PHILADELPHIA _ The former walk-on at Temple glided to the stage at the Art Museum and greeted NFL commissioner Roger Goodell enthusiastically, the completion of an improbable journey that ended up virtually in his own backyard.
Temple's Haason Reddick was smiling ear to ear Thursday night after the Arizona Cardinals selected him in the first round, the 13th pick overall.
"I knew it," Reddick said about his selection by Arizona.
Reddick, who hails from Camden, N.J., and spent his final two injury-plagued high school seasons at Haddon Heights, said he was considered a third-to-fifth round pick after Temple's season.
Why that was the case is confounding since he set an American Athletic Conference record of 22 { tackles for losses for an Owls team that went 10-4 and won the league championship. Reddick also added 9 { sacks as an undersize 6-foot-1, 237-pound defensive end.
He will play linebacker in the NFL, but with his cat-quick first move he might be able to see some time at defensive end as well. Either way, he is looking to make the same type of impact that he did at Temple.
After he dominated competition at the Senior Bowl and then wowed the scouting combine by running a 4.52-second 40-yard dash, the question wasn't whether he would be a first-round pick but how high he would be selected.
He was selected by a Cardinals team whose coach, Bruce Arians, once held the same title at Temple. It was Arians' first head coaching job, from 1983-88.
Reddick became the fourth Temple player to be selected in the first round and the first since Muhammad Wilkerson was the No. 30 overall selection by the New York Jets in 2011. He is the second-highest Temple pick, behind only offensive lineman John Rienstra, who as selected ninth overall by Pittsburgh in 1986.
