Sidelines
IT'S too soon. Lelie’s choice hard on the heart
Not too soon because Ashley Lelie won't succeed. Anyone who watched him play this falls thinks that he probably will, and that includes a couple of coaches who know NFL talent when they see it.
Not too soon because he won't make a lot of money or he won't be happy or because he's making some kind of horrible mistake.
He's not.
And so we say "Aloha" to him, and goodbye and good luck.
It's probably the smart thing to do, if you crunch the numbers and play the angles and watch the stopwatches and have hair like Mel Kiper Jr. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, they say, and guys that tall who run that fast who make plays like that will go on to do quite well in the world, no matter when they come out. It's still a gamble, he could fall in the draft, the way Jeff Sydner did, the way Dominic Raiola did, but Lelie will be fine, he'll get his money. The main question remains whether he will make a lot of money or a LOT of money.
But it's still too soon.
Not for the head. The decision makes a lot of sense.
But for the heart.
Too soon because we saw Ashley Lelie stand up and say, "Best receiving corps in the nation!" hugging his teammates, grinning a giddy grin, crowing for the cameras. This is an outrageous statement, when you consider Florida, and Miami, and Florida State. And even more outrageous when you take into account that Lelie is a serious and composed young man, not taken to boasts and hyperbole or saying silly things. But he said it, and he meant it, and he loved it, so carried away was he in the emotion of the moment, in the glories that come with college football. Maybe, for those precious seconds, he and Hawaii were that unbeatable.
He sure felt like it, and he knew in his heart it was true.
And that's over now.
He owned the world once.
Perhaps he will again. Maybe he'll be in Super Bowls and on Wheaties boxes, maybe he'll have a city on his shoulders. Maybe he'll own the world again, in another place, in another time, after a few years, a few bruises, a few lessons learned.
And maybe the next time, he might even know it.
But he'll never get this year back, never have this crazy and innocent and wonderful time again.
He's a pro now.
He's a man now.
It's all business now -- cut-down dates and contracts and incentive clauses and other grown up things. The pros are cold, and they pay you, but they own you. People are hitting to feed their kids.
It's a million years away from Lelie's youthful smile, from his outrageous boast, from holding his arms around Channon Harris and Craig Stutzmann and Justin Colbert, all of them beaming and bright-eyed and looking like a picture of seniors on graduation night.
It turned out that it really was for Lelie. A year early, a whole, precious, wonderful, irreplaceable, gone year.
No, Lelie should go, he had to go.
But it's too bad. It was just too soon.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com