"It's early July, hotter than the self-cleaning setting on an oven, and the only people on the Cardinals' practice field are strength and conditioning coach John Lott and his "puppies" - rookie free agents trying to make the team. Oh, and outside linebacker Clark Haggans. Who is 33. Who is a starter. Who is entering his 11th NFL season. Who could be sitting in cooler climes, drinking beverages with umbrellas in them, not slurping water from coolers. "Clark is a breath of fresh air in today's world," Lott says "He's somebody who has an old-school approach to a new-school way of playing." Training camp doesn't start for another month. Most veterans scattered as soon as voluntary practices ended in mid-June, but Haggans stayed, choosing to work out with the rookies. It's a symbiotic relationship. Lott uses Haggans as an example of what it takes to last in the NFL. The rookies, Haggans says, motivate him. "They keep me young," Haggans says. And sometimes they make him feel very old. Haggans happened to be walking by recently when Lott was talking to his rookies. Lott looked at 327-pound nose tackle Dan Williams, the first-round draft pick, and asked: "Big Sexy, in his (Haggans') rookie year, where were you?" "Fourth grade," Williams replied. "I'm like, 'Oh, my goodness,' " Haggans says. "I'm thinking to myself, 'My son (Damon) is going into the fourth grade.' There's a possibility when (Williams) is my age, they could be teammates or something." Lott says Haggans uses the young players as a "springboard" to continue working in the off-season. "It's very easy to wake up, get on the computer and look at your checking account and say, 'Man, I can kind of chill if I want,' " Lott says. "He looks at this like, 'OK, I need something to motivate me. I'm going to come look at these young guys who don't know what they don't know.' " In 2000, no one would have believed Haggans would have lasted this long. A fifth-round pick by the Steelers out of Colorado State, he converted from defensive end to linebacker." http://www.azcentral.com/sports/car...izona-cardinals-clark-haggans-work-ethic.html
