An excerpt from 53rd Man on Slater getting drafted:
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He was just hoping by this point to get an invite to an NFL camp. He figured that being drafted was still a long shot, but he understood that there might be a pathway through the route of undrafted free agency.
His mother Annie, however, had loftier visions.
“I believe you’re going to get drafted,” she told him. “I believe the Lord is going to do some things.”
Through four rounds of the 2008 NFL draft, there was nothing but silence. It was looking more and more, with each passing moment, that the only route to the NFL was by receiving a camp invitation as a free agent.
Then Matthew’s life changed forever.
“My phone rings. It’s the fifth round of the draft. Surely this isn’t someone calling to draft me. It’s probably a team trying to get the jump on free agency. I remember looking at the phone – Boston number. I don’t know anyone from Boston.”
The voice on the other end of the line is unfamiliar. But the words spoken were ones that Matthew would never forget.
“This is Berj Najarian of the New England Patriots, here with Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick. We’re going to draft you with the 153rd pick. I’ll put you on with Mr. Kraft and Bill.”
Matthew was speechless. “I sat there with my dad, we just looked at each other, not saying anything. This can’t be happening. It just felt surreal.”
Najarian passed the phone around and soon Slater found himself talking with Belichick. Brown University – a school Slater considered attending – is not far from Foxboro, Massachusetts, where the Patriots’ facility resides. Instead, Matthew went to UCLA – some 3,000 miles from 1 Patriots Place. And seemingly out of nowhere, he was on the line with the legendary head coach.
“I’ll never forget that first conversation with Bill,” Slater says. “He says to me, ‘We’re gonna take you here with this pick and look, I don’t know what position you’re gonna play, so if the media’s asking you, don’t tell them anything. You don’t know what you’re gonna do, but the reason I’m brining you here is to help us in the kicking game. That’s what your role is gonna be. We’ll figure out a position. Don’t worry about that.’ I’m thinking, this is a team, with this pedigree, drafting someone who never started a game in college, a receiver who never caught a pass, and they’re telling this kid we’re going to draft you to help us in the kicking game.”
Slater smiles, recalling the almost absurdity of it all.
“I’m thinking, this makes no sense to me. My dad has been around pro football for 40 years and had never seen anything like that happen. For us it was like our parting of the Red Sea moment, because we know what I had gone through on and off the field, and to see God’s unmerited favor in our lives. When I think about it, I still get chills. It was strictly God’s grace in my life. I get that call and I’m super excited, not really knowing what to expect.”
The moment he got off the phone and witnessed the selection being made on television, he turned to his father, and the two of them, true to character, spent the first minutes following this life changing event, in prayer together, thanking God for His goodness in their lives.
Matthew Slater, son of Football Hall of Famer Jackie Slater, had seen his dream come true. Like father, like son.