Lincoln Journal Star’s Steve Sipple produced a great piece on Sam Keller and his troubles making headway in the NFL. I was never a Keller fan, but this is a touching piece with a moral not just for him, but for everyone to reflect upon.

Keller said several NFL teams asked him about an incident in March of 2007 in which he allegedly threw a paper cup at a woman’s car after she beat him to a parking spot on campus. Charges were eventually dropped. It’s almost embarrassing for me to bring up the matter at this point, except to illustrate that these seemingly minor incidents can be harmful to players on draft day.

“Teams really thought I threw a whole cup of coffee on the girl,” Keller said as he packed for his trip to Tampa.

As for his football:

“I was just surprised with how much teams didn’t like me,” Keller said earlier this week. “I was surprised with how much I heard that teams don’t like my (throwing) release. They continued to question the Arizona State situation no matter what I said. …

“Character and release. It just kept coming back that teams didn’t like those things about me. It’s just something I continue to have to battle.”

On the pressures of being a star:

“You feel these different emotions,” Keller said. “For me, last weekend was a feeling of being lost and kind of embarrassed. You have these expectations, and you find out other people have expectations for you — your family, friends, people around you. You just kind of feel like you’re out there flopping in the breeze. It’s kind of like, ‘God, I’m so sorry.’ You wish you could have brought more joy to the day.

Perspective is what’s missing from this story. “Flopping in the breeze” is a poor description for someone who has already achieved as much as Keller has. Starting QB at Arizona State and Nebraska is big. Maybe not guaranteed-to-make-the-NFL big, but big nonetheless.