KEN O’BRIEN: : The Jets Did Not Do Him Any Favors by Drafting Him Ahead of Miami’s Dan Marino, and the Switch From UC Davis to New York Was Difficult, but He’s Ready to Start Over

Ken O’Brien has achieved some fame nationally as the quarterback drafted before Dan Marino. It is a dubious sort of prominence, though.

How do you think Wally Pipp liked being the answer to a trivia question all those years? Lou Gehrig was a great guy, but a fellow should have a career of his own, right?

All the same, O’Brien’s NFL handle was probably preferable to his local notoriety, which last year was unrivaled by anybody but Mark Gastineau in these parts. It’s been a year since O’Brien sashayed into Studio 54 with buddy-teammate Gastineau, the New York Jets’ version of Jack the Ripper if you believed the press, and found himself in the midst of a small and unprovoked fracas.

And he still can’t get over it. He had the publicity, in amount and kind, that war criminals enjoy.

“That left a real bad taste,” said O’Brien, who resembles Dennis the Menace more than he does a mass murderer. “It just wasn’t fair.”

But as Anthony Carter, or some other Carter, once opined, who said the NFL was fair?

O’Brien was eventually acquitted--Gastineau was not--but his bitterness has not softened. “We’re talking about a misdemeanor case and it lasted four weeks,” he said. “Incredible! It was the longest running misdemeanor trial in New York history.”

To offer some perspective, Claus von Bulow was in and out of the tabloids faster than that.

The real damage, however, was not to O’Brien’s public image. The damage was to his career. That little misdemeanor trial cost him training camp last year--he was in court every day for four weeks--and, as a result, the starting job for much of the season as well.

That is why, going into Sunday’s game against the Raiders at the Coliseum, you may have never heard of the quarterback drafted between John Elway and Marino.

In time, O’Brien could rival his peers in at least the football press. Overlooking Marino, however, probably did not get the Jets’ director of personnel a bonus. Still, it didn’t cost him his job either. O’Brien is the kind of raw talent NFL teams like to invest in.

The Jets, who were looking at O’Brien to replace Richard Todd--although not this soon--when they drafted him, have gone out and hired a quarterback coach to rush him into stardom. O’Brien is their guy, do or die.

Not that the Jets are predicting great things for O’Brien. Their public attitude is very low key. Zeke Bratkowski, the quarterback guru called in to oversee O’Brien’s development and to administer a rare year-around program for him, refuses to compare him with the big talents of the class of ‘83, Elway and Marino.

“He’s just a young quarterback,” Bratkowski said, then added: “He has an extremely strong arm, is highly intelligent and has proved he can move. He does all the things well. He just needs to play.”

His more famous peers have had that opportunity, whereas O’Brien has not. O’Brien had been penciled in as the Jets’ starting quarterback last year but yielded that position to perennial back-up Pat Ryan while in court. Ryan started the first 11 and did well--the Jets were 6-2 at one point--but was finally blasted out of the lineup by two concussions and a rib injury.

So, all O’Brien got was five starts. Still, he finished with 1,402 yards, completing 116 of 203 attempted passes.

Maybe a star wasn’t born, but at least he was finally out of court and in the lineup.

Wherever he goes this year is up to the fates, his battered line and battered receivers. However, O’Brien already has come a long way from UC Davis, a school with a Division II program that is not necessarily considered a football factory. Did Marino have to pay for his education? (Well, actually, neither did O’Brien, since his father is an orthopedic surgeon.)

When a pro from a Division II program develops, the first thought is that somebody made a mistake. But O’Brien never thought that. It didn’t occur to him to consider it a travesty that his beginnings were so humble. In fact, he doubts that he would have learned as much football as he did had he gone to a Division I superpower.

“Davis was close to home (Sacramento) and it had won its league something like 16 of the previous 17 years,” O’Brien said. “But more than that, Davis developed a lot of quarterbacks. It was more a pro style offense than a lot of bigger programs. Somewhere else, I could have been lost in the shuffle. I’ve seen a lot of that.”

His coach there, Jim Sochor, actually got O’Brien as a transfer student from Cal State Sacramento. As to why Sochor didn’t have much competition for O’Brien, he said: “You have to realize he just had one season of high school football (as a passing quarterback). He had a strong arm, but he was raw and needed work. He was quick to learn, though, and put his heart and soul into it. It was what he really wanted to do.”

Although O’Brien was a diligent student-athlete--he graduated from a pre-law program with a 3.3 grade-point average--he makes no bones about his going to college to learn football. “Football was always my main thing,” he said. “I always dreamed of the NFL, even in high school.”

In high school it was a strange dream, considering that his team was option-oriented until his senior year, when he became a passer. Not a great way to develop quarterbacks as future No. 1 draft picks. But, as O’Brien said: “I had good size. Anytime you’re 6-3 and you can throw even a little, they look at you.” That’s why he was looked at at all.

At UC Davis, under the tutelage of Sochor, a student of the passing game, O’Brien progressed rapidly. In his senior season, O’Brien passed for 2,976 yards and 23 touchdowns and was a consensus Division II All-American. As O’Brien might say, any time you throw for nearly 3,000 yards, wherever you are, they look at you.

“Then I knew I could make it happen,” he said.

He made it happen and then wondered if that’s what he wanted after all. There is UC Davis and there is New York.

“When he first started he was not enamored of New York,” Sochor said. “He just didn’t fit in with the people and life style. The first year he just stood around and then the second year there was the Studio 54 thing. He was disenchanted.”

As who wouldn’t be. “Davis to New York City,” O’Brien sighed. “Now that’s a big difference.”

Still, he has tried to accommodate this new life style, but he has acquired some needed help. This summer he married his high school sweetheart, the sister of his best friend, and they moved to Long Island.

“When it’s all said and done, I’ll be back in California. But for now I’m happy to be here,” he said.

This settling in appears to be a factor in his continuing development as an NFL quarterback. From his vantage point on the other coast, Sochor thinks he sees a more mature O’Brien.

“Now the transition is over,” he said. “He’s married, he’s living there, and I think Zeke Bratkowski has had a calming effect on him. I think he’s on his way.”

So does O’Brien. He thinks he’s on his way in a hurry.

“I’m right on schedule,” he said. “I had a bad attitude after the trial, but then I realized what makes me happy is football. So I started playing again. I’m confident like I’ve never been before. I’m right on schedule. The difference between this year and last year, as far as what I know, is so great. I can understand it all now.”

There used to be a feeling in the NFL that a quarterback doesn’t come into his own until he’s acquired at least five years of on-the-job experience. It would take that long before he could understand it all.

“You know who started that?” asked Bratkowski, who achieved his fame as a Green Bay backup. “The incumbent quarterbacks.”

O’Brien thinks that Marino might have put that feeling to rest. He’s ready to be great right now, never mind the rest of the class of ’83.

“I’d love to go to the Super Bowl,” O’Brien said, musing about the future, suddenly impatient. He is no less aware of the standards of greatness set by at least one of the people picked after him. He knows he has some catching up to do.