Early today we passed along a report from NFL.com about Brandon O’Brien, a Marine turned college wide receiver who had decided to re-enlist rather than pursue a place in the NFL. The NFL.com report portrayed O’Brien as having been motivated by the Boston Marathon bombing.
But O’Brien says that’s not right.
“Those reports are absolutely false,” O’Brien told BeyondSportsNetwork.com. “First off, me deciding to go back into the military has nothing to do with the Boston bombings and, furthermore, I have not yet reenlisted in the Marines.”
Instead, O’Brien says he decided two weeks ago, after returning home from an intensive training program with some other former college players who are hoping to get drafted by the NFL next week, that pro football wasn’t in the cards for him. O’Brien decided then that returning to the military is the right path for him.
“I did some soul searching and realized that I was put here to help people and not play professional football. The military is a passion of mine and it is something I hold close to my heart and love to be a part of,” O’Brien said.
The “absolutely false” reports O’Brien refers to had been portraying him as a patriotic hero for responding to the attack in Boston by wanting to serve his country. If O’Brien wanted public acclaim, the easy thing would have been to stay quiet. It’s to O’Brien’s credit that he wanted to set the record straight.
Photo via Beyond Sports Network.