By Bill Koch
Just about everyone who has been drafted by an NFL team has vivid memories of the day they were picked. While I was writing for ‘gobearcats.com,’ I talked to UC quarterback Tony Pike and offensive lineman Parker Ehringer about what getting drafted meant to them.
TONY PIKE
Five years after he heard his name called on ESPN’s NFL draft coverage as the sixth-round pick of the Carolina Panthers, Pike called it “a memory that I’ll never forget.”
Pike had just come off a senior year at UC in which he led the Bearcats to a 12-0 regular-season record, a No. 3 ranking in the BCS standings, and a trip to the Sugar Bowl. He passed for 2,520 yards with 29 touchdown passes.
On April 24, 2010, the Panthers called to tell him they would select him with the 204th overall pick. After the call, he was able to watch his name called on TV surrounded by family and friends at his family’s house in Reading.
“To be able to know it’s coming and then a minute later to see your name up there, for me, it was an overwhelming feeling of joy and seeing all the hard work pay off,” Pike said. “To see the reaction of family and friends, that to me was even more special, to be able to celebrate with them.”
Pike celebrated at a larger gathering that night in Reading. By then, the pressure was off. Although he was confident that he’d be drafted, he had felt some anxiety because he didn’t know how early he would go. He had been told it could be anywhere from the second round to the fifth or sixth round.
On the second day of the draft, when the second and third rounds were being conducted, he played golf with friends and family members to keep his mind off it. By the end of the draft, he was the ninth of 12 quarterbacks selected.
“It got to the point where, as a quarterback, you want to believe that you can put yourself against anyone and be confident that you will come out on the winning side,” Pike said. “It’s a confidence and a pride factor. But at the end of the day, to be one of the very select few that get drafted and have the opportunity to live out their dream meant the world to me.”
It probably meant more to Pike than it did for higher pickes like Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow because just a few years earlier he had been a forgotten man at UC. It wasn’t until UC coach Brian Kelly challenged him during training camp just before his junior year that Pike began to show what he could do. He got his chance when Dustin Grutza got hurt at Oklahoma. He immediately displayed a powerful arm with uncanny accuracy and an ability to scramble out of the pocket. Suddenly a career that seemed to be going nowhere began to show promise.
“Going from the start of camp my junior year when I was sitting at fourth or fifth on the depth chart,” Pike said, “if someone had said to me at camp that day that in two years you’ll hear your name called in the draft, I would have asked them if they were on something.”
Pike made the Panthers, but played in only one NFL regular-season game, completing six of 12 passes for 47 yards on Nov. 7, 2010 against the New Orleans Saints in relief of Jimmy Clausen.
“After my first year, I was losing the spiral on my passes,” Pike said. “I was losing a little velocity. I didn’t know what happened. They said I had some nerve damage in my elbow. It was the ulnar nerve. I had surgery on it, but it didn’t take. Than I had another doctor go in and re-do it.”
Pike was waived by the Panthers on Aug. 30, 2011 and received an injury settlement. His elbow was never the same. After the second surgery, he had a tryout with the Bengals, but by then it was apparent that his football career was over.
Today, he hosts a sports talk show called “Cincy 360” every afternoon from noon to 2 p.m. on WCKY-AM (1530).
PARKER EHRINGER
Ehringer was hit with an uncharacteristic wave of emotion when the call came from the Kansas City Chiefs to let him know they were taking him with the seventh pick in the fourth round of the 2016 NFL draft.
“I don’t really wear my heart on my sleeve,” Ehringer said, “but I was holding back tears a little bit because of all the work. It was my childhood dream, something me and my brother talked about since we were playing pickup ball in the yard. I can remember thinking about it when I was four or five years old that I wanted to play in the NFL. All that hard work for that long period of time accumulated down to a three-day draft period and then finally getting that call.”
But there was much more to it than that.
As he struggled to fight back tears, Ehringer also thought about his father, who died on June 30, 2014, during the summer before his junior year at UC. He knew what the phone call from the Chiefs would have meant to his dad and wanted so badly to share the moment with him.
“I know he would have been grinning from ear to ear,” Ehringer said.
Rick Ehringer was 53 when he fell down the steps of his apartment in Rockford, Mich., hit his head, and died from hemorrhaging. Parker learned of his father’s death in a phone call from his older brother, Doug, while he was in Cincinnati for summer workouts.
“It was probably one of the hardest things I ever had to deal with in my life,” he said.
Ehringer made it through the shock and the pain with the help of his family, his UC teammates, and his network of friends. Then he went back to work. His discipline and desire paid off when the Chiefs took him with the 105th pick overall.
It had all started with his dad, who lived for his two sons and introduced them to sports when they were kids.
Ehringer was a two-time first-team all-American Athletic Conference selection who played multiple line positions at UC over 52 games. When I talked to him for this story, he was getting ready to travel to Kansas City to begin the adjustment from the college game to the NFL. He said he would carry the memory of his father with him for motivation and as a model for how to conduct his life.
“Losing your father at 21 years old is a very tough thing,” he said. “The heartache is going to pass at some point, but there are still going to be times when you look back and you feel a little sad not having your father be there when you graduate from college or when you get drafted in the NFL, or when you have your kids. The way he raised me and my brother I could not ask for a better father figure in my life. Watching him, the way he treated my mom, there was no better gentleman for my mom. I’ve taken all that stuff and tried to model myself after the man he was.”
Ehringer played one year in Kansas City before he was traded to the Dallas Cowboys in 2017. He missed the 2018 season with a knee injury after being waived by the Cowboys. He has made stops in Jacksonville, Arizona and Baltimore, and is currently a free agent.
