Keller puts his past at ASU behind him
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BY BRIAN ROSENTHAL / Lincoln Journal Star
A half-sleeve grips Sam Keller’s left upper arm. It’s as much a part of his Nebraska football attire as his sweat-stained green practice jersey, or the athletic tape Keller peels away from his right shoe following each practice.
Helmet, shoulder pads, sleeve. But only on the one arm. The arm where Keller wears a tattoo mural. It honors a friend, Nick Promessi, who died in a car accident when Keller was a freshman at Arizona State.
It’s not Keller’s only tattoo. He has several, each for a reason, each he’s happy to wear.
By JACK DALY | For The Lincoln Journal Star
RALEIGH, N.C. - Harrison Beck will find out in the next 24 hours if his decision to transfer from Nebraska to North Carolina State produces the desired result.
After dropping few hints in the preseason, Wolfpack coach Tom O’Brien will spit out the name of his starting quarterback Monday. Beck has been competing with incumbent Daniel Evans and redshirt freshman Justin Burke for the job.
“I think as a competitor, you want to start, you want to play, you want to show what you can do,” Beck said Thursday when asked if he needs to start to justify his transfer.
“I was recruited highly. I don’t want to be the guy that was recruited highly and never gets the chance to play.”
No matter what happens, Beck said he won’t kick himself for leaving Nebraska - “I don’t miss Lincoln at all” was the way he put it.
After a freshman season in which he completed one pass for 21 yards in limited action against Kansas State and Colorado, Beck impressed teammates and coaches during the first days of camp last August.
Then he disappeared.
His mother, Evelyn Beck-Bothwell, told the Lincoln Journal Star that Beck was disappointed Joe Ganz received a majority of the snaps behind then-starter Zac Taylor.
Beck is less forthcoming.
“It was really a personal decision,” he said. “I just wanted to leave Nebraska, and I knew some of the coaches that were here. I love the new coaches we have now ... and I’m really happy with my decision.”
As a touted high school prospect in Florida, Beck played for John Davis, whose son, Jay, was N.C. State’s starting quarterback a couple of years ago. That connection helped lead Beck to Raleigh, where the path to starting looked relatively clear.
That all changed when N.C. State lost seven straight games to conclude last season. The school fired Chuck Amato and replaced him with O’Brien, which meant Beck had to impress a new coaching staff.
His numbers in scrimmages - 7-of-26 in the spring game, 7-of-20 with four interceptions in the two fall scrimmages where statistics were released - have been spotty. But since his competitors haven’t separated themselves either, Beck is still in the hunt.
If he gets the job, Beck thinks his Nebraska experience will be one of the reasons why.
“I’m glad I went out there,” he said. “It was a great experience for me.
“I really appreciated learning from Zac Taylor. I appreciate it a lot more now than when I was young - I was only 17, so I was a little different then. I was a little more non-appreciative. I wanted to play real bad when I was there. I look back at it now, and I’m really glad I got to sit and watch Zac Taylor and all he did for me.”
Wear, but not display.
“I feel like, right now, I don’t need to be flashing them all over the place,” Keller said. “I’m not necessarily trying to cover up who I am; I’m just trying to look the part.”
Keller first met Angelo Richardson at a high school football camp in Michigan. Both were from the Danville, Calif., area but attended different high schools. Keller eventually swayed Richardson, a talented receiver, to transfer to San Ramon Valley High and become his teammate. He later convinced coaches at Arizona State they needed an explosive, athletic receiver like Richardson, who’d become an All-American in junior college.
“I fell in love with that kid,” Keller said. “I love that guy.”
Richardson never played at ASU. On March 4, 2006, Richardson attended a party with friends in San Francisco. A fight broke out, and Richardson was struck by a stray bullet.
He still can’t walk today.
To help Richardson, Keller’s father, Mike, along with family friend Doug Mather, formed the Angelo Richardson Fund. Donations helped pay for Richardson’s six-week stay at Baltimore’s Kennedy Krieger Institute, a top facility for spinal cord injuries.
Keller had also intended on wearing his fallen friend’s old number — 2 — during his senior season at ASU.
That season never happened. Yeah, Keller could’ve probably requested No. 2 in red this season in Lincoln.
He didn’t. Keller’s reasoning?
“Starting over,” he said.
Perhaps that’s why Keller’s half- sleeve is white. Clean, pure, fresh.
Keller reflects deeply about Promessi and Richardson. He talks about perspective, about life being short. He realizes he’s fortunate to have a second chance.
So what if Keller endured turmoil and controversy? So what if he felt betrayed? So what if last season was a humbling experience of playing scout-team quarterback and cheering from the sideline in street clothes?
“That sent me right back down to earth,” Keller said. “You better believe it.”
So what if the first words Corey McKeon uttered to Keller were “you’re the dumbest person I know,” a tongue-in-cheek chastisement for leaving the girls, sunshine and parties of Arizona for, well, Nebraska.
“There are things going on in this world,” Keller said, “that are a lot bigger than you.”
This is the part where Keller waxes poetic about life beyond football, about football just being a game, right?
Wrong.
If anything, life’s events have made him focus even more on the sport.
