| Kalimba Edwards came into the season as one of the top-ranked prospects.
With great size and speed and the ability to play defensive end or linebacker, he is
projected to be a first-round pick, although a late-season knee injury may have dropped
his draft status. Edwards took time at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis to discuss
his knee injury, his controversial father and how he is working to improve his speed
before the NFL draft. Q: What did you weigh in (at the Combine)?
A: 6-5 1/4, 265.
Q: What do you want to play, defensive end or outside linebacker?
A: It depends on what they want. If they want me to play linebacker, I can play it. If
they want me to play defensive end, I can play it. I can play both of them, equally with
skill. If they force me to make a decision, I will choose defensive end.
Q: Are there skills that you are still raw at playing outside linebacker, having to
drop back into coverage?
A: Just that linebacker knack for getting to the ball. I’m not a natural
linebacker. I’m a tall linebacker. I have great potential at it because I
haven’t been playing it all of my life. If they put me in that position, I can only
get better.
Q: You give preference to defensive end why?
A: I’ve been playing defensive end since I was eight years old. I guess it’s
just the luck of the draw that I have played the same position. It’s just natural to
me, not that I like it more than linebacker. I’m just better at it. If they made me
choose, I’d choose defensive end.
Q: Is there any particular reason why you chose not to work out here and to wait to
your individual workout day at South Carolina?
A: Before I got here, my agent and I and my father, we decided that I wasn’t going
to work out here. I didn’t know it was such a pressing issue. If I would have known,
then I would have prepared to be my peak. I could possibly run, but it wouldn’t be my
best. I could possibly lift, but it wouldn’t be my best. And I only want to give my
best. I know that will be March 20th.
Q: Any particular NFL teams talking to you more than others right now?
A: No, they have all talked to me once. Nobody has more interest in me than the other.
Q: Will the Colts be a team you might be interested in after revamping their
defense?
A: I’m interested in anybody who is interested in me. You know, beggars can’t
be choosers. Redoing their defense, I’m pretty sure they will need a
linebacker/defensive end type of player, and if they chose me, I would be more than happy
to play for the Colts. Whoever chooses me, I’m not going to turn them down.
Q: Do you in any way dislike the "tweener" label that sometimes gets
attached to guys like yourself?
A: I don’t dislike it. It seems like today, the more diverse you are, the better
you are considered to be. Teams, they figure that you can do more for them. You have a
greater potential. The problem is, what happens if you go to that team. Do they give you
the same amount of time they would give you at one position to develop totally? If you are
a true defensive end, will they give you a year of mess-up, so to speak, or will they say,
‘He’s not good, let’s move him to linebacker’? You can look at a
(Trevor) Pryce for the Broncos. His first year, he wasn’t the greatest thing and they
just let him develop as a defensive end and now he is one of the best defensive linemen in
the National Football League.
Q: Where’s your first name come from?
A: My father gave it to me. He felt like African-Americans in the United States were
taking on too many European ways. He’s a controversial man (Laughter).
Q: What does it mean?
A: It means "Prince." So he gave it to me, he said we are going to stay here
in the United States and live like Europeans, but at least you are going to have an
African-American name. He explained this to me when I was like 12 and I said, ‘Yes
sir.’ (Laughter)
Q: When you said he’s a controversial man, obviously you are trying to tell us
for more reasons than that. Could you explain?
A: I don’t want to come off as though I have something against these United
States, because I love the United States. I love my way of life, European or whatever it
may be. My father, he and I are like night and day. I’m an athlete. He’s a
professor. I’m a porch-reader. He’s a bio-statistician at the University of
North Carolina. So just don’t hold anything against me for having an African-American
name. I suppose that’s my bias.
Q: You didn’t think about going to North Carolina?
A: Because he was there. (Laughter). I would end up under a whole lot of unnecessary
criticism from my father. It would have been great playing on the other side of Julius
(Peppers) obviously, but who knew that Julius was going to be a top pick in the draft back
then?
Q: Did they recruit you?
A: They didn’t recruit me hard. I liked them a lot basically coming out of high
school. A lot of your choices for schools are by the color of their jerseys. At North
Carolina, they have great jerseys. (Laughter). But I think I liked them more than they
liked me. But with my father there, it kind of turned me away from there.
Q: You simply just didn’t feel comfortable being there because he was there.
Why? Because you guys are two different types of people on either end of the spectrum?
A: Well no, I’m comfortable around my father. I just didn’t want to be under
a college system where he was a teacher. And also, you don’t want to go to a school
that doesn’t want you as bad as you want them. It’s kind of like choosing a mate
I suppose. You don’t want to marry somebody who you are giving all the love and she
is only giving a little back (laughter).
Q: Did he put a lot of pressure on you all the way through your life in the
classroom simply because, it sounds like he is a very intelligent man?
