



NEW YORK – The shock isn't that Billy Walsh, in his extra-, extra-, extra-large Joe Montana jersey and golden San Francisco 49ers hard hat, stood outside Radio City Music Hall for almost 10 hours on the day before the NFL draft just to get a wristband to stand in line another four hours the following day.

Or that he waited for another six hours to get in on Friday.





Or that he slept for two hours and returned at 8:30 on Saturday morning to stand for 3½ more hours before the final, endless rounds.

The real surprise is that he didn't have to stand on the sidewalk at all. He had tickets for all three days. He could have arrived right before the draft started and been guaranteed a seat. But to Billy Walsh, a 50-year-old bridge painter from Queens, that would be cheating.

"You got to put in the work," he says, and he sounds very New York as he says it. "You got to stand in line. You got to stand there for hours squashed up like a sardine with all the people waiting to get in."

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Fans have been a constant and essential part of the draft ever since about 200 people drifted into the 1979 selection at the Waldorf Astoria and booed when the New York Giants took a then-unknown Phil Simms with their first pick. They make the soundtrack behind the braying of the analysts. But by the third day the draft has lost its excitement. There's no green room. No players. Commissioner Roger Goodell doesn't regularly walk to the lectern on the third day. In fact, the lectern is hardly used. Those who come to watch Day 3 are essentially looking at an empty stage and a pit filled with team representatives talking on helmet phones.

And unlike the other two nights it goes on …

And on …

And on.

To be here from noon to 8 p.m., you have to want to be here.

And who wants to be here more than Billy Walsh?

"This is like the Super Bowl for me," he shouted as he stood in the concourse outside the mezzanine. He likes the 49ers not because he shares a name with the team's greatest coach, but because he watched Montana throw that famous touchdown pass to Dwight Clark in the 1982 NFC championship game and was hooked.

Last year, when he met Goodell here at the draft, the commissioner chuckled and said, "OK, Coach."

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Walsh would love to see the 49ers play. He would love to go to San Francisco. He would love to see them in New York. Heck, he would love to go to an NFL game, period.

The thing is, he can't afford it. He worked for years as a bridge painter, dangling off most of the city's East River suspension bridges. But a few years back his foot was hit with a sand blaster. This caused nerve damage and has been on workman's comp ever since. Money is tight.





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