Just about everyone who has been drafted by an NFL team has vivid memories of the day they were picked. While I was writing for ‘gobearcats.com,’ I talked to UC quarterback Tony Pike and offensive lineman Parker Ehringer about what getting drafted meant to them.
TONY PIKE
Five years after he heard his name called on ESPN’s NFL draft coverage as the sixth-round pick of the Carolina Panthers, Pike called it “a memory that I’ll never forget.”
Pike had just come off a senior year at UC in which he led the Bearcats to a 12-0 regular-season record, a No. 3 ranking in the BCS standings, and a trip to the Sugar Bowl. He passed for 2,520 yards with 29 touchdown passes.
On April 24, 2010, the Panthers called to tell him they would select him with the 204th overall pick. After the call, he was able to watch his name called on TV surrounded by family and friends at his family’s house in Reading.
“To be able to know it’s coming and then a minute later to see your name up there, for me, it was an overwhelming feeling of joy and seeing all the hard work pay off,” Pike said. “To see the reaction of family and friends, that to me was even more special, to be able to celebrate with them.”
Pike celebrated at a larger gathering that night in Reading. By then, the pressure was off. Although he was confident that he’d be drafted, he had felt some anxiety because he didn’t know how early he would go. He had been told it could be anywhere from the second round to the fifth or sixth round.
On the second day of the draft, when the second and third rounds were being conducted, he played golf with friends and family members to keep his mind off it. By the end of the draft, he was the ninth of 12 quarterbacks selected.
“It got to the point where, as a quarterback, you want to believe that you can put yourself against anyone and be confident that you will come out on the winning side,” Pike said. “It’s a confidence and a pride factor. But at the end of the day, to be one of the very select few that get drafted and have the opportunity to live out their dream meant the world to me.”
It probably meant more to Pike than it did for higher pickes like Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow because just a few years earlier he had been a forgotten man at UC. It wasn’t until UC coach Brian Kelly challenged him during training camp just before his junior year that Pike began to show what he could do. He got his chance when Dustin Grutza got hurt at Oklahoma. He immediately displayed a powerful arm with uncanny accuracy and an ability to scramble out of the pocket. Suddenly a career that seemed to be going nowhere began to show promise.
“Going from the start of camp my junior year when I was sitting at fourth or fifth on the depth chart,” Pike said, “if someone had said to me at camp that day that in two years you’ll hear your name called in the draft, I would have asked them if they were on something.”
Pike made the Panthers, but played in only one NFL regular-season game, completing six of 12 passes for 47 yards on Nov. 7, 2010 against the New Orleans Saints in relief of Jimmy Clausen.
“After my first year, I was losing the spiral on my passes,” Pike said. “I was losing a little velocity. I didn’t know what happened. They said I had some nerve damage in my elbow. It was the ulnar nerve. I had surgery on it, but it didn’t take. Than I had another doctor go in and re-do it.”
Pike was waived by the Panthers on Aug. 30, 2011 and received an injury settlement. His elbow was never the same. After the second surgery, he had a tryout with the Bengals, but by then it was apparent that his football career was over.
Today, he hosts a sports talk show called “Cincy 360” every afternoon from noon to 2 p.m. on WCKY-AM (1530).
PARKER EHRINGER
Ehringer was hit with an uncharacteristic wave of emotion when the call came from the Kansas City Chiefs to let him know they were taking him with the seventh pick in the fourth round of the 2016 NFL draft.
“I don’t really wear my heart on my sleeve,” Ehringer said, “but I was holding back tears a little bit because of all the work. It was my childhood dream, something me and my brother talked about since we were playing pickup ball in the yard. I can remember thinking about it when I was four or five years old that I wanted to play in the NFL. All that hard work for that long period of time accumulated down to a three-day draft period and then finally getting that call.”
But there was much more to it than that.
As he struggled to fight back tears, Ehringer also thought about his father, who died on June 30, 2014, during the summer before his junior year at UC. He knew what the phone call from the Chiefs would have meant to his dad and wanted so badly to share the moment with him.
“I know he would have been grinning from ear to ear,” Ehringer said.
Rick Ehringer was 53 when he fell down the steps of his apartment in Rockford, Mich., hit his head, and died from hemorrhaging. Parker learned of his father’s death in a phone call from his older brother, Doug, while he was in Cincinnati for summer workouts.
“It was probably one of the hardest things I ever had to deal with in my life,” he said.
Ehringer made it through the shock and the pain with the help of his family, his UC teammates, and his network of friends. Then he went back to work. His discipline and desire paid off when the Chiefs took him with the 105th pick overall.
It had all started with his dad, who lived for his two sons and introduced them to sports when they were kids.
Ehringer was a two-time first-team all-American Athletic Conference selection who played multiple line positions at UC over 52 games. When I talked to him for this story, he was getting ready to travel to Kansas City to begin the adjustment from the college game to the NFL. He said he would carry the memory of his father with him for motivation and as a model for how to conduct his life.
“Losing your father at 21 years old is a very tough thing,” he said. “The heartache is going to pass at some point, but there are still going to be times when you look back and you feel a little sad not having your father be there when you graduate from college or when you get drafted in the NFL, or when you have your kids. The way he raised me and my brother I could not ask for a better father figure in my life. Watching him, the way he treated my mom, there was no better gentleman for my mom. I’ve taken all that stuff and tried to model myself after the man he was.”
Ehringer played one year in Kansas City before he was traded to the Dallas Cowboys in 2017. He missed the 2018 season with a knee injury after being waived by the Cowboys. He has made stops in Jacksonville, Arizona and Baltimore, and is currently a free agent.
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