To Be Young and Rich?

Vince Young stood on the balcony at his hotel room, alone with his thoughts and away from the cheering fans and bright lights of the national championship game he had starred in a few hours earlier.

There, with only the sounds of the city accompanying him, Young did what any 235-pound quarterback who had just led his team to an undefeated season might do.

He had a good cry.

“The tears hit me when I got in,” Young said. “I went out on the balcony and sat out there and had some words with the man upstairs. They came down.”

Perhaps it was the magnitude of it all: Getting selected Rose Bowl most valuable player for the second consecutive year, upsetting the No. 1-ranked team in the nation along the way, or proving once and for all that he possesses legitimate quarterbacking skills.

Or maybe it was the prospect of facing a life-altering decision over the next two weeks, about whether to enter the NFL draft.

Young’s Rose Bowl performance solidified him as one of the top picks should he choose to enter the draft, but it also made the decision a lot more difficult.

Young said throughout this season that he intended to return to Texas for his senior year. But by rushing for 200 yards and three touchdowns, passing for 267 yards, and leading an electrifying fourth-quarter comeback in a 41-38 win over USC on Wednesday, Young suddenly vaulted into the upper echelon of NFL prospects.

“I’m going to sit down with my family members, sit and talk with coach Brown -- the guys who you truly respect,” Young said.

There’s not much left for him to prove in college. He won a national championship and made NCAA history this season when he became the first player to rush for 1,000 yards and pass for 2,500.

But he’s also a down-home, 22-year-old who loves the college atmosphere.

It’s his complex personality -- one that allows him to play with a flashy bravado and brashness on the field, yet stand alone crying on his balcony off it -- that makes the decision more difficult.

Young is far from the showman most people see on the field. He’s generally quiet, reserved, humble ... and emotional.

He said his game-winning, eight-yard touchdown run with 19 seconds left that clinched the national title was only a prelude to what he’ll remember most from the game.

“Just to see them guys’ eyes,” he said, referring to his teammates, “the emotion, that’s a moving moment that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

He said he couldn’t care less about being the superstar quarterback making all the big plays. It’s a role he accepts because it’s what his teammates and coaches ask of him and it helps the team.

“I’m just a guy,” he said. “I love the game of football and I love my teammates. All I do is go out there and play with my teammates and do whatever it takes to get the ‘W.’ ”

Tight end David Thomas, a close friend, said Young’s teammates-first attitude is not a contrived public persona.

“He’s one of the most genuine, nice, caring guys you’ll ever meet,” Thomas said. “That’s what makes him such a great leader. Everyone knows he’s legitimate and he’s not just blowing smoke. That’s the most important thing about him.”

As he stood on that balcony, Young said he wasn’t thinking about his great performance or how he showed up any critics.

His thoughts, he said, dealt with how far he has come from his childhood in a rough Houston neighborhood and how blessed he felt to have come so far.

“It was just a big flashback of me growing up,” he said.

Where he grew up is within a couple of miles of Reliant Stadium, home of the Houston Texans, who have the first pick of the NFL draft in April.

Whether Young leaves school, Texas Coach Mack Brown said, will be the quarterback’s call.

“The worst thing that could possibly happen would be for a coach to try to convince a young guy to come back if it wasn’t best for him,” Brown said. “If he’s back and unhappy, that’s the worst thing you can possibly have.”

So now Young must decide if he could be happy, as soon as later this year, in the glitz and glamour of the NFL.

It’s a far cry from the balcony.