The life of a Buccaneer scout There's not a lot of decor in Ruston Webster's office. The Bucs' director of college scouting has a bank of windows that overlook the practice fields at One Buc Place. His desk features photos of his 5-year-old twins, Hannah and Jacob. But it's videotapes that dominate the room. There's some spillover into the hallway, where shelves upon shelves are crammed with tapes. It's the livelihood of the Bucs' scouting department, an important tool that helps locate future Buccaneers. ``Each year we get about every game in college and it's four tapes per game,'' said Bucs director of player personnel Tim Ruskell, who oversees the pro and college scouting departments. ``It's a ridiculous number each year. After two years, we recycle them. We give the schools the tapes back and they tape over them with new footage. In the old days, we would have just a handful of tapes on certain games, certain teams. We didn't have a library. You'd have to go back to the school if you wanted to see them again.'' This is the busiest time of the season for the scouting department. It's when all the homework is done for the upcoming draft. On Mondays, while the rest of the organization is recovering from the previous day's NFL game, the scouting department's attention is on the previous weekend's college games. Area college scouts call in with reports on the schools and players they watched. Each player is evaluated and reports are filed. ``We always ask: `Do you like them for the Bucs or is it a hot- list guy?' '' Webster said. ``That's when we start honing in on a player. A scout may tell us they like this guy or they may go to a school and say, `There are no Bucs here.' '' After Webster finishes his phone calls, he begins watching film of the player he's going to visit that week. Tuesdays are dedicated to watching more tape. Wednesdays are road days. Webster and the team's area scouts arrive at various college campuses in the morning, and begin by watching tape there. Then it's time for practice, where the scouts get an up- close look. ``You get more out of the tape, but you need to see the player in person,'' Ruskell said. ``Just to get the body language, how he moves in relation to the rest of the team. And what he's doing in between plays and how he affects a game, what is his role in a game. You can't get a lot of that off the tape. While tape documents talent and skills, face-to-face meetings provide opportunities to examine a player's character. It's huge,'' Ruskell said. ``You have to go to the school and hear what the coaches say about the guy. ... They can give you a good-faith estimate.'' Thursdays and Fridays are similar to Wednesdays, but at different locations. While some NFL teams don't send scouts to Saturday games, there aren't many Saturdays where every member of the Bucs' scouting staff (and sometimes General Manager Rich McKay) aren't on the road for a college contest. ``Some teams feel that they've scouted all week so they'll give them Saturday off,'' Ruskell said. Webster has been a Bucs scout since 1988. ``It's changed a ton [since then] and it's all for the better,'' Webster said. ``When I started, we carried projectors with us and we all had a little spot on the wall of a meeting room where we'd watch film. There could be at least 20 guys with a different spot on the wall watching tape. When we went to video, it got better. And now a lot of games are on computer. For evaluation purposes, it's a lot easier.'' He's also noticed a change in access at universities. ``Some coaches are uncomfortable with us coming in,'' he said. ``When juniors started coming out, things got a little more testy with some of the schools. ... The more you're at a school, you develop a relationship where they feel they can trust you. You have to realize you're a visitor at the school and have to handle yourself with class. Sometimes guys will come in acting like the school owes them, but that's not the way to approach it.'' December 2002