Kobee Minor, the 50th Mr. Irrelevant, celebrated as part of a special fraternity

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

Kobee Minor's first look at Orange County's coast reminded him of Netflix's shoreline-set, teen-drama series 'Outer Banks.' That's the closest he'd ever been to an actual beach.
Five days on the bay, in the surf, among those whose journey mirrors his own, and Newport Beach is now like a home away from home for the new Patriot.
The 50th Mr. Irrelevant. who hails from a town 35 miles northwest of Dallas, now understands what it means to enjoy five days on the bay and in the surf among others whose journey mirrors his own.
Minor this week joined a 'brotherhood' he hadn't known existed, couldn't have aspired to and now cherishes. He's been steeped in the traditions of pro football's most whimsical culture, joining a band of others chosen with the last pick of five decades of National Football League drafts and the family tethered to it.
Irrelevant Week's mission — to fête somebody who wouldn't normally be celebrated just for the joy of it — and the amiably casual approach to maneuvering through it hasn't veered through its evolution from let's-try-this to a celebrated moment on the NFL's calendar. It's a bit of fun before the real business begins.
That's what Newport Beach's Paul Salata, who played for USC in the NFL in the late 1940s and early '50s, was seeking when in 1976 he introduced Irrelevant Week, whether he fully realized it or not.
It's what Melanie Fitch, Salata's daughter, has embraced in her 30-year stewardship of Mr. Irrelevant celebration. In an increasingly corporate sports landscape, Salata's (and now Fitch's) week-long (or thereabouts) parties are something else, something more meaningful.
'I had no idea,' Andy Stokes, one of nearly two dozen Mr. Irrelevants present for Minor's coronation, said of the event. 'I was just a kid trying to play football. This stays with you your whole life. It's a brotherhood. It's a club. You get a built-in community for the rest of your life.'
There's a bit of teasing going on here, in celebration of the 'last,' and a celebration of the achievement, with rewards: for Minor, the key to the city, proclamations, a Newport Beach Police Department badge, personalized longboard, and, at Friday night's marquee banquet, the humorous Lowsman Trophy, its football player depicted fumbling the ball.
New England gave Minor his ticket, making a seventh-round trade with the Kansas City Chiefs for two picks and using the latter — No. 257 in the draft — to snare the defensive back from the University of Memphis. He spent his five days here mostly garbed in a Patriots jersey with 257 on the front and getting a taste of Balboa life.
He sailed in the weekly Beercans series on Balboa Bay, surfed off 30th Street under inaugural world champion P.T. Townend's tutelage (with a minute-long run judged a 6, highest of Irrelevant scores), took a restaurant crawl along the peninsula, worshiped at Mariners Church and spent a day at Disneyland.
'Everybody's been amazing,' Minor said.
That's Salata's doing. He concocted Mr. Irrelevant, Fitch said, 'like a spur-of-the-moment idea' to 'do something nice for someone for no reason.'
It was never meant to last forever, but it might.
'Fifty years is a long time,' said Fitch, who took charge of the Irrelevant Week organization in 1995. 'When it started, I was younger than Mr. Irrelevant. Then I was Mr. Irrelevant's age. Then I was the age of his mom. Now I'm the age of his grandma. It's been a good run.
'We still really enjoy the idea of celebrating the underdog and celebrating the last player drafted. We think that he should be recognized just like the first player drafted, because it's an honor to be drafted at all.'
There have been 14,156 players drafted over these 50 years. Some 14,106 of them aren't 'Irrelevant.' It's 'truly a fraternity,' says 2006 Raiders selection Kevin McMahan. It's one that has, according to 1977 Vikings pick Jim Kelleher, 'become such a significant part of life.'
Salata, who died a day shy of his 95th birthday in 2021, is warmly remembered within the fraternity.
'Paul was the OG,' said Ryan Hoag, a 2003 Oakland Raiders pick who parlayed his success into a stint on reality television show 'The Bachelorette' and now is a pregame analyst for the team. 'He was one of those guys that everybody kind of wanted to be around.
'He didn't say a ton, but when he did, it spoke volumes. He was quick-witted. He was always cracking jokes. And he was just somebody that genuinely had the utmost respect for everybody and the biggest heart and just wanted to help people for no reason at all. It's rare if you come across one of those people in your life, let alone a Paul Salata.'
Kelleher, the second Mr. Irrelevant, called Salata 'unlike anybody I had ever met.'
'I was just in awe, the way he interacts with people, his sense of humor,' he said. 'And then what he's done, his vision of this. I can't speak for him, but something tells me that what Melanie's done and where Irrelevant Week is, here, 50 years later, is what he wanted.
