Nighthawks liking Maverick ‘leaping legend' Eloi

Keith Eloi loves a challenge.

“I'm an athlete, I'm competitive,” said Eloi, a former University of Nebraska at Omaha wide receiver. “I want to show people I can do stuff. If someone says you can't do something, I'm going to try it anyway.

“I'm sort of a thrill seeker.”

Perhaps that explains why Eloi, at 5-foot-10 and 194 pounds, is developing a reputation in the Omaha Nighthawks' training camp as a guy who is unafraid to take on bigger, stronger defenders.

Or why he would risk his neck in a pair of popular YouTube videos that illustrates his athleticism and leaping ability?

Want to be amazed? Google “Keith Eloi” and watch the videos.

In one, Eloi, standing flat footed and wearing sandals, jumps into the back of pickup truck. Not impressed? Well, the truck's tail gate was up, and Eloi cleared it easily.

Even more amazing is the video that shows Eloi leaping backward out of a swimming pool. Did we mention he was standing in 3 feet of water?

“He did that?” asked Roger Hughes, the Nighthawks' wide receivers coach. “That's pretty good.”

Hughes promised to watch the videos. Chances are, though, they won't impress him as much as some of the videotape he's watched of Eloi since the Nighthawks started training camp two weeks ago.

After failing to stick with the Washington Redskins last season after signing with the team as a free agent, Eloi is hoping to land a spot on the Nighthawks' roster. In order to make the team, Eloi knows he must make an impression.

Consider Hughes impressed with what he's seen so far.

“I've seen a guy that is hungry to make the team,” Hughes said, “and I've seen a guy who has taken it upon himself to get involved in special teams and who has taken it upon himself to learn a couple of different positions.”

During the team's first scrimmage last Saturday, Eloi caught a pair of touchdown passes. As important, Hughes said, was the intensity Eloi showed as a blocker.

“He really caught the coaches' eyes,” Hughes said. “At the pro level, the size of the players is so much greater than at the college level. Keith has been able to understand leverage and he's shown great physicalness to take on those larger bodies even though he's not one of those large bodies.”

Eloi came away from the scrimmage feeling as if he had picked up his game after some early struggles.

“I had too many people telling me what I had to do, and it was making me uncertain of myself,” he said. “I was basically getting out of my zone. I knew in the scrimmage I had to get all that out of my head and get back into my zone.

“When I'm in my zone, I play fast, I play well.”

But the perfectionist in Eloi — “He wants to do everything right,'' Hughes said — left him picking apart his scrimmage performance when the team watched videotape two days later.

“Initially, I felt pretty good,” he said. “Any time you scrimmage, you know the coaches are looking for players to step up. They really want to see who wants to be here and who wants to play. I thought I showed some of those things.

“When we came back and looked at the film, I saw that I could have easily had three more touchdowns. I have stuff to work on in trying to improve my game.”

A Florida native, Eloi came to UNO in 2007 after earning junior college All-America honors at William Rainey Harper College. As a junior, Eloi caught 33 passes for 444 yards and three touchdowns. He added 24 catches for 305 yards and two scores as a senior while also returning kicks.

He went undrafted in 2009 but signed with the Redskins as a free agent. Shortly before the start of training camp, Eloi and some of his friends were cooling off in a pool after a workout.

Someone mentioned the video of former San Jose State defensive end Jarron Gilbert jumping out of a pool. Gilbert was facing the pool deck when he made his leap. That's when Eloi decided to do Gilbert one better.

“I said I could do it backward,” Eloi said.

Someone grabbed a video camera, and a leaping legend was born.

“When I did it, I was thinking this would either be a successful jump,” he said, “or this was going to be something hilarious that people would laugh at on YouTube. I definitely wanted to be on the positive side.

“With training camp coming up, it would have been terrible telling the coaches that I got hurt doing something silly. I definitely had a lot of motivation to get out of that water.”

Eloi's goal now is to find his name on the roster when the Nighthawks make their cut to 53 on Thursday. The receiver spot has been one in which the team has auditioned lots of players, some have already been sent packing.

The fact that Eloi is still around a week before cutdown has him encouraged.

“I'm trying to stay as humble as possible because in this sport, this business, nothing is guaranteed,” he said. “Still, being here means the coaches see something in me.

“I just have to keep building that trust and having them say that I'm a guy that can contribute to the team.''

Hughes concedes there will be some tough decisions in the final week on which receivers to keep and which ones to let go.

“Positions are still up for grabs but clearly, Keith has worked himself to a point where we know he can play a number of positions and that he can follow that up with his performance on the field,'' Hughes said. “When he's in there, we know the performance is not going to fall down.''

Contact the writer:

679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com

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