THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Thursday, April 28, 2016

His grandparents might be a little upset, but Josh James figures they’ll understand if he has to miss his college graduation next month.

James, a left tackle and former Coeur d’Alene High standout who recently completed his football career at NAIA Carroll College in Helena, Mont., has received interest from NFL teams over the last year-plus.

Talk is, he could be a late-round selection in the NFL draft, which begins today, or signed as an undrafted free agent following the draft, which ends Saturday.

Pretty good for someone who didn’t even play football until his freshman year in high school.

“It (the NFL) is always in the back of your mind, but it was never a realistic dream for me because I was always undersized,” James said last week, as he finishes up work on his civil engineering degree, and trains for a possible shot at the NFL.

JAMES ATTENDED Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy in grades 6-8, then his father, who played football at Carroll, suggested he give the sport a try. James had some friends who played at Coeur d’Alene High, but when he showed up for practice as a 6-foot-1, 190-pound ninth-grader, he thought, “I’m going to get my butt kicked.”

Instead, James got bigger, and better, and kicked butt himself. He grew to 6-6, 235 as a senior. He was hoping to attend the Naval Academy, and possibly also play football. But during the physical, “they do a color blindness test, and I missed (passing) that test by one point, so they wouldn’t let me in,” he said. “It was definitely depressing.”

His second choice was Carroll, which had offered James a scholarship out of high school. Fellow NAIA school Montana Tech of Butte also was interested, as were a few Division III schools, but James liked Carroll in part because his father played there, but also because coaches told him, in addition to all the football talk, “we’re going to make you a better person, a better man.”

James redshirted his first season at Carroll, and was 6-6, 280 when he took the field the following fall. He was a four-year starter at left tackle, and measured 6-5 3/8, 315 at his recent pro day in Missoula, attended by mostly former Griz players and a few others from smaller schools in Montana.

IT WAS following his junior season that James first attracted the attention of NFL scouts. Since then, he said scouts from roughly 10 NFL teams have made the trek to Helena to watch him play and/or practice, or to watch film with him.

That NFL carrot kept him motivated this past fall, as Carroll struggled through a very un-Carroll-like 4-6 season.

“Because I still had something to work for,” said James, whose brother, Matt, recently completed his redshirt freshman season playing on the offensive line at the University of Washington.

At the Montana pro day, “he tested real well until he pulled his hamstring,” said James’ agent, Derrick Fox, whose clients include Ravens wide receiver Steve Smith and Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman. Fox was able to get James into the pro day at Boise State, where he couldn’t test, but could talk to NFL scouts.

Each NFL team is allowed to invite up to 30 players to their facility for a visit, and James accepted an invite from the Green Bay Packers. Aside from the Packers, Fox said the Arizona Cardinals and Carolina Panthers have shown the most interest in James. Whether that means anything is hard to tell, as many teams guard their draft plans as if they were government secrets.

James said he was told the last Carroll player to play in the NFL, tight end Casey Fitzsimmons, was never contacted by the Detroit Lions before they signed him in 2003. He played with the Lions until 2009.

“He’s a late bloomer,” Fox said of James. “He moves real well for his size. He’s raw.”

More recently, former Carroll tight end Bubba Bartlett, from Lakeland High, was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Houston Texans in 2011, before being released later that summer.

SOME TEAMS have told James they’re interested in keeping him at tackle; others would consider moving him to guard. James, who turns 23 on May 9, said he wouldn’t care where he played on the line, as long as he got a chance somewhere.

The first round of the NFL draft is tonight, followed by rounds 2 and 3 on Friday, and rounds 4-7 on Saturday. Moments after the final round ends is when the feeding frenzy for undrafted free agents begins.

“Honestly, I have no idea what will happen,” said James, who mentioned video games and snowmobiling as his hobbies. “I just know I won’t be a first-round pick,” he joked.

And if Josh James ends up in an NFL rookie camp on May 14 — his scheduled graduation day from Carroll — well, hopefully grandma and grandpa will be OK with that.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.