Along with RB, Giants getting a well-dressed acrobat

Ask about David Wilson at Virginia Tech and chances are you'll hear about something other than football.

There was the time he shimmied up to the roof of the school's basketball arena, just to prove he could. And there were the backflips that he executed while walking around campus. And the shirt and tie he wore to classes every day. And the rabbits he would catch with his bare hands.

"He's kind of a legend around here," Virginia Tech associate head coach and running backs coach Shane Beamer said in a phone interview.

The Giants may not have drafted Wilson in the first round because of his stunts, tricks and quirky personality, but it didn't hurt. Clearly he made an impression on the Giants when he was about the only prospect they met with at the combine who congratulated them on winning the Super Bowl. Of course, he was wearing a suit at the time. He's been dressing for success since high school.

"We're probably going to have to tell him, 'David, you don't have to wear a coat and tie to your meetings every day,' " Tom Coughlin said Thursday after the Giants made Wilson the 32nd overall pick.

He was just as effervescent for all of the other teams he met with.

"I had quite a few personnel people and coaches call me and say, 'Is this kid for real or is this just an act?' " Beamer said. "It's David. It's genuine. It's how he is. It's not an act."

SEE PHOTOSHit or miss: Giants 1st-round picks since 1986

Even Giants director of college scouting Marc Ross, who bases his decisions on hard facts, was enamored of Wilson's charms.

"He's a live wire now," Ross said. "Energetic. Personable."

It took Beamer some time to get used to it, too. He had coached at South Carolina before returning to Virginia Tech to join his father Frank's staff last year and had to get to know his new players. He gave them a questionnaire to fill out, and one of the questions he asked was if they had any hobbies or interests.

Wilson wrote: acrobatics.

"That,'' Beamer said, "was a first in my coaching career."

Beamer also had the running backs to his house for a dinner in October, a casual Thursday night affair. Most players showed up in T-shirts. Some more polished ones came in collared shirts. Wilson, of course, wore a shirt and tie.

"Once David walks in the room, you talk to him and you see how he interacts with people, you would know that he's a good guy, fun guy, loves to laugh and joke around," said cornerback Jayron Hosley, one of his roommates at Virginia Tech and another 2012 Giants draft pick.

"You've probably heard them all," Hosley said when asked for his favorite Wilson story. That didn't stop him from expounding on the rabbit-catching runs.

"With his speed, I had no doubt that he could catch it,'' he said. "But he's one of those guys, you just never know what you're going to get."

Wilson can be just as captivating as a football player. He's only 5-9 and 205 pounds, but he set the ACC record for most all-purpose yards by a junior (a record that had been held by Tiki Barber of Virginia). He's strong; in the Virginia Tech weight room, he would outlift the offensive linemen in some lower-body exercises. His 4.4 speed and 41-inch vertical leap made him a combine star, but on the field, he puts those skills to work.

"He broke a crazy amount of tackles last year. I'm talking 15, 16, 17 broken tackles in one game a couple times," Beamer said. "I've been around football all my life, and very rarely are you ever somewhere where you have a running back who you feel is a threat to score every time he touches the ball. With David, you hated to take him off the field because he literally was a threat to score every time he touched the ball."

If he can do that for the Giants, Coughlin will let him wear a tie to all the meetings he wants.