it seriously."

But when will we see him in women's clothing again? "Oh, you know, when the time is right."

In 1995, when Kellen Winslow Sr. delivered his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction speech, he used it as an opportunity to denounce the NFL's abysmal record of minority hiring. His voice has been an important one, but in a sick irony, a con-man has started impersonating Winslow and sucking African-American coaches into a money-wiring scheme.

From conversations I've had with coaches who say they were bilked, these seem to be low-risk, small payout operations built around a smooth-talking con artist. The plan had to be swiftly executed: find an eager assistant coach looking for that one big break, hook the assistant in emotionally, hastily schedule an interview, get the money, then disappear.

One small-school assistant coach offered details to FanHouse on how the scam was perpetrated on him. "When you're a young unknown coach and Kellen Winslow, Hall of Famer, calls you, you don't ask a lot of questions," said the coach, who asked that his name not be used for this story. "You don't want to blow an opportunity."