Transfer Becker brings championship experience

NCAA rules say that Penn cannot win a national football championship this year.

That’s OK with freshman quarterback Ryan Becker — he already has one championship in his resume, at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fl.

He also has something else that the rest of this year’s football recruiting class does not: a year of college football under his belt at Florida State University.

It may be difficult to understand why any athlete would go from scholarship money to $200,000 in loans, from the glitz and glamour of an athletic powerhouse to the often underrated Ivy League — which doesn’t participate in postseason football — and from relatively low expectations in the classroom to U.S. News and World Report’s No. 4 ranked university in the nation.

For Becker, though, Penn was always his first choice.

After leading his high school team to a national title and 15-0 record his senior season, his college options were wide open.

“There was always a school on campus to watch somebody, just because we had that caliber team,” Becker said. “But the Ivy League was the best fit for me.”

He continued to work with financial aid offices at Penn in hopes of joining the Quakers.

“My goal the whole time was to play at Penn,” he said.

But when it seemed that Penn was not a financial option, he chose to stay within driving distance, enroll at Florida State and walk on to the football team.

The move paid off when the fleet-footed quarterback began to impress on the practice field. At one point last season, Becker was the Seminoles’ backup signal caller, though he never played a down.

When he had a second opportunity to join the Quakers, however, he and his family found a way to make the move fit financially.

And after just two weeks in University City, Becker’s experience is living up to his expectations, including tougher classes, for which he is prepared.

While Penn coach Al Bagnoli cannot require as much workout time from his players as coaches at FSU can, what the Red and Blue lack in quantity of time, they make up for in quality of practice effort.

“We make up for the work by doing it right,” Becker said.

Though Becker had to wait a year to attend his first-choice school, to him, the move was well worth the wait.

“I got to learn how to balance football with a college courseload,” he said. “I’ve matured a lot.”

But the balance between transfer and freshman on the team can be a delicate one. Becker explained that he is treated a little differently than the other players in his recruiting class, but the upperclassmen still put him in his place when he needs it.

And his teammates will vouch for that.

“Everybody’s pretty friendly on the team,” senior Dave Macknet said. “[We try] to help out any way we can, hang out with him when we can [and] help him adjust.”

Becker joins Macknet, a senior who transferred from La Salle, as the Red and Blue’s two transfer students on the football field.

But the list of success stories for Penn transfers is longer, including Ivy champion quarterback Kyle Olson, W. Hoops captain Sarah Bucar and All-American wrestler Scott Giffin.

Given the track record of some of the Red and Blue’s most recent transfers, it only seems fitting that Becker will experience similar success.

That is if he can cope with having no national championship trophy to strive for.

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