''Just doing something nice for somebody for no reason.' How good of a mantra is that for our country, for our world, for us all? It was a gift. We're all blessed.'
Fitch this year joined her father as chief beneficiary of the Orange County Youth Sports Foundation's Person of the Year, an honor she rebuked from the Lowsman Banquet stage, quickly shifting the attention back to the event.
'I didn't know, I would have stopped it,' she said. 'Maybe that's why they didn't tell me. I like to be under the radar. I like to do a lot of nice things for people, but I don't want my name in the deal. I just want it to be a super time and super experience.'
She marshals a loosely organized, amiably casual team heavy on family members while steering from the behind, slipping in and out of the spotlight as needed, her constant, wry chatter a treasured soundtrack to the proceedings.
Everyone's welcomed as 'family' — that was Salata's way, and like father, like daughter. The 'fraternity' is constructed upon that foundation.
Hoag, who has returned to Irrelevant Week '10 or 11 times,' calls the relationship 'special ... like family' and says his week, 22 years ago, 'probably usurps every moment of my life.'
'This is pretty much at the top,' he said. 'Having a full week dedicated to you, and they tailor anything and everything you've ever imagined. I mean, it's like finding a genie's lamp and having unlimited wishes.'
He'd known nothing of the tradition until a friend called him 'Mr. Irrelevant' as they saw his name called on television.
'I heard you get a trip to Hawaii and a million dollars, and that sounded pretty good, let me tell you,' he said. 'It turned out it wasn't, but, honestly, I wouldn't trade my experience of that week and the subsequent 22 years for a million dollars.'
It's all for charity, and the Lowsman Banquet, the business end of the festivities, raised about $150,000, Fitch estimated, for the OCYSF.
Many of the Mr. Irrelevants returning this year for the first time, all of them except 2020 New York Giants pick Tae Crowder, whose party was canceled by COVID, carried tales of their weeks: the single Hoag's 'Miss Irrelevant' pageant, Kelleher accompanying Salata in his morning duties, 2005 Patriots pick Stokes' hit-and-run after coach Bill Belichick limited his trip to one day, 1992 Redskins pick Matt Elliott getting tossed from his hotel room bed by the Landers/Big Bear earthquakes.
Minor's experience — the adventures, sure, but more so the camaraderie with those who preceded him most of all — 'really opened my eyes,' he said. 'Just realizing this is actually a big event, and it's bigger than all of us. Just fellowshiping with everybody has been amazing.
'Man, I can't thank this family enough. They didn't have to do this, man. They're doing something nice for somebody for literally no reason. So hat's off to them and their family, making me a part of their family.'
Minor dreamed from childhood of playing football or basketball professionally — 'basketball didn't work out; I'm not that tall,' said the 6-footer — and started to believe it could happen when he got his first college offers at Lake Dallas High School in Cornith, Texas, near Denton.
He was a three-star defensive back in high school, where the elite get five stars. He had (as he noted in his post-draft press conference) 'never been a highly recruited guy ... never been one of the top guys,' and hadn't had a satisfactory four years at Texas Tech, where he saw special-teams duty, and Indiana, where he was 'let go' after a season.
Minor made an impact after portaling to Memphis, contributing 38 tackles, seven tackles for loss, two sacks, six passes defended and two fumble recoveries as the Tigers went 11-2 with a Frisco Bowl win over West Virginia just across Lake Lewisville from home. His dad told him he was Mr. Irrelevant.
'[Being 'Irrelevant' is] kind of normal to me, because I've always been an underdog, you feel me?' he said. 'Just getting that call and knowing that I'm Mr. Irrelevant, the last pick of the draft, it kind of just adds fuel to my fire.'
He stepped into the Patriots' June minicamp and began to 'pick up on the small things I need to fix in my game and trying to focus on my technique and stuff like that, do whatever I can to earn a role on the team and whatever I can to help out.'
He's not a certainty. Half of Mr. Irrelevants to date never saw action in an NFL regular-season game, only six have played in more than 50, and just 15 in 10 or more. Four others are on current NFL rosters (49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, Rams defensive end Desjuan Johnson, Lions linebacker Grant Stuard, and 2024 honoree Jaylen Key, a Bengals safety). Another, quarterback Chad Kelly, plays in the Canadian league, and three-year Giants starter Crowder is 'trying to get back into the NFL' after a season in the second-tier United Football League.
'I've got to just go out there and prove that I'm a dog,' Minor said. 'And not just prove to them, but prove to myself that I'm capable of playing in the National Football League.'
The support he's found the past few days has made that all the more important.
'Now I know I've got a couple hundred more people that's rooting for me,' he said. 'I can't let them down, so I've got to go back and work.'