“Football is what I’ve got,” Keller said. “Football is what I love and what I’m good at. What you have and you love, you need to embrace. You realize what you love to do, and you get a fresh start at it.
“That’s why I’ve attacked this thing like I’ve never attacked anything before.”
Sam Keller arrived in Lincoln already humbled. He was emotionally weary. He was lonely. He holed up for several days in The Cornhusker Marriott, on his dad’s dime, then settled into his North Lincoln apartment.
All the time, Nebraska football fans were raving about their lucky catch. The cocksure, gun-slinging, California-cool quarterback that got jobbed out of a job at Arizona State. The 2007 season couldn’t get here soon enough … and the 2006 season was still a week away.
Fans also wondered whether they should be concerned. (If he’s such a prize, why did his Arizona State teammates suddenly shun their one-time captain?) They heard he liked to party. They saw the Internet pictures of girls pawing at a smiling Keller.
Meanwhile, Keller was back in his room, watching TV, thinking and reading books.
About the Civil War.
“You have to hit rock-bottom,” Keller says, “before you can come back up. I had to build it back up little by little.”
Nebraska players had heard about Keller and his impending arrival. They knew an NFL-type quarterback had fallen into Bill Callahan’s lap. They’d also heard about the Tempe freakshow.
“You never know,” Nebraska linebacker Bo Ruud said. “Anybody comes in here, you’ve always got to feel them out.”
That took Ruud all of a couple minutes. Said he liked Keller instantly. Still does.
So, if one of Nebraska’s own — a Lincoln kid, a team captain, a crowd favorite — can warmly embrace Keller …
“I don’t now what Arizona State was thinking, exactly,” Ruud said. “I don’t know why you’d want to let that guy go.”
Says McKeon: “But look what happened to them (the Sun Devils). Their season went to the (toilet). That Carpenter kid, he hasn’t done (anything). He’s back, but he got his (behind) kicked.
“Everyone (at ASU) wants Sam back now.”
That “Carpenter kid” would be Rudy Carpenter. He’s beginning his junior season, and his second full season as Arizona State’s starting quarterback.
On Aug. 19, 2006, a day after ASU coach Dirk Koetter named Keller his starting quarterback, Carpenter and his father met for two hours with Koetter.
The Carpenters, Mike Keller said, issued an ultimatum: Rudy’s your guy, or Rudy’s gone.
“They said Sam wasn’t the leader he needed to be,” Mike Keller said. “They were campaigning for themselves.”
The decision became one of business: Keep a budding quarterback with three years of eligibility, or lose him for only one more season of Keller.
Koetter called a meeting of the team unity council. Mike Keller said it was to “justify his decision,” although he said he’s heard that only player in that meeting (out of some 15 or 16) supported only Carpenter.
Still, Koetter flip-flopped and chose Carpenter. Sam Keller chose the first road out of Tempe.
“I wasn’t going to stay there,” the quarterback said. “There was no way I was going to stay there. I had to go.”
With the help of his father, a sports management consultant with football ties across the country, Keller quickly began searching schools that would welcome an NFL arm with one year of eligibility in 2007.
It was a blurry, emotional, costly week in late August that landed Keller in Lincoln — several days, a few tears and about $5,000 later.
Worth every penny, Mike Keller said.
Of course, the new guy on Lincoln’s campus had to answer about 213,291 questions about what really happened in Tempe. Keller said he’s shared the sordid details with some. Publicly, he’s calling it a business decision that’s made him a better person.
“It’s a blessing in disguise,” McKeon said. “He’s here. He’s going to be the starting quarterback for the University of Nebraska, and he’s going to lead a great team.
“What does he care about ASU?”
Dirk Koetter was fired after ASU went 7-6 last season. Carpenter had an up-and-down season, throwing 23 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. He told reporters last spring, after the fact, that two separate hand injuries hurt his performance, and that he had confidence issues.
Koetter, now the offensive coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars, declined an interview request for this story, but in February told the Journal Star that his change in decision had absolutely nothing to do with any off-field issues involving Keller. In fact, Koetter said he’s “a big fan” of Keller and commented on his toughness.
Said Keller about his former coach: “I can remember a lot of great times with him. You spend a lot of time with a guy, you don’t just hate him after something like that happens.”
ASU sports information director Mark Brand said Carpenter won’t talk anymore about last year’s fiasco, saying it’s “in the past.”
But Carpenter recently told the East Valley (Ariz.) Tribune that he believes many people still see him as “Rudy Carpenter, the man who made Sam Keller leave and got Coach Koetter fired.”
If people knew the whole story, Carpenter said, then they might see him differently.
“I swear to God, I couldn’t care less what (Keller) or his dad or anybody else is doing,” Carpenter said.
“I hope Sam does well this year, and he and his dad get whatever they want to get accomplished. But I don’t care about them.”
Keller said he doesn’t hold any ill feelings toward Carpenter. Life is too short, he said, to hold grudges.
“It isn’t really easy,” Keller said, “but you feel really good when you’re able to (let go).
“Bygones are bygones. The hard part is over. This part right now, that I’m in right now, it’s just unbelievable. It’s the greatest thing.”
Keller then motions with his arm, the one with the white sleeve, and looks toward the field at Memorial Stadium.
“I mean, look where I ended up? Is that such a bad deal?”
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
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