To stay, or not to stay? That is the question that had plagued a plethora of college football players until Jan. 15, the date when they had to declare for the NFL draft.
Some of the NCAA football's toughest competitors in 2003 had an easy decision to make regarding whether or not to return for their final season in college. For other players, the decision was more difficult.
While agents typically will always tell players to leave school, and coaches will tell them to stay, there is one more thing that seems to be a constant - critics, fans and media always seem to have their minds made up about what an athlete should do, regardless of who the player is.
But the decision for each player is not that black-and-white - each player's situation must be looked at individually as there is no clear-cut right or wrong answer.
This theory has been proven with ASU players pondering the decision. Following the 1999 season, wide receiver Tariq McDonald - a two-year starter - surprised many by bypassing his senior year for the draft. To almost no one's surprise, except possibly his own, McDonald was never drafted and had no pro career.
The following season, tight end Todd Heap left after three years as a Sun Devil and was selected in the first-round of the draft. In his second professional season, Heap was named to the Pro Bowl.
Last season, the Sun Devils had two All-American players leave early, defensive end Terrell Suggs and wide receiver Shaun McDonald, Tariq's younger brother.
Suggs was taken with the No. 10 overall selection in the draft and won the NFL's defensive Rookie of the Year after recording 12 sacks and forcing six fumbles for the Baltimore Ravens.
The jury is still out on Shaun McDonald, who was selected in the fourth-round of the draft but caught only 10 passes for 62 yards in his rookie season.
While both Suggs and McDonald left, ASU had two other players - guard Regis Crawford and fullback Mike Karney - who filed paperwork after the 2002 season with an NFL advisory committee which would predict where they may be drafted if they left a year early. Both players ended up staying this season and appear to have improved their status for April's draft.
ASU head coach Dirk Koetter said about 55 percent of players who file paperwork with the NFL end up staying for their senior seasons.
Following this season, the Sun Devils had two more juniors who where on the fence as to whether they would leave or stay in Tempe - free safety Jason Shivers, the team's leading tackler the last three seasons, and quarterback Andrew Walter, who Koetter calls the "poster boy" for the program.
Last November, Koetter said "I'm going to back (Shivers and Walter) on whatever they and their family think is best." In the same sitting, Koetter said his team could not afford to continue to lose its best players early to the NFL.
Shivers quietly made it clear of his decision to leave ASU over the holidays, saying he had planned all along to leave Tempe after three years regardless of where he was predicted to be taken in the draft.
It was not possible for Shivers' stats to vastly improve in 2004, and he likely remembered another former ASU free safety, Mitchell "Fright Night" Freedman, who many speculated would be drafted following his junior year in 1997. But Freedman stayed for his senior year and saw his on-field performance disappear along with his chance of a pro career.
Walter held a press conference to announce he would indeed be reporting to spring football with the rest of his teammates.
While Koetter and Sun Devil fans were giddy to hear of Walter's choice to "finish what he started at ASU," Walter mentioned other reasons for his decision.
Seemingly a good reason for anybody to turn pro is to "leave and make the big bucks now." For Walter, it may be more a case of "stay now and make even bigger bucks later." Walter, along with a number of draft experts, believe the 6-foot-5 missile-launcher will be one of the top picks if not the No. 1 choice in the 2005 draft, as oppose to a second or third round selection this April.
For standout college football players who are juniors, there is no universal right answer whether to stay in school or leave - it just depends on their situation.
Reach the reporter at christopher.drexel@asu.edu.
