While most NFL area scouts quietly work behind the scenes, you could pass them on the street and not know their face, longtime Pittsburgh Steelers’ scout Mark Gorscak is an exception. Wrapping up his 28-year career with the team, graduating on to whatever comes next, Gorscak is known nationally as the guy who “runs” the 40. Not literally, that’s left to the prospects, but he’s been in charge of coordinating the 40, instructing the players, blowing the whistle if the prospect false starts or stumbles, and occasionally letting someone in the stands know they’re in the way.
With Gorscak no longer directly affiliated with a team, it seemed like he would lose his role conducting the 40. But in an interview with Dave Bryan and me for Friday’s Terrible Podcast, Gorscak said the door isn’t completely closed on him keeping the tradition going. Gorscak told us he’s talked with Jeff Foster, President of National Football Scouting and the organization that spearheads the Combine, about hanging onto his post.
“I asked Jeff Foster about that. I told him I’d like to do it for another couple years. He said because I’m not a team affiliate, I have to be voted in by board trustees. And Kevin Colbert’s still on there. And I told Kevin that, and Kevin goes, ‘oh, you’ll get my vote.’ I jokingly said to Jeff, if you need me to interview and send you resume, let me know.”
Gorscak receives nearly as camera time as the prospects themselves. The 40 yard dash is the Combine’s marquee event with Gorscak gathering each positional group shortly before the players run. He tells them the rules, don’t line up ahead of the line, hold your stance for a few beats, or else he’ll blow the whistle and make you start over. But it’s all in service of players and most of his whistles come when a player stumbles exploding out of his stance, saving them from a slow 40 time. Here’s a wonderful video from 2010 of him walking the quarterbacks through the event.
While Gorscak has expressed an interest of maintaining his role going forward, he admits he was first roped into starting the 40 yard dash in the late 2000s.
“I got roped into by a longtime scout named C.O. Brocato. I got talked into doing it at the Old Cactus Bowl, a D-II game…and he saw me and the guy previous to me retired. He goes, ‘you’re my 40 starter boy.’ I go, no I’m not, C.O.”
But Gorscak was the choice, which the Steelers used to their advantage. Starting the 40 offers unique access and insight into these players. In the scouting and drafting world, every edge matters, and Kevin Colbert knew they’d have it with Gorscak.
“Kevin calls me in his office and he said, you gotta do it. I go, why? He goes, you’re gonna know everything about those young men because you’re gonna be on that field. You’re gonna talk to all his group leaders. You’ll find out all the dirt, who these young men are, who’s the good people, who the bad people are, how they behave and all that stuff. And it’s valuable information.”
Still Gorscak wasn’t initially thrilled with the idea, especially once he realized how visible he’d be to the broadcast.
“All of a sudden this guy comes up, he goes, ‘I’m so-and-so, NFL Network.’ I say, Mark Gorscak, Pittsburgh Steelers. So I start walking away. He goes, ‘hey, wait a minute. You need to put this microphone on you.’ I said, what? Put this microphone on? I said, you’re kidding me? He said, ‘no, you gotta have a mic on.’ And then next thing I know, I got camera crews around me.”
But it became a role Gorscak enjoyed, not just for the scouting insights but directly being able to work with players to make a nerve-wracking event like the 40 operate as smoothly as possible, all in a mission to get the best version of each prospect for the rest of the evaluators watching.
The 2024 NFL Combine will once again be held at Indianapolis. Hopefully Gorscak gets approved by the board to stay in charge of the 40. He’s as much part of the event as any prospect or any drill. It won’t be the same without him.
