Big Cheese

Movers and Shakers
These players have improved their draft status the most since the end of the season, and several of them could be joining Aaron Gibson among the top NFL choices.
1. Donovan McNabb (5)	QB	Syracuse
Leaped into draft's top 10 with a deft (7 of 15 passes for 100 yards) and charismatic Senior Bowl performance.
2. L.J. Shelton	T	Eastern Michigan
Son of former NBA player Lonnie is big enough at 305 pounds, and quick enough to be an NFL left tackle. Top 20 material.
3. Mark Ward	LB	Jacksonville State
Could be a late-first-round pick after a terrific East-West Shrine Game. Cat-quick. Can bulk up from 235 pounds.
4. Ebenezer Ekuban	DE-OLB	North Carolina
Converted from tight end to defensive end as a junior with the Tar Heels . Big upside could land Ghana native in the top 15.
5. Shaun King	QB	Tulane
Before Doug Flutie 's reemergence, teams would have been reluctant to gamble on this 5' 11" playmaker. Could go in the early rounds.

Aaron Gibson was too big. Way too big. In April 1997, on the day that Wisconsin football players had their mugs photographed for the coming season, each player took a turn posing in one of the six red university-issue sport coats ranging in size from 42 to 56. The largest Badger stuck an arm into the jacket with 56 inked onto the inside pocket, but he knew he was kidding himself. Just as in the previous year, Gibson had to have his picture taken without a coat. It bothered him because when Wisconsin fans opened their game programs in the fall, they would see head shots of 116 Badgers, all dressed alike except one. It was yet another indignity for a guy who had always stuck out like a capital letter in a lowercase world.

Gibson has lived most of his 21 years hoping to make himself indistinguishable. That's a formidable challenge when you're on your way to 6'7" and 400-plus pounds and bringing a new spin to the title Big Man on Campus. Gibson's head is so enormous (size 8?) that he wears a custom-made helmet, the largest ever made by Riddell. His feet are so huge that he passes down his worn-out size 18EEE shoes to his mother, Constance, who wears them in her part-time gig as a clown at kids' parties. His thighs measure 33� inches around, which is 5� inches more than Wisconsin cornerback Jamar Fletcher 's waist. By the time Gibson was 14, he couldn't fit into the roller coaster at the amusement park and couldn't find ice skates or bowling shoes large enough to rent. For as long as he can remember; whenever Gibson has gotten on an elevator, other passengers have had a tendency to get off. Gibson, an All-America right tackle, was believed to have been the heaviest player in college football last season. In April, when he's expected to be selected high in the first round of the NFL draft, he most likely will become the biggest player in the pros. Some scouts regard Gibson, who will graduate in May with a degree in African-American studies, as an oversized Orlando Pace , the 320-pound All-America tackle from Ohio State , whom the St. Louis Rams made the first pick in the 1997 draft. Someday Gibson might even be regarded as the prototype for the gargantuan linemen of the 21st century. "He's got the best hand punch I've ever seen, quick feet for pass-blocking, and he's so huge that you can't compare him to anybody before him," says Minnesota Vikings scouting director Jerry Reichow. "Physically he's a man among boys, so the first team looking for an offensive lineman should draft him. If it doesn't, it may regret not doing so."

A seventh-grade English assignment required that Gibson start keeping a journal, and nine years later he still jots down his most intimate thoughts in a style of free verse that he calls "my poetry." These tomes, which fill more than 15 spiral notebooks and which he has never allowed anyone else to read, provide a compass for Gibson, who regularly reviews the earlier notebooks, particularly the passages that pertain to his battles with the bulge. For example, there was the evening early in his freshman year at Decatur Central High in Indianapolis when his father, Richard, casually asked Aaron how many push-ups he could do. The boy lay down on the floor and strained to lift his torso, only to discover that he could do none. Zero. Zilch. Three weeks later, after numerous trips to the gym, Aaron did hoist himself up once and promptly began stalking his father around the house, repeatedly performing his gravity-defying feat. "I believe that incident was the turning point in his life," says Richard. "He was genuinely embarrassed, and a lightbulb went on."

