Before longtime NFL tight ends coach Mike Pope stepped away from football earlier this year, he gave Cowboys second-year tight end Rico Gathers some high praise.

Pope, a four-time Super Bowl champion, spent the last three seasons in Dallas. He worked for the New York Giants before that for 23 years. Pope also made stops in Cincinnati, New England and Washington.

So what was his message to Gathers?

"You're about to bring havoc to the NFL because there are no guys out there that are as tough as you," the former Baylor basketball star recently told SportsDay. "There are no guys out there that work harder than you. You got a work ethic that the NFL is really lacking. As long as you keep that work ethic up you're going to be great, you're going to be a Pro Bowl tight end, you're going to be a great tight end."

Gathers, a sixth-round pick by the Cowboys last year, said those comments were a confidence-booster.

"When you got a guy like that who has worked with multiple tight ends, from Jeremy Shockey to Jason Witten to Martellus Bennett, just being around tight ends like that, he's telling you stuff like that, that just really raises your confidence level and enables you to want to work even harder because you want to see that happen one day," Gathers said. "I can't wait to get back to the basics with my teammates and start working toward trying to do something great in Dallas."

After not playing football for nearly a decade, the 6-6, 290-pound Gathers is still considered somewhat of a raw prospect. He was on the Cowboys practice squad all of last season but is hoping to contribute on the 53-man roster this year.

"Right now I'm just trying to fine-tune my skill," Gathers said. "That's the only thing that's really lacking. The physical part, that's always going to be the easy part, but the skill of the game, being able to get in and out of your routes and follow the techniques on your blocking, that's really the main focus right now."

Along with working out at The Star this offseason, Gathers said he has spent time training with Pro Bowl Broncos wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders and former Baylor standout and current Browns wide receiver Corey Coleman.

Here are a few other highlights from the interview with Gathers:

On his goals for the upcoming season:

"Just to be reliable, being a viable option for the offense when the time presents itself. Just continue to get better. It's a marathon, not a race. You got to take it one day at a time. You're not going to become a Hall of Famer overnight. It's a process."

On Jason Witten recently signing a four-year contract extension:

"That's great. That means I get to continue learning from a guy like him as long as he wants to play. I'm pretty sure whenever he does decide to retire I'm still going to learn from him. He's going to be one of those guys who is always in my ear about things and coaching me up. I look at him as a mentor, as a big brother to me. I can't wait to start working towards being the next guy up after him."

On how much of a better blocker Rico Gathers is today than the day after he got drafted:

"A hundred times better. Rico Gathers the day after he got drafted didn't have any technique, was just a big body, a big specimen that was looking to groom himself into something great. But Rico Gathers today is a more confident Rico going forward. I'm ready to just embrace everything that the season, the workouts, the playbook, everything the coaches have to throw at me."