Showered with gifts

Richard Dunn

It started innocently with one man’s vision of doing something nice

for someone for no reason and has grown into one of Newport Beach’s

greatest traditions -- Irrelevant Week, which celebrates the last

college football player selected in the NFL draft.

Irrelevant Week XXVIII kicked off Monday night at the Arrival

Party at the Newport Dunes. This year’s honoree, NCAA Division III

Gustavus Adolphus College wide receiver Ryan Hoag, was showered with

gifts and proclamations atop a lifeguard tower while surrounded by

cheerleaders and blond nurses in short shirts to celebrate the Hoag

Hospital theme (no, they were not Hoag Hospital nurses).

Picked No. 262 in the NFL draft and absolutely dead last by the

Oakland Raiders, Hoag established many records at Gustavus Adolphus

as a 6-foot-2, 200-pound wide receiver with great speed (he runs a

4.33 40-yard dash).

The Raiders drafted Hoag (no relation to Hoag Memorial

Presbyterian Hospital in Newport Beach) after obtaining the pick by

trading with the Houston Texans for a selection in next year’s draft.

Irrelevant Week founder Paul Salata made the announcement on ESPN and

added, “We’ll have Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer and Lowsman

Trophy winner Ryan Hoag.”

On Thursday, Palmer and Hoag will appear at the Orange County

Youth Sports Foundation Banquet at the Anaheim Marriott.

Hoag, who played only one year of high school football and that

was as a junior varsity quarterback, grew up in Minneapolis, then

spent one year at Wake Forest as a walk-on soccer player. He returned

to his roots and enrolled at Gustavus Adolphus in St. Peter, Minn.,

where he was an All-Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

performer three times.

Today, Mr. Irrelevant XXVIII will make his first-ever trip to the

beach and later appear on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. A day at Disneyland,

the first Miss Irrelevant Contest, the Heisman/Lowsman Banquet and

Ultimate Angels Tailgate Party are also part of this week’s

festivities.