Our Honor Defend

Usually with Ken Gordon’s stuff at the Dispatch one of us just adds it to our del.icio.us account and let our readers reader mull it over, since Gordon’s a wealth of information and his blog kinda speaks all that needs to be said. That said, this recent post I can’t help but share some thoughts on.

Rumors had been flying that QB Antonio Henton has been thinking about transferring. Some speculated the Georgia native may head back closer to home, specifically to Georgia Southern. It’s a successful Division I-AA school where he could play right away, and the offensive coordinator there is Henton’s old high school coach, Rance Gillespie.

Well, forget about it. Gillespie just told me he kept in close touch with Henton, and has heard nothing about him transferring anywhere.

“He is extremely happy there (at Ohio State),” Gillespie said.

The tone of Gillespie’s voice led me to believe he was surprised by my question, and he was being honest with his answer. Also, Henton said in New Orleans that he welcomed the challenge of Terrelle Pryor, should he arrive.

So I think we can put one rumor to rest.

So there you have it, according to Gordon and his high school football coach — who would definitely know better than any one of us — Henton is not mulling over transferring. Heck, even Henton’s former coach was surprised that the question would come up.

We here welcome OHD-favourite Henton staying as much as we would welcome him being the man for the future. The first component comes from everything we’ve heard about Antonio Henton through a mutual friend, who tells us that Antonio is every bit the good-natured nice guy a wistful Buckeye interpretation of him could be. We also think this directly translates into a ‘coachability’¹ if you will, that, combined with having more talent coming in as a quarterback (in my opinion) than the eventual Heisman winner, would make him a Troy Smith 2.0 incarnate who doesn’t bear the stone of shame (being under 6′0).

But it’s exactly the second component that has us wondering if, especially in light of him getting hosed by the CPD, he’s heading elsewhere. For a guy who, if we’re guessing correctly, had his sights set on being the man to be invariably replaced by Terrelle Pryor could only logically lead him to transfer to greener pastures and guaranteed playing time.

In the event that Pryor joins on and demotes Henton to career backup, the decision for Henton to stay the course and become an alumnus would make him even more of an OHD-favourite than he already is. It’s precisely why we respect Justin Zwick’s decision to stay with the Buckeyes even as his young QB career went up in smoke. Doing what Zwick did, and what Henton may be doing, necessarily requires swallowing one’s pride and moving beyond a narrow self-interest to be the ultimate team player (i.e, the second stringer if that’s what happens). It requires moving beyond dreams of NFL glory to being content with a free education, money for books, and the friends you’ve made on campus.

It’s why we would love Henton for staying on if that’s what ultimately develops, but still we can’t see it happening notwithstanding what Henton’s former coach said. Of course, he would know more than a clown like me, but I still have my doubts.

I would love to be wrong, though. Actually, I would love to be wrong about the assumption that Pryor has more coming in to Ohio State (should he come) than Henton has now. That would be neat.

1. our coaching credential, of course, are none [↩]