Former Hawkeye Herron stretching his wings

Since his University of Iowa football career ended nine years ago, Anthony Herron has been a pro player, a coach, a television commentator, a radio talk-show host and an actor.

But he's about to get his most exposure as ... a statue.

ESPN will kick off its Monday Night Football telecasts this year with its traditional Hank Williams Jr. opening song asking the musical question “Are You Ready For Some Football?”

This year, for the 40th anniversary of MNF, the opening segment will feature a mock MNF Hall of Fame.

Herron will be in the opening, as a bronzed bust of a football player.

“We did it at Nashville at a place called the Parthenon, (a replica of the Parthenon in Athens),” Herron said. “They cast six athletic-looking guys to be statues. We were made up like the Blue Man Group, only with bronze makeup instead.

“It took 45 minutes to an hour each day to have the makeup put on. The shooting took three straight 12-hour days.”

Williams and singer Gloria Estefan were part of the production.

“It was really cool for me,” Herron said. “It was something to give me more experience in TV.”

In the spring and early summer he is an assistant coach for the Tennessee Valley Vipers of af2, an arena football league. That team is in Huntsville, Ala., where Herron lives. It's less than two hours from Nashville.

As an NFL player, he bounced from Detroit to Green Bay to Pittsburgh to Atlanta. He didn't get to play a lot.

“I never got a foothold in the NFL,” Herron said. “So I tried Arena Football. I was still making good money, and it was the opportunity to get on the field and play the game I love.”

He played for the Nashville Kats before a knee injury steered him off the turf and into coaching and other endeavors.

Herron pursued broadcasting and enters his second year as a color commentator on Big Ten Network football telecasts. He'll work the Northern Iowa-Iowa game Sept. 5.

Besides BTN work, Herron will be part of a couple of Mountain West Conference telecasts on Versus.

That's just part of his sportscasting career.

“I'm also getting ready to host a sports talk show on an online network called Voice America. My show will be called “The Gameplan With Anthony Herron.” I'll also be doing mobile sports updates for a company called Lexy.”

Then there's show biz.

Herron said he'll be an extra in a movie drama called “Bailey” that will be directed by Mario Van Peebles and will film in Nashville.

In June, he and his wife, Kelly, were in a taped sketch with singer Taylor Swift and comedian Bill Engvall that opened the CMT Music Awards. Herron played Swift's bodyguard.

“I'd been coming off a bus trip with our team and had gotten home at 8 a.m. on Sunday,” Herron said. “I took a nap, then was grading some film at home that afternoon when I got a call from my agent asking if I could be in Nashville the next morning. I had no idea what the CMT Awards even were.”

The date circled on Herron's calendar is Sept. 14. The Monday Night Football season opener.

“Most of us (statues) were ex-linemen,” Herron said. “We thought it was pretty funny to be referred to by the crew as models.”

He had one line in the taping: “Ready!”

It seems to sum up his life right now.