From Wolfpack football to a foothold in business

Jamelle Eugene thought football was his future, not patents, intellectual property or thermoplastic polyurethane.

The former N.C. State running back was wrong. The idea he scribbled in red ink on a square white cocktail napkin on a cross-country flight six years ago turned out to be the real future for Eugene and his former Wolfpack teammate DaJuan Morgan.

The concept of “Gryppers,” a startup company founded by Eugene and Morgan, was sketched out on that napkin.

Eugene’s idea was to make a product that would be a cross between athletic tape and football gloves.

“We’ve come a long way from the napkin,” Eugene said.

The two former Wolfpack players have gotten some help from their alma mater. They also recently received a $50,000 grant from the NC IDEA Foundation, which helps finance innovative companies.

It has been a long road for Eugene, 29, and Morgan, 30, to turn a concept into reality, but after a year with N.C. State’s College of Textiles and the Poole Entrepreneurship Clinic, the pair can finally see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

“When we started, we didn’t even know we were in the tunnel,” Eugene said.

Morgan added: “We were just trying to get to the tunnel. Now we’re ready to go through.”

Idea on a napkin

The business idea was half inspiration and half Eugene’s way of killing time on a flight to Long Beach, Calif., from Florida in 2010.

He was headed to a tryout with the Las Vegas Locomotives in the short-lived United Football League. At N.C. State, where Eugene spent five seasons from 2005 to ’09, the 5-foot-9 running back used to tape the middle knuckle of each finger.

The Wolfpack’s leading rusher in 2007, Eugene liked the extra grip afforded by gloves but didn’t like all the material, especially in the palm. Running backs who fumble don’t get to see the field, a concept ingrained in Eugene when he started his college career under coach Chuck Amato.

“What if I had tape that had grip like a glove?” Eugene thought on the plane ride.

Nothing came of the tryout, but Eugene kept the napkin and the idea. He did some initial background research to see if there were any similar products.

Once he learned he could patent the idea, he called Morgan, one of his former college roommates.

Career detour

Morgan was trying to hold onto his NFL career when Eugene called in July 2011. A third-round pick of the Kansas City Chiefs three years earlier, Morgan figured he’d spend a decade or more in the league.

Herm Edwards did, too. Edwards was the Chiefs’ coach when they drafted the Wolfpack safety. Morgan had 117 tackles and three interceptions as a redshirt junior at N.C. State in 2007.

Edwards invited Morgan, second-round pick Brandon Flowers and fifth-round pick Brandon Carr – both cornerbacks taken by the Chiefs in the same draft – to his house before the start of the 2008 season.

“He told all three of us, ‘You guys are going to play in the league for a long time,  ” Morgan said.

“Well, those two guys are still in the league, and they have big contracts. I’m the one that didn’t make it.”

Edwards, who had a long playing career at defensive back in the NFL, was fired after Morgan’s rookie season.

Todd Haley, a quarterbacks coach by trade, was hired to replace him and while Edwards liked Morgan and saw his long-term potential, Haley did not.

“We had our run-ins, he really didn’t like me,” Morgan said of Haley.

Injured, cut

Morgan did get two starts at free safety in 2009 under Haley. He had six tackles and a recovery of a Torry Holt fumble against Jacksonville in his first NFL start. Two weeks later, he had eight tackles against Cleveland in his second start.

“I tore my pectoral (muscle) from the bone in the first quarter,” Morgan said. “I played the whole game and made eight tackles on a torn pec.”

Morgan finished the season on injured reserve and was cut the next training camp. The Indianapolis Colts lost safety Bob Sanders to an injury in the preseason and called Morgan but he got lost in a roster numbers game.

He had other workouts with Detroit and Washington that season and then a spot in training camp with the New York Jets the following summer.

That was the summer of the NFL lockout. The Jets were more comfortable with the players that knew their defensive scheme.

“There were nine safeties in practice,” Morgan said. “I knew that was way too many.”

The Jets let Morgan go in Aug. 2011.

“That’s when I got a call from Jamelle,” Morgan said. “It was perfect timing. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life.”

Back on track

Eugene and Morgan took the next steps with their company in 2012. In August that year, with some of Morgan’s NFL money, they filed for design, utility and international patents.

The patents were approved by Jan. 2013 and the two had prototypes made and tested at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., in the spring.

The product wasn’t ready but neither Eugene nor Morgan were ready to give up just yet. They had to get jobs – Morgan in construction and Eugene in sales for Amazon – to make ends meet, but they kept their idea alive.

An email from one of Eugene’s old professors at N.C. State got them on their current track.

Lewis Sheats, the director of the Poole Entrepreneurship Clinic at N.C. State, taught Eugene in a class on accounting and finance for entrepreneurs.

“The point of the class is really to teach them what to do when they do find their idea,” Sheats said.

Sheats has taught at N.C. State for 16 years and is a Wolfpack fan. He knew Eugene because of his football exploits when he walked into his classroom. He also was impressed by Eugene’s enthusiasm.

“He was on the edge of the seat, wanting to learn,” Sheats said.

Eugene remembers the class and how it inspired him. A light went on in an academic environment that Eugene could only remember happening with his football career.

“I looked forward to going to that class,” Eugene said. “I didn’t feel like I had busy school work, it felt like real-world assignments.”

‘Like a rock star’

Neither teacher nor student forgot the other. In January 2015, Sheats invited Eugene, and all of his former students via e-mail, to the opening of HQ entrepreneurship clinic in downtown Raleigh.

Eugene drove up from Atlanta hoping to get some time with Sheats to talk about Gryppers and the company’s future.

“(Sheats) was like a rock star, everybody was in there trying to vie for his time,” Eugene said. “He saw me and came up to me and everyone there was like, ‘Who’s this guy?’ ”

Eugene and Sheats talked more the next day. Sheats directed Eugene and Morgan to Malartu, an equity crowd-funding platform to help the pair connect with investors.

Last summer, Eugene and Morgan also got involved with N.C. State’s College of Textiles senior design program. A trio of students – Shannon Tart, Desirae Scruggs and James McLean – helped Gryppers refine their product during the school year.

The students came up with more than 90 different knit construction types, more than 30 grip materials and 25 prototypes to be tested.

Eugene and Morgan have become experts in spandex, nylons and thermoplastic polyurethane.

Some of N.C. State’s current players got to use the finished product in the Kay Yow Spring Game in April.

Eugene and Morgan have the materials and a manufacturer in North Carolina to produce the Gryppers. With some of the money from the NC IDEA grant, the next step is to get the product to all different levels of football teams – the NFL, colleges and high schools.

They eventually want to move into other sports, like basketball, jiu-jitsu and other activities for construction workers and bartenders.

But the duo will start with football, where they began.

“We’re 98 percent of the way done,” Morgan said.

Eugene lost the napkin with the original idea. No matter – they don’t need the napkin anymore.

This story was originally published June 24, 2016 at 5:46 PM with the headline "From Wolfpack football to a foothold in business."