Basketball, parents helped Charles ‘Sweet Feet’ Cross become Seahawks’ new left tackle
Charles Cross loves his nickname.
“Sweet Feet” is a pretty cool one, especially when you are 315 pounds and an NFL offensive tackle. Thomas Callans, the head athletic trainer at Mississippi State when Cross played their into last winter, gave him that.
“It’s pretty cool. I think it’s pretty cool,” Cross said Friday.
The Seahawks may soon love it even more than Cross does.
Coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider made Cross what they feel will be the foundation of Seattle’s offensive line for years on Thursday. They drafted him ninth in the first round.
The 21-year-old left tackle and Mississippi native is the highest Seahawks draft choice since 2010 — when they took another athletic left tackle: Russell Okung.
For Carroll, drafting Cross after team scouts Aaron Highline, Trent Kirchner and Seahawks Hall of Fame guard Steve Hutchinson tracked and strongly recommended him is going back to the 70-year-old coach’s roots in (re)building the Seahawks. Just as he did a dozen years ago with Okung as his first draft pick as the head of the franchise.
“I have no question, we have no question, that he is going to be able to make a great transition,” into the NFL), Carroll said. “He was in the midst of Coach (Mike) Leach’s program (at Mississippi State, after a coaching change) and made that transition quickly, and showed what kind of pass protector he can be, really in the most challenging conference, in the SEC.
“I really don’t see any problems here. I think he’s going to be just fine. ...The skills that are necessary — to move your feet, to get off the ball, to get to the second level, all of those things — came very natural for Charles.
“He’s not going to have any problem.”
Thanks, Mom
For Cross, the Seahawks drafting him was a celebration of his roots.
His mother, Owedia, was in Las Vegas Thursday with her husband watching their youngest of three children get drafted by Seattle. The first thing Cross did when Carroll called him to say Seattle was selecting him was hug his mother and father, Mitchell Cross, Sr.
Friday, Mom was inside the main auditorium of the Seahawks’ Virginia Mason Athletic Center watching her son get introduced publicly to the Pacific Northwest and show off his new number-67 Seahawks jersey. It’s the same number Cross wore for Mississippi State.
“It’s means a lot, just her being here for me. My mom and my dad,” Cross said. “My mom has been here for me, been my biggest support. She pushed me to be a better athlete, a better student and a better overall person.”
And, for a while, she pushed him away from football.
Played basketball, track and field
Cross said his Mom didn’t let her big son play organized football growing up in Laurel, Mississippi (population: 17,100) until he was in the sixth grade. He was a track-and-field athlete as a kid, throwing the shot put and discus.
He also was a basketball player until his junior year at Laurel High School.
“I really couldn’t tell you the exact numbers,” Cross said of his hoops career, “but I know every game I played in I got a double-double (double figures in points and rebounds).
“Every game.
“I was producin’!”
Cross said he realized that at 6 feet 5, even in high school, “I wasn’t going to play in the NBA.”
But at 6-5 and 300 pounds with feet of a 250 pounder, he soon found out from many top-level college coaches recruiting him out of Laurel High that he could play in the Southeastern Conference — and, as of Thursday when the Seahawks drafted him, the NFL.
Cross said his goal at Mississippi State was to “become 1% better every day.” That plan worked, too.
He is reputed to be the most NFL-ready pass protector in this draft class. He allowed just two sacks in 682 pass snaps last season in Leach’s pass-a-rama Air Raid, zone-run offense in the elite Southeastern Conference.
“Cross, just 21 years old, is already the cleanest pass-blocker of this class,” Tacoma-based NFL draft guru Rob Rang of Fox Sports said.
Cross allowed no quarterback pressures in 66 pass plays playing left tackle against mighty Alabama.
“I made the right choice,” playing football over basketball he said Friday.
He laughed.
“I feel like it helps me a lot,” he said of basketball, “just in controlling by body, controlling my feet. I’m able to move. ...I feel like it’s helped a lot.
Talked to Walter Jones, K.J. Wright
Cross had landed in Seattle only hours earlier — “all the mountains, all the water,” he marveled — yet by early afternoon he had already talked to former Seahawks Walter Jones, the Hall-of-Fame left tackle, and Super Bowl-champion linebacker K.J. Wright. Wright, like Cross, was born in Mississippi and played for Mississippi State.
Wright is 32 and a free-agent after leaving the Seahawks to play for the Las Vegas Raiders last season. He told Cross “call me anytime” about anything.
Of Jones, now 48, Cross said: “He’s one of the best offensive tackles in the game for his play for the Seattle Seahawks. I just tried to pick his brain, just learn from him.
“I asked him for advice on how he picks up game. ...How different players play, and finding a rhythm to play against other players.”
The Seahawks chose Cross with both their starting offensive tackles from the last two seasons unsigned and currently off the team: 36-year-old left tackle Duane Brown and right tackle Brandon Shell. Carroll said last week the team had not moved on from trying to re-sign Brown to potentially play for Seattle this year past his 37th birthday.
Carroll said the Seahawks were still trying to re-sign Brown, whom Seattle traded for in the middle of the 2017 season.
The urgency to do so just went down with the drafting of Cross.
Cross said he’s been training the last few months preparing for the draft at left and right tackle. “I feel comfortable playing either position,” he said.
Yet Carroll and Schneider have made it clear “Sweet Feet” is the Seahawks’ new left tackle.
“We are excited,” Schneider said, “that we have a pillar at left tackle.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2022 at 3:39 PM.
