NFL within reach?
Ex-Panther Towns determined to work his way back to league

Lester Towns played linebacker four seasons for the Carolina Panthers, starting for two under George Seifert and playing backup and special teams for two under John Fox.
The Panthers liked him. He worked hard, stayed clean and is a good guy. But in the NFL players always are trying to take your job, and finally somebody succeeded. The rap was that Towns was a superior tackler with average speed.
`That's what they say," says Towns. "But I'm not slow." - NFL Football -
Carolina did not re-sign him after its Super Bowl season, and last season was Town's first away from football since he began playing in Los Angeles at the age of 10.
To find out how badly he wants to get back in, join him on the field at the Ballantyne YMCA at 8:45 on a steamy weekday morning.
As SUVs and vans drive past and moms and kids swim in the outdoor pool, Towns jogs around the running track to get loose. Awaiting him are today's instruments of torture.
Leonard Wheeler, a former NFL cornerback who ended his career with the Carolina Panthers in 1998, trains Towns. On the wet grass are seven cones, some orange and some red, a ladder with 19 rungs and a ladder with nine rungs. - NFL Football -
Towns, who turns 28 in August, will high step through the 19-rung ladder, back-peddle around the first set of cones, sprint from the last cone to one closest to it, charge to the smaller ladder, high step through it, look up, see a football whizzing his way and catch it.
The drill will vary. But there will be no posing and little pausing here. The idea is to work at NFL speed.
Towns, who is 6-1 and 244 pounds, looks fit, even fitter than he did as a Panther, chest broad and waist lean. He wears silver shorts and a black shirt made out of material called Stay-Dri that, on this morning, is straining to stay dry.
Pick your feet up. Move your arms. Run. Sprint. Go.
"I think he enjoys this," Towns says of Wheeler. - NFL Football -
Towns has worked with Wheeler every Tuesday and Thursday for 18 weeks, and works on his own four other days. He says he is faster than he has ever been.
"My biggest fear," Towns says during a three-minute water break, "is to get a call from a team and get to training camp and hear, `OK, I've been hearing you're hungry, I've been hearing you want it, I've been hearing you want to make the team,' and just be a big flop. I want teams to look at me and say, `You deserve to be in the league.' "
The late Sam Mills called Towns, whom the Panther selected out of Washington with their last pick in the 2000 draft, "Old School." Towns was old-school, a big hitter willing to take on running backs and 300-pound linemen. - NFL Football -
When Fox and defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio took over the defense in 2003, they brought a new system with them. They wanted linebackers who could fly from side to side such as Dan Morgan.
Many of the drills Wheeler has devised enhance first-step quickness and blasting to the ball. Wheeler and Towns work outside and in the gym to streamline Towns' body. There's speed in there, and they want to bring it out.
Towns' shirts and shorts are devoid of Panthers or NFL logos. The idea is not to be a gym star. The idea is to get back in the league. - NFL Football -
In the gym Towns does squats, some with the 201-pound Wheeler on his back. They work abdominal muscles, shoulders, biceps and legs, all at game speed. They conclude with a chin-up and pull-up contest. Towns does sets of 13, and on the final set, Wheeler has to do two more.
Towns is married with three children, has a degree in sociology/communications and, if his football career really has ended, will return to school. He hopes to become an athletics director or coach.
"People used to ask, `What do you want to do when you grow up?' I always wanted to be an NFL player," says Towns.
Training camps open at the end of the month, and Towns has yet to receive a call. Competing for jobs will be returning players and rookies and all the folks who have been playing for the NFL in Europe.
If he does not return to the league this season, he will be forgotten.
"My first or second season, there was a guy that came to camp in Spartanburg with a big old sign that said, `I want a tryout, coach, I want a tryout,' " says Towns. "It's so funny because I'm that guy right now. I'm like ready to paint the sign and go to somebody's camp and say, give me that tryout."
Meanwhile, back on the grass, Towns lines up opposite Wheeler, quickly back-peddles and, at Wheeler's command, sprints right or left as Wheeler fires a pass.
They do this repeatedly, and exhaustingly, the sun beating down, the laughs from the kids at the pool almost a taunt.
"Every drop is a lap," says Wheeler.
"The ball is so slippery," says Towns. - NFL Football -
Towns catches the ball anyway.
Wheeler used to run the 40-yard dash in 4.3 seconds. A 4.4 is the league's line of demarcation. You run a 4.4 or faster, everybody knows you can fly.
Towns back-peddles, breaks right, cuts sharply and sprints deep. Wheeler throws the ball hopelessly over his head. - NFL Football -
But Towns, who has not dropped a pass since Wheeler's every-drop-is-a-lap edict, looks like Dan Morgan as he chases the ball, extends a hand and hauls it in.
Whoooo!
Towns laughs.
"That's that 4.4 right there," he says.

TOM SORENSEN