With just one semester of school left, James Mungro thought his days of sitting behind a desk and clinging to a pencil were done.

Where he was headed, hulking muscles, soft hands and speed would mean success. Why would the NFL care about algebra and grammar?

Mungro, Syracuse’s starting running back last season, figured he was pretty much done with tests.

“I’m a football guy who just needs to get out on the field and show what I can do,” said Mungro, who hopes to be a late-round pick in this weekend’s NFL Draft. “So I’m thinking, ‘Now is the time when I can just go do that and show teams what I’ve got.’ I’m thinking, ‘Now is the time when I make myself on the field.’ ”

What Mungro did not anticipate is that NFL scouts over the last three months would often hand him a pen before pads.

That’s because scouts have become increasingly interested in how a player scores on the Wonderlic Personnel Test, a 12-minute, 50-question exam given to about 400 NFL wannabes and 2.5 million American workers each year.

Questions cover anything from word association to advanced algebra. No calculators are allowed and the questions get harder as the test goes on.

A score can display downright illiteracy (Gordon “Rooster” Jones, a Pittsburgh running back in the early 1990s, answered just one correctly) or uncover disturbing intelligence (Pat McInally, a 1975 punter at Harvard — surprise, surprise — is the only NFL player ever to get all 50).

Though it varies position to position, NFL draftees have averaged a 19 over the last 20 years. That’s three points shy of the mean score for all professions.

“You take so many different tests, and it’s just mind boggling,” Mungro said. “I went to the Gridiron Classic, and it’s just so many tests and you just have to do it. All of a sudden, you’re in a room with the Wonderlic in front of you. There are some dumb questions and some tough questions on there, but all of them are important.”

So crucial, in fact, that all 32 NFL teams use the Wonderlic. For some, it’s an indication of reaction speed. Others think it measures intelligence. Some even think it will reveal a players coachability.

CBS SportsLine, citing player reports from information warehouse The Sports Xchange, reported that Mungro scored an eight on his Wonderlic, which would put him among the lowest tested this year. Mungro and Syracuse strength coach William Hicks say the running back’s score was closer to 20.

On the other side of the spectrum, SU defensive end Dwight Freeney, a likely first-round pick, registered a 35, high enough to put him in the top 10 scores of this year’s class.

“It’s tough to know what a test like that means,” said Freeney, a defensive end. “I heard my score will help me, but who knows? This is the NFL Draft. You never can tell what’s going to happen.”

If nothing else, pro teams know Freeney pretty well. The Giants gave him a 480-question personality test. Some teams even used psychological exams to learn more about a potential investment.

“Different teams do interviews and some do psychological profile tests,” Hicks said. “It’s like a battery of tests to see what type of learner you are, so that helps prepare them for how to teach you. Those supposedly tell them how you are going to change or learn.”

It must tell them something, because draft hopefuls rarely get a chance to set down their pencils.

“Enough of these tests,” Mungro said. “You have to do it, but I hope it ends soon. Once you make a team, then maybe the testing will stop.”

Published on April 18, 2002 at 12:00 pm