From janitor at combine site, Hogan looks to make it in NFL

Undrafted free agent hopes to make impression on Cards

TEMPE — There are no grades for floor mopping or toilet cleaning at the NFL combine.

But Krishawn Hogan has done them both, right there at the Indianapolis Convention Center, which connects with Lucas Oil Stadium, the place draft hopefuls gather each year to try to show they have what it takes to make it on the game’s biggest stage.

Hogan was a long way away from that back in 2013, when he failed in a bid to make it at NCAA Division II Walsh University in Ohio. He came home to Indianapolis, his dream of playing football still flickering, and got a job as a janitor at the convention center, working the midnight to 8 a.m. shift.

During the day, he worked at an inflatable indoor playground.

The NFL was a long way away.

So when Hogan walked into the arena this year, the only player from an NAIA school invited to the combine, he couldn’t help thinking of those hours pushing brooms.

“It was pretty surreal just walking through the buildings,” he said. “I just felt blessed the whole time to be there.”

At Warren Central High School in Indianapolis, Hogan didn’t even play in a game until his senior season. A spindly receiver, he didn’t make much of an impression.

“I think my final stats were 23 catches, maybe 300 yards, one touchdown,” he said.

Needless to say, recruiters did not come running.

Hogan wound up walking on at Walsh University. He lasted one semester before returning home, looking for work to pay off his college debt and make his car payment.

That’s where the janitor job came in. He was no great success at it.

“I lasted about a month,” he said.

Playing football was still Hogan’s dream, and he spoke with the coaches at Marian University, an NAIA school (enrollment 3,100) about four miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis.

“I reached out to them and I just knew it was going to be a good fit,” Hogan said.

It was.