What's the Protocol Here?

     One of the reasons I started liking college football much more than pro football in recent years, is that the connection from the players to your team seems more permanent.  College players generally show up as a freshman, stay for four years (or maybe three, or two... maybe one), and leave.  Even after they leave, you always remember them as a part of your team.  Seeing your favorite college players in the pros gives you a sense of satisfaction too.  Even the little introductions from the network at the beginning of the game of Monday Night Football make you happy when a player says he went to your school.  You definitely hear the pride the players have, particularly from some schools.  "Cris Carter, THE Ohio State University," he always emphasized as he announced himself.  The same allegiance isn't the same for pro athletes.  Every once in a while you might get a player who stays with a team most of his career, but that is getting extremely rare with trades and free agency in every sport.  You can't really blame the players either, because the teams are as heartless as the athletes when it comes to aging superstars.  Frankly, once a player left my favorite pro team, I really didn't think twice about them anymore.  Vladimir Guerrero was my favorite baseball player on the Angels for five years or so, but it doesn't take too long for the admiration to go away when he's hitting bombs against your teams' pitchers a year later.

     College players always felt more like a lifetime allegiance to a team, rather than a current location, at least until recently.  Transfers from college football and basketball programs are at an all time high.  For the first time this year, a big time player from my favorite team, is transferring to another school.  This winter, Maryland Quarterback Danny O'Brien decided to transfer to Wisconsin to finish his college football career, invoking what has now become known as the "Russell Wilson rule".  The rule was used many times before Wilson, but essentially the short description is; if a college athlete graduates from college with reamining years of eligibility, he/she can finish out their college athletic eligibility at another university for grad school, given that they are going to a university that has a grad program that their current school does not have.  Incidentally, Wilson also left North Carolina State to transfer to Wisconsin, who seems to be taking advantage of this rule more than most schools.

     So what's the protocol now then?  Do I hate Danny O'Brien for life?  Seems a little harsh to me I guess.  There was all kinds of speculation as to why he left.  Maybe he didn't fit in well with the new coaches hired at Maryland before his third year there?  Maybe he had an attitude problem once he was named the starter?  Not that I saw.  I always got the impression that he was a really good guy, he sure came across that way the few times I got to meet him. 

     I remember my first time meeting him during Maryland Day in 2011, an event held on campus for many of the departments of the University, which included the Maryland Spring Game football scrimmage, and an autograph session before the game.  By this time, he was already the face of Maryland football after his redshirt freshman year in 2010, where he was named the starter by week three over a veteran Junior on the team, and went on to win ACC rookie of the year.  I remember when I met him, I arrived near the end of the almost 2-hour autograph session.  By this time he must have signed a couple of thousand autographs, taken a couple of hundred pictures, and by then I'm sure the players were anxiously awaiting end of this session, so they could get ready for the scrimmage.  But when I got up there, he signed my football, and asked me how I was doing, and thanked me for coming to the Spring Game.  That always stood out to me as a big deal.  I've been to a lot of sports events before, but this is the first time one of the athletes thanked me for coming to the game.  I got to meet him a couple more times through similar events, and each time he made a point to ask me, and everyone else, a couple of questions on how they were doing.  I always thought that was a big deal, especially because of the few times I've gotten to meet an athlete or sportscaster I really liked, and they acted like they would rather be anywhere else in the world. 

     My getting to meet Danny helped shape how I'll think about him now, but so do some more factors that I thought of since his decision to transfer.  The fact that he's going to Wisconsin helps.  Not that I have any positive feelings toward Wisconsin, but as far as I know he could have gone anywhere he wanted.  Players are just recently taking advantage of the Wilson rule, but as far as I know, this rule takes away any of the transfer restrictions and he could have transferred within the ACC.  Even if he didn't go to an ACC school, if he went to a school that Maryland recruits against often, that would have stung a little.  I know for a while the Maryland staff was trying to restrict him from going to certain schools, but I think they ended up dropping that in the end.  I have to admit it might have been a little more difficult to continue to root for Danny if he was the starting quarterback of the opposing team in week 8.

     Secondly, Danny O'Brien is 21.  Still has his whole football career ahead of him.  What if he was having problems with the new coaching philosophies?  Maybe he gets buried on the bench for his last two years of college, and now NFL teams think he can't cut it anymore, and he's supposed to just deal with it?  He went somewhere else instead, and hopefully finishes up his college career strong and gets a good chance of playing in the NFL.  Kind of hard to blame a 21 year old for that logic, when really all he is doing is setting himself up for the best chance to excel in his professional career, kind of like what the rest of us were thinking when we were 21 years old and in college.

     Danny O'Brien may not be a Terp anymore, (although he did graduate from Maryland, which makes him more of a Terp than I'll ever be) and this fall, I'll still have my Maryland football season tickets, I'll still be ordering my new Maryland football jersey, and I'll still be rooting all the Terps, but this is one Maryland fan who will be checking in on Wisconsin each week to see how Danny is doing.  I will be rooting for him to be in the NFL some day, and hopefully he'll be the starting quarterback for a team playing on Monday Night Football, and when he says, "Danny O'Brien, University of Wisconsin,"  I'll still be thinking of the two seasons he was my favorite player at Maryland.