Tall enough to win

KIRKLAND, Wash. – Like many people who meet Deion Branch for the first time, Seattle Seahawks fullback Mack Strong was taken aback when he initially laid eyes on his new teammate last week.

“I’m sure everybody says the same thing,” Strong said. “He’s a little bit shorter than I thought.”

Although the newest Seahawk is listed at 5-foot-9, to see him in person is to realize that he’s probably 2 inches shorter than that. It almost always comes as a surprise.

“Playing against him on the field, and then seeing him in street clothes, it’s a little different,” said Seattle cornerback Marcus Trufant, who played against Branch’s New England Patriots in 2004. “When he’s on the field, he’s out there making things happen. Then when you see him in regular street clothes, he’s smaller than you remember.”

Branch, who is expected to make his Seahawks debut Sunday against the New York Giants, might be one of the smaller receivers in the league, but that doesn’t affect him.

As one of his former coaches recently said: “He never knew he had a size problem.”

That would be Eddie Pierce, who coached Branch at Jones County (Miss.) Junior College after the high school star failed to get into the University of Florida because of poor grades. Pierce remembers seeing Branch in street clothes for the first time, and he wasn’t overly impressed with how the prized recruit looked.

“I said: ‘This guy’s not very tall to be a receiver,’ ” Pierce recalled this week. “But what he lacks in stature, he makes up for in other ways.”

That became apparent fairly quickly at Jones County, where Branch caught 37 passes as a freshman and 69 as a sophomore, before moving on to the University of Louisville.

Branch calls his experience at Jones County one of the most important periods of his life because of the way it humbled him.

After coach Steve Spurrier recruited him to Florida, Branch attained a high enough score on his SATs but didn’t have the corresponding grade-point average during his senior year at Monroe High School in Albany, Ga. So he had to go to a JC, and only later would he appreciate what it taught him about life.

“Coming out of high school, I was all-everything,” he said earlier this week as he prepared for his first game as a Seahawk. “When that happens, your priorities can get shifted in terms of thinking right. I committed to Florida, had a big head and lost focus.

“I’m glad it happened so early, at such an early age.”

Branch went on to catch 143 passes in two seasons at Louisville but didn’t get picked until the second round of the 2002 NFL draft. He waited patiently as a former JC teammate (Florida State product Javon Walker) and two players from his original UF recruiting class (Reche Caldwell and Jabar Gaffney) were among 10 wide receivers selected ahead of him.

“Honestly, I knew that I might not go (in the) first round,” said Branch, whom the Patriots took with the 65th overall pick in the 2002 draft. “But I knew I’d go second round. And the only reason I felt like I didn’t go first round is because of my school (Louisville, which then competed in the oft-overlooked Conference USA). I honestly think that.

“If it were about flat-out numbers, I would have been right there with those guys.”

In terms of numbers, the one that hurt Branch the most was 5-foot-whatever. Although Branch doesn’t like to think in those terms, his lack of height led some scouts to believe that the diminutive receiver might not make it in the NFL.

“Coming out of college, I know for a fact that a couple (of scouts) talked about (size). But I could care less about it,” Branch said. “The real scouts, they look at the football player versus the height. (Carolina’s) Steve Smith is a good football player, and he’s small (5-9). Santana Moss is a good football player, and he’s small (5-10).

“… It’s impossible to say that, ‘A guy below this height can’t do it,’ because they went out and showed differently. They’re not 6 feet. They’re not 6-5 or 6-2. They’re regular, 5-9 guys who have a big heart and got it done.”

Branch’s new teammates aren’t the only ones who noticed his lack of size. When Branch joined the Patriots in 2002, his physical presence didn’t exactly command attention. But his play quickly proved the doubters wrong.

“When he runs away from everybody, and nobody can catch him, that’s when you realize (size) doesn’t mean anything,” said Seahawks lineman Tom Ashworth, a former teammate of Branch’s in New England.