Miles Sanders’ mother can still remember asking him at the age of 7 what he wanted for Christmas. He didn’t beg for a game system or a phone. But he did draw a man in red — it just wasn’t Santa.
“Miles drew a picture of Jerry Rice, colored in his red shirt and wrote next to it, ‘NFL,’” Sanders’ mother, Marlene, said with a laugh. “From that point on, he’s been serious about it.”
“It,” of course, is Miles Sanders’ dream of playing in the NFL — a dream that might become reality in April. The All-Big Ten honoree whose 1,223 rushing yards ranks second in the conference is widely considered a Day 2 or 3 draft prospect.