There are always two sides to every story, and Russell Wilson sure seems to like doubling down on his side of the story regarding his exit from North Carolina State. In his recent commencement address to the graduating class at his second alma mater, Wisconsin, Wilson took the opportunity to once again dig up some old stories from his point of view on how things went down in his final days with the Wolfpack.
To refresh those still unfamiliar with the twisted tale, Wilson and former NC State head coach Tom O’Brien were believed to fail to see eye-to-eye on Wilson’s desire to play both baseball and football while at NC State. This ultimately ended up in a divorce of sorts, and Wilson ended up using a graduate transfer to attend Wisconsin for his final season of eligibility.
Wilson led Wisconsin to a Big Ten title and a Rose Bowl appearance, where he and the Badgers fell just shy in a back-and-forth game against Chip Kelly and his Oregon Ducks. Wilson, of course, went on to win a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks and came within mere yards of winning a second. O’Brien has since retired after previously being let go by NC State.
You would think at this point, we could let this one go, but Wilson is still attached to it and uses it as his inspirational story. The problem, however, is Wilson either has some information that never had been known before or he simply has rewritten history in his memory bank in the years since going to Madison. In his commencement speech at Wisconsin, Wilson shared his take on the falling out, with a bit of a twist on the tale as we had come to know it.
“The summer before my senior year of college, I’m playing minor-league baseball. I called my football coach at NC State and said, ‘Hey coach, I’d like to come back for my senior year.’ He told me I wasn’t coming back. He said, ‘Listen son, you’re never going to play in the National Football League. You’re too small. There’s no chance. You’ve got no shot. Give it up.’ Of course, I’m on this side of the phone saying, ‘So you’re telling me I’m not coming back to NC State? I won’t see the field?’ He said, ‘No son, you won’t see the field.’ Now this was everything I had worked for. And now it was completely gone. If I wanted to follow my dream I had to leave NC State. I had no idea if I would get a second chance somewhere else.”
Up until now, nobody ever thought O’Brien was blasting Wilson and his football abilities. O’Brien was simply hoping to keep Wilson focused on just football. At the time, O’Brien had a bit of a jumped quarterback situation on his hands with the possibility of having Wilson for one more year or Mike Glennon potentially seeking a transfer. O’Brien got in a situation where he was fixated on having Glennon be his starter.
Given the stock Glennon carried at the time, drawing comparisons to Matt Ryan, O’Brien would have been crazy not to find a way to maximize the production he could get from Glennon, who many around the game projected would be a better overall quarterback compared to Wilson.
You did not have to look very far to find believers of Wilson in his final years of college football. “All Russell Wilson Everything” was a real thing, and it was beautiful. Of course, Wilson has worked hard to get where he is, and Glennon is now setting up for another year backing up Jameis Winston in Tampa Bay. Wilson has already won the battle with O’Brien every which way you can imagine. He doesn’t need to rewrite history to prove his point.
To be fair, Wilson does still show love to his old stomping grounds in Raleigh, including these tweets from yesterday…
Grateful for two great Universities for assisting me in my dreams! @NCState & @UWMadison #DreamsDoComeTrue
— Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) May 15, 2016
I Love @NCState Too! Many TDs & Games won, Many classmates, fans & friends. Most importantly, a degree!
Congrats '16 Class!#TurnNoIntoYes— Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) May 15, 2016
And do not for one second think there is any love lost on the NC State side of things. Kalani Heppe, a former NC State teammate of Wilson, unloaded on Wilson’s comments on a Facebook posting. In it, Heppe accuses Wilson of being a player with a big ego who only thinks about himself.
Damn. pic.twitter.com/wqOVUkTPL6
— Bronce the 4th (@bronceIV) May 16, 2016
[CBSSports.com, FTW]
