Photo: Grahame Cox
NFL HUNT: NFL recruiter Shannon Stowers is on the hunt for Polynesian stars for the NFL.
Perhaps only the most ardent of Warriors fans will remember Shannon Stowers.
He was the 24-year-old prop who made his first-grade debut back in 2004, lasted two games before succumbing to injury and was never heard of again.
Until now, that is.
What Warriors diehards might not realise, however, is that Stowers was an American football player first and league hopeful second.
Before he signed with the Warriors, Stowers spent two years at Utah State University on an American football scholarship.
Injury prevented him from turning out for the university side and in the end it forced him home to New Zealand.
But despite the challenges, his passion for the sport never waned.
And now he's back.
Not as a player but as a scout and like those old World War 2 posters with Uncle Sam calling on new recruits, Stowers is on a recruitment drive of his own.
His brief is to find the biggest, best and strongest young kids coming through the rugby and league grades in New Zealand and convince them to try their hand at American football instead.
"What I want to do is basically train guys up to identify if they have the talent and skills to succeed in American football," Stowers, who looks every inch an NFL enforcer, told Sunday News.
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