Jalloh Being Jello
Dorrell Jalloh finished his career at WVU with 63 receptions for 820 yards and seven touchdowns.
WVillustrated.com Photo by David Miller
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By Geoff Coyle for wvillustrated.com
July 28, 2010
Tonight at 10 p.m., a former West Virginia Mountaineer will make his cable television debut as a part of Spike TV’s Pros vs. Joes series. For Dorrell Jalloh, the appearance was not only an opportunity to play football against some elite NFL talent, but also a chance to let loose and finally be himself.
Anyone who knows Jalloh, affectionately referred to as “Jello” by just about everyone he associates with, knows the four-year letterman’s antics. In private, he is the class clown, ready to get in your face and do whatever it takes to make you crack a smile. In public, he tones it down to the best of his ability. On Pros vs. Joes, however, he was asked to make his private persona public.
“They finally said, ‘Jello, we want you to be Jello. We want you to go over-the-top and then go above that,’” Jalloh says of the show’s producers. “It’s rare that I can actually be me 100 and a billion percent. I went out there and I did what I normally would do at practice and have fun and score touchdowns and dance and sing and just have a lot of camaraderie with my teammates.”
You may be familiar with the phrase “Manny being Manny” in reference to L.A. Dodgers left fielder Manny Ramirez. Tonight, you’ll see Jalloh being "Jello". In a sneak peek released on Spike’s website, Jalloh is introduced last of the three Joes (the other two are former Colorado State cornerback Chase Weber and former St. Francis, Ind. quarterback Eric Hooks), and it is clear they saved the best for last.
Jalloh flies out of the tunnel and immediately begins playing to the show’s hosts, Jay Glazer and Michael Strahan. He asks each one if they are ready, as if somehow the pressure to perform is on the commentators rather than the players on the field.
Then they get the chance to meet the Pros who they will be facing, and as much as they try to hide it, the Joes are clearly impressed at the three-man roster they see before them. First out of the tunnel is Lavar Arrington, a mammoth of a linebacker who Weber says has the build of a water fountain, whatever that means. Arrington takes a quick moment to run into Jalloh before taking his spot on the field, and though he covers it well, the former Mountaineer is a tad intimidated.
“My reaction was like, ‘Are you serious? Are we really going against Lavar Arrington? He’s so big. I don’t know how I’m going to get him to the ground,’” he says.
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The next introduction is that of Isaac Bruce, a future NFL Hall of Famer who Jalloh hopes can teach him a thing or two about becoming a successful professional receiver. Finally, Michael Vick is announced as the final member of the Pros squad, and that is when the Joes knew they were in for a serious competition, not just a TV show.
“When Vick came out, I was really shocked,” says Jalloh. “I had no clue. I didn’t think it was really him, I thought it was just a stunt double. That’s when I knew this was real and I had to be locked and loaded and ready to go.”
The competition consists of three skills challenges between the two teams, followed by a final game to determine the overall winner. If the Joes win, they go home with $10,000. Jalloh says the exposure and the chance to prove his worth in the NFL is more important to him than the cash.
His first stint in the league, a brief summer stay with the Tampa Bay Bucs, did not pan out how he had hoped. Now is his chance to show teams what kind of athlete they’ve been missing since he left West Virginia after the 2008 season.
“Someone’s going to see it, and they’ll see my athleticism, my personality and a lot of other things that I possess,” he says. “All I can do is wait and see what happens and just be patient.”
Jalloh is excited to see how the hour-long show comes together, since he knows certain aspects will be edited differently or completely left out of the footage that makes the final cut. He already knows the finished product will not be quite the same as reality just based on the sneak peek, in which he is referred to as a running back – a position he never lined up at while playing for the Mountaineers.
If the return to the NFL does not pan out, Jalloh has plenty of other avenues available for his talents. Besides his current work as a youth counselor in Pittsburgh, he has begun modeling and acting and will take part in his first bodybuilding competition this October. For now, he just wants people to see another side of himself that was constantly pushed to the backburner in five years at WVU.
“They can finally see my true personality,” he says. “Everybody who was at [WVU] practice could see my personality and how big it was already, but I’d always have to bring it down a little bit when other people were around.
“Now I have a chance to do what I’ve got to do and go out there and shine, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
