Every draft pick will be selected to join a team.
But when the Cardinals picked him Thursday night, Walter Nolen III found something more.
"I've got a place to call home," the defensive lineman said. "Now I feel way more comfortable."
Nolen's football journey has taken him to multiple stops before he landed in Arizona as a first-round draft pick. He played at four different high schools in three different states. When he went to college, he spent two seasons at Texas A&M. After he felt the scheme in College Station didn't suit him, Nolen transferred to Ole Miss, the launching point for his NFL stock.
On his first day in the Valley on Friday, Nolen toured the Dignity Health Training Center with family and friends by his side. It was the first step into the new relationship between his personal family and his Cardinals football family.
That sense of belonging was felt instantly for the 21-year-old.
"I feel like it's going to be little easier (to transition)," Nolen said. "It's because of the people here. I'm a person that always kinds of reads and watches people a lot, and watching everybody and talking to everybody, there's great people in the building."
Nolen is also self-aware. There were narratives swirling around Nolen's personality throughout the draft process, but he didn't pay attention them because "I feel like that's when you start to lose yourself when you get caught up in those things."
Standing at his introductory press conference, Nolen was soft spoken, belying his 6-foot-3 frame. Jonathan Gannon had previously said he could be shy.
"You might think one thing of the personality, but it's a little bit different," Gannon said. "Why he fits as a Cardinal? He's got a huge heart. He cares about his teammates, and he wants to maximize himself. When you show us that, from all of our different ways that we find that information, sign him up."
The Cardinals will welcome in Nolen's draft classmates in the coming days and integrate the rookies into the organization. With his visit, Nolen had a head start meeting with the staff and some of his teammates like Kyler Murray.
Those teammates, such as the veteran leadership in the defensive line room with the likes of Calais Campbell and Dalvin Tomlinson, will be critical as Nolen begins this new chapter.
"If I trust you, if I ride with you, if you're my 'dawg' and we're locked in," Nolen said. "I'll do whatever for you. I'll give you this shirt off my back."
The first 24 hours of being a Cardinal were a whirlwind. However, it's was a preview with the organization that he said cared about him as a person the most.
"I want to have that gold jacket, a couple of Super Bowls under my belt, and some Defensive Player of the Years and Defensive Rookie of the Year," Nolen said. "I want my legacy to be that I came in the building, and I helped bring the culture even more."
