Zak Keefer

zak.keefer@indystar.com

A potential plug for the Indianapolis Colts’ perpetually leaky offensive line happens to be a native Hoosier who owns five Colts jerseys, including Andrew Luck’s No. 12. He’ll soon graduate from Harvard with a degree in government, a 3.6 GPA and a do-whatever-he-wants future that may very well include a run for political office.

You can almost see the yard signs now: "Vote Cole Toner for U.S. Congress." His high school coach takes it a step further.

“I’d sure vote for him for president,” Bruce Scifres says.

Maybe one day.

For now, the presidency can wait. The real world can wait. For now, Toner is one of 335 possible pros who’ll slip on spandex, max out on the bench press and hustle 40 yards as fast as they possibly can — the age-old examinations prospects churn through at the NFL Scouting Combine, held this week at Lucas Oil Stadium. For them, it’s the job audition of a lifetime. For Toner, it’s the job audition of a lifetime that just happens to take place 10 minutes north of where he grew up, in the stadium his favorite team calls home.

Yeah, this week’s big.

How important is the NFL Combine?

Toner grew up in Greenwood. The Colts were his team. Ask him to name his favorite players, and without hesitation, he blurts out the entire offensive line from the Peyton Manning era.

“Jeff Saturday, of course,” Toner says. “Ryan Diem was great. Tarik Glenn. And don’t forget Ryan Lilja and Jake Scott.”

Not bad. Even more challenging, Toner says, was holding firm over the past four years while living in Boston. He was a Colts’ loyalist ensconced in Patriots’ territory. He refused to budge.

He returns home this week, an intriguing right tackle prospect in a draft the Colts will be scouring for promising young blockers. They need someone who can protect Luck. An excellent combine performance from Toner, on the heels of his solid outing at last month's Senior Bowl, would cement his mid-to-late-round potential. It might even swirl speculation that he could be soon suiting up for his hometown team.

“Play for the Colts? That wouldn’t be a bad deal,” Toner says, before adding some political correctness. “But I’d love to play for any team that wants me.”

Toner comes from good stock: He’s the son of a Butler football player and the younger brother of a Butler football player. He’s also lived in the trenches since the third grade. Back then, it was the only position they’d allow him to play. So massive was Toner when he first went out for football, at age nine, the CYO league’s weight restrictions limited Toner to just two positions: offensive line and defensive line. He couldn’t run. Couldn’t catch. Couldn’t throw. All he could do was block.

Without such restrictions, Toner jokes, he’d be a star tight end by now.

Instead he’s spent more than a decade living on the line of scrimmage, defying initial prognoses at every stop. He didn’t start on Roncalli's varsity until his junior year; he finished first-team all-state.

“The smartest player I’ve ever coached,” says Scifres, Roncalli’s coach for nearly three decades. “His intellect off the field definitely carries over on it."

He didn’t earn any scholarship offers from MAC or Big Ten schools, but did from Harvard and Princeton (a 4.3 GPA on a 4.0 scale will do that). He stumbled into the Crimson's starting lineup midway through his freshman season after another player went down with injury; he never looked back. Harvard lost a total of four games in his four years.

But for Toner, it was always about more than football. This was Harvard. He took a class titled “The American Presidency” taught by a former advisor to the Ford, Reagan and Bush administrations. The curriculum? “You learn to become the president,” Toner jokes. He studied economic policy in a class taught by Martin Feldstein, Ronald Reagan’s chief economic advisor and a consultant to the Obama White House. Toner spent the past two summers interning in the legal and regulatory office of a downtown Boston bank, networking with lobbyists and members of Congress.

All of which sparked a passion for politics, one he plans to pursue when his football days have expired. With a degree in government and a concentration in economics from the most prestigious academic institution in the country, he’s the rarest of pro football prospects. He doesn’t need the NFL. He desperately wants the NFL.

“I’m doing this because I love football,” Toner says. “And I want to prove to myself that I can make it.”

He’s not naïve about the questions he’ll have to answer this week. Coming out of Harvard, the biggest knock on Toner was his strength; to get ready for the combine, he’s spent the past few months working out at Indy-based St. Vincent Sports Performance. They’ll say he didn’t face top-end competition at Harvard; Toner will note that he squared off against a future pro, former Harvard linebacker Zack Hodges, every day in practice for two years.

“We made each other better,” Toner says of Hodges, who was cut by the Colts after spending training camp with the team last summer.

There’s also this: The offensive line Toner grew up idolizing was a blend of the overlooked and the written-off. They were also some of the smartest players on the field.

Jeff Saturday wasn’t drafted. Ryan Lilja wasn’t drafted. Jake Scott was a fifth-round pick, Ryan Diem a fourth-rounder.

Might Cole Toner be next?

Maybe. Maybe not. He fits the mold.

The combine brings with it a vital opportunity. Same with his pro day, March 10 at Harvard. It’s the same week Toner will take his midterm in Environmental Public Policy.

This is Harvard, remember. Even if the NFL doesn’t work out, Cole Toner has a lot to look forward to.

Call SIndytar reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134. Follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.