A: The reason I went to the University of South Carolina is because he told me that the
only way I could play in the SEC or at any school, is if it had a 70 percent graduation
rate for its athletes. In the SEC at that time, there were only two who had a 70 percent
graduation rate and they were Vanderbilt and South Carolina. I didn’t even know who
Vanderbilt was. I knew very little about South Carolina. So that was my choice. So
basically, he kind of steered me toward South Carolina. Now the thing about that was, they
put me on the five-year plan to graduate because they thought I was going to redshirt and
I thought I was going to redshirt. And I played four years, and my four years are up, and
now preparing for the NFL, I still have 39 hours left, so you can only imagine how he
feels. (Laughter). He’s a little upset, a little concerned.
Q: What are the conversations like at the dinner table?
A: Oh, it’s only philosophical. I cannot, I cannot speak slang. You think around
your parents, you can talk how you want to talk. No. Only intelligent conversations. Only
correct grammar, good pronunciation of your words, opening your mouth. It’s a
beautiful thing actually because it kind of made me the man I am today — disciplined.
Q: Is your father a football fan?
A: Oh yes, he was an All-American football player in college. He played for Morehouse
in Atlanta. It’s an excellent school.
Q: Can you talk about playing for Lou Holtz at South Carolina and what a difference
he made in that program in your career?
A: Well, I had a surreal experience playing for a legend, you know because you are
sitting there and you are thinking, you know he says something to you, and how do you go
about it? A normal coach says something to you and you say, all right coach. But he says
something to you and you are trying so hard that you end up messing up because you are
trying so hard. And once we got comfortable with him, once we found out that he was a
human and not some mini-god, things worked out a lot easier. I say all the time, I thank
God Coach Holtz came to the University of South Carolina because I’m a Gamecock
forever. I’m a fighting chicken forever. He’s only temporary. He may get another
coaching job, or he may quit. That’s my school, and he brought pride to the
University of South Carolina and the state of South Carolina. That’s what football
does. Why, I don’t know? People, we gravitate towards entertainment, and I thank God
Coach Holtz came to the University of South Carolina.
Q: Did teams like the Steelers talk to you about playing the 3-4?
A: Yes, they did. The Steelers talked to me about playing. They have a great guy in
that position already — (Jason) Gildon. They have other great linebackers. They have
the other guy who was defensive rookie of the year out of Georgia, Kendrell Bell. But yes,
they talked about it when I interviewed.
Q: How much do you think the knee injury hurt your stock?
A: I think it hurt it a significant amount. I was in the top five for awhile.
Q: You were the top guy coming into the fall.
A: Right, right. I had like the highest ranking. I think it hurt me a lot. I don’t
think it hurt me more than maybe it could have. God is still good to me. I think it
dropped me to maybe top 20, maybe bottom of the first round, but how many people go in the
first round, you know? And I look at it as God is just trying to humble me. When you are
on top and you are serving him how he wants you to serve him, then he is going to bring
you to your knees, that’s how I look at it.
Q: Are you healthy now?
A: Oh yes, I’m 100 percent healed.
Q: What is your relationship with Cowboys QB Quincy Carter?
A: We don’t have one. I played against him in high school. When we used to play
Georgia, they used to always beat us, and I never sacked Quincy. So my aunt, she would
always tell me, ‘Well, you’re not my nephew any more, Quincy Carter is my
nephew.’ Somehow that got mixed up that he was my cousin in real life, and we were
related or something, but no, we are not related.
Q: Have you talked to the Bears yet?
A: Not yet. Actually, I’m a big Bears fan. I want to talk to them so I can get a
hat or something, because I don’t think they need me at all. They have a great
linebacker down there that is doing very good on defense, but I wanted to talk to them so
I can get a T-shirt or something.
Q: Who are you working with to develop your speed?
A: Bob Kearse and Jackie-Joyner Kearse in St. Louis.
Q: What type of training do you do there?
A: Power-lifting. Form-running. As a football player, we run with a lot of power. And
we hardly ever use our hamstrings. Well, he’s teaching me how to run and it’s
made a significant difference.
Q: How have they improved your technique?
A: Basically in your arms. As a football player, you play here (low to the ground),
because you always have to gauge what’s going on. But as a runner, if you are going
to run the 40-yard dash as a runner, you have to run here (upright with hands extending
past the eyes in stride). You have to open up your stride. You have to stand taller. As a
football player, I play here (crouched). To play football upright would be absurd, so
that’s how you have to run on a consistent basis. Receivers and running backs are
just naturally faster because they naturally open up like that. I’m never in the
open, and I don’t have a ball to carry. I’m trying to chase them down at some
angle or some crouching angle to tackle them, so that’s what he is teaching me,
basically just how to run.
Q: How has your speed improved since you started working with them?
A: Before, I ran like a 4.62. Now I’m running a 4.55 consistently. We’re
going to try to get that down to 4.5, maybe if they have a slow hand, we can get that down
to a 4.49 (laughing). When I was 250, I was much lighter and faster. Today I was 265. If I
could get down to a 4.4, that would be beautiful.
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