March 1, 2010
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A golf course, a beach or an island in the Caribbean are all likely locations you could find a retired NFL pro bowler during the winter months. A Vanderbilt film room the week of Christmas or in an RV parked at a hotel on West End Avenue are not as likely. That is, unless you are looking for former Commodore defensive back Corey Chavous.
While many NFL veterans spend their first year of retirement fine-tuning their golf swings or listening to waves crash onto the shore, Chavous has spent his first year of retirement traversing the country scouting college football players from the Pac 10 to the Big East and every conference in between. And he has done it all in his RV, which not only acts as his method of transportation, but also his home.
After an 11-year career in the NFL with Arizona, Minnesota and most recently St. Louis, Chavous retired from the league after the 2008 season. Although he was retiring from playing the game, he was not retiring from the game itself. On Sept. 4, Chavous launched the Web site DraftNasty.com, which scouts college football players across the country.
“The Web site is an independent scouting service,” said Chavous, who was at Vanderbilt watching film during Christmas week in between scouting the FCS Championship in Chattanooga and the Music City Bowl. “It’s a small fish in a big pond. We are being creative with our programming, and we improve every day.”
Chavous, along with his staff, post daily scouting reports, insider blogs, videos, photo galleries and articles. To provide the best content and accurately scout players, Chavous has personally put more than 18,000 miles on his RV since September by traveling to games and schools to scout players and speak with coaches, while leaving very few stones unturned along the way.
“I was personally at more than 100 colleges visiting coaches during the year,” Chavous said. “We cover games that a lot of others don’t cover and go to places a lot of others never go. It’s a daily journey. We go to the games and then we go to film rooms across the country and study film year round.
“I live on the road. My permanent spot is my RV, and I just don’t go to games. For example, if I was going to Ohio State this week, I would stop at every college between here and there and get information and film on players and talk to people around the program.”
Chavous’ foray into scouting for the NFL Draft is nothing new. Since he was young, Chavous has had a strong interest and an unparalleled knowledge of scouting players that would even make Mel Kiper jealous. His interest in the draft also was well known around NFL circles; he worked as an NFL Draft analyst for ESPN and NFL Network from 1999 to 2006.
When Chavous retired, his insight and interest into scouting made it a natural transition for him to go from playing the game to creating his own scouting service.
“After retiring, there were some opportunities I had to go into broadcast journalism, which I did for 10 years while I was playing,” Chavous said. “I decided to go my own route.”
By creating the Web site, Chavous combined his football knowledge with what he learned in college as a Vanderbilt graduate.
“Most of this Web site is based on what I majored in in college,” said Chavous, who created his own broadcast journalism major from the human and organizational development program. “I did four internships while I was in college, all of them based around what I am doing now.”
Although the college football season is over, Chavous has no intent on slowing down. With the NFL Draft looming, the closest Chavous will likely get to the beach or a golf course in the coming months will be when he drives by in his RV en route to visit another school.
“For the people who want draft coverage around the clock, that is what we’ve been giving them, but we still don’t have enough stuff for me,” Chavous said. “I’m never satisfied.”