Aaron's talents in those days tended more toward finesse events, such as juggling in his mom's circus routine, writing holiday songs and pursuing his goal of becoming an Olympic swimmer, a dream that he finally gave up in the ninth grade when he grew four inches and ballooned by 50 pounds to 310. Though he took up football that same year, he disliked it because the brutality didn't mesh with his desire to convince people that he wasn't as scary as he looked. "He's really a gentle giant," says Constance. "His football coaches often told me that I didn't raise my boy mean enough."

At a practice before his sophomore season at Decatur the soft-spoken Aaron endured a spirited monologue from his line coach, Carney Brouse, on a phenomenon Brouse called Big Kid Syndrome. Brouse concluded with a message that Gibson has carried with him on the gridiron ever since: You're bigger than everybody else, and all your life you've been told to be careful not to hurt anyone. But on the football field you've got to let your aggression come out. You're not in kindergarten anymore. "Being aggressive was more in my nature than I knew," Gibson says. "I remember getting on the field and going crazy. It felt good to play all out, the way you're supposed to."

In the ensuing two years Gibson blew up to more than 400 pounds as he ate an overabundance of fast foods, and he caught the eye of recruiters from Indiana , Purdue and Wisconsin , who detected the soul of an athlete beneath all the avoirdupois. When Gibson arrived in Madison in the summer of 1995, he weighed 435 pounds, and any hope that he could play himself into shape was dashed when it was discovered that he lacked a core course on his high school transcript and was ruled academically ineligible. He was prohibited from practicing with the Badgers as a freshman. He was too fat to jog, so his conditioning program consisted of strolls with Wisconsin strength coach John Dettman, walks that left Gibson winded. Burger King was his training table. "I wasn't a meat-and-potatoes man, I was a meat-and-meat man," Gibson says. "The tough part was to admit that I was too heavy. In my head there was a constant battle going on. I thought, I'm fine. Why do I have to lose weight?"

When Gibson sat in the stands for Wisconsin 's 1995 season opener, a 43-7 home loss to Colorado , some Badgers fans heckled him, screaming that it was his fault that Wisconsin was being shellacked. An hour after the game Gibson bought a one-way bus ticket for the 12-hour journey back to Indianapolis . Wisconsin assistant Kevin Cosgrove, who had recruited Gibson, persuaded him to return to school. But Gibson didn't attend another game that season, and every weekend he went home without a definite plan to return to Madison . Each time, Cosgrove says, he would have to "re-recruit" Gibson back to campus. Once it took six days. "I had a horrible case of homesickness because I wasn't part of the team and I was lonely," Gibson says. "I kept saying to myself, 'Why did I come here? I'm transferring. I don't need football. I don't even like it.' I made up a million excuses in my head."

But his parents persuaded him to remain in Madison , and by following Dettmann's dietary counsel and exercise regimen, he trimmed down to a svelte 390 over the summer of 1996. After having been impressed by Gibson in the first practice that fall, Badgers coach Barry Alvarez began figuring out how he would use his mammoth tackle. Gibson made his debut in the fifth, game of the season, against Ohio State , exchanging jersey number 79 for number 81 as the Badgers switched to a Jumbo formation with Gibson lining up at tight end, or what amounted to a third tackle. Wisconsin lost that game, but afterward Buckeyes defensive end Mike Vrabel asked Alvarez , "Where did that big guy come from? He hits me one time, and I just collapse. He's on top of me, and I can't feel anything. I'm thinking that my career is over."

With Gibson in the lineup regularly for the last six games in 1996, the Badgers won five times to finish 8-5, and 261-pound freshman tailback Ron Dayne ran for 1,477 yards. No wonder Alvarez began drafting a blueprint for effective but boring football, in which one heavyweight—preceded by an even heavier heavyweight—would belly his way through the opposition.

Gibson moved to right tackle in '97, and Wisconsin pounded out another 8-5 record, rushing for 189 yards per game to rank third in the Big Ten . Last season the Badgers finished first in the Big Ten in rushing and last in passing, with Gibson and Dayne shredding defenses like Cheddar through a grater. After the Badgers beat Illinois 37-3 with 62 rushes for 274 yards, Illini coach Ron Turner said, "They just pounded us, pounded us, pounded us. The big man [Gibson] just mauled our guys."