Murray's time to shine at UGA

The news that Aaron Murray had earned the starting quarterback job at Georgia ranked well behind the medical update given his mother this spring. A tumor on her brain that doctors had been treating for two years was no longer visible on any scan.

Given that, it is hardly a stretch for them to believe that a redshirt freshman can step in and throw a credible pass for the Georgia Bulldogs.

Ready or not, Aaron Murray at 19 is about to get thrown into big-time college football. He makes his first collegiate start Sept. 4 against Louisiana-Lafayette, commencing what will be a weekly dissection of his character and abilities by the vast Bulldog following.

There is a Murray family philosophy that should help him deal with the kind of pressure he faces: "We have always told him to just go for what he wants," said his mother, Lauren. "What's the worst that can happen, you lose a game? At the end of the day, you still have God and family. The only thing bad is if you live with regrets."

Broke leg, won state

To date, according to one well-placed observer, Aaron is holding up to the challenge. "He is handling it very well. Don't let him know it, but he has impressed me," said brother Josh, a 26-year-old walk-on safety at Georgia.

Aaron is the great unknown of this Georgia season, an untested trigger man who is supposed to help the world forget an eight-win 2009 and the punishment of a bowl trip to Shreveport.

But his family has seen up close what happens when the second of the three Murray kids devotes his mind and body to a task.

Coach Richard Weiner still can scarcely believe Aaron's final season at Tampa Plant High School, and he lived it. Pulled down from behind with legs folding unnaturally, his star quarterback was lost in the sixth game of 2008. Aaron's left leg was broken, his ankle severely twisted. Turn out the lights, season over, right? Already committed to Georgia, Aaron's initially worried that his entire football future was at risk.

But, by the time that weekend was done, he had shelved those concerns and come up with an audacious plan. He would compress into weeks a recovery that was supposed to take months. He would play in a state championship game.

An idea like that gets a definite reaction. Visiting after the injury, the Georgia coaching staff "looked kind of shocked" when they were told about it, said Murray's father, Denny.

His teammates were highly motivated. "When they told us he was trying to come back, we said alright, let's keep winning so he can do it," said Georgia tight end Orson Charles, a Tampa Plant teammate.

They kept winning. Murray kept healing, spending hours a day in therapy. All the while, "he was basically my offensive coordinator," Weiner said. When the head coach was suspended for a game, Murray went up into the box with the other assistants and called plays.

Doctors cleared Murray to play for the state semifinals, seven weeks after his injury. He still couldn't straighten his left foot, and he had a noticeable limp. Yet, the first pass he threw against Palm Beach Gardens Dwyer went for a 33-yard touchdown.

He and Plant won the championship, Murray throwing for 344 yards and three touchdowns (one a 72-yarder to Charles) against Tallahassee Lincoln.

So, son, are you crazy?

"Yeah, pretty much," Murray said. Playing so soon "probably wasn't the smartest thing, but it was my goal. I wanted to do it. It was my choice."

Family matters most

Building decision-making skills early was a key part of the Murray family platform. It holds that kids need to learn about charting their own lives, with the help of a little guidance and good information. And maybe, in the end, that will make for a 19-year-old who can handle himself when the heat is on in Columbia, S.C., or Jacksonville.

That's not always easy. Aaron grew up in the heart of Florida Gator territory. "All my clients are Gator fans," said his father, who owns a civil engineering firm in Tampa. Aaron has an uncle who is a Bull Gator – meaning really avid – booster. Yet, once he visited Georgia during a spring game, Aaron was dead set on signing with Florida's rival.

The freedom of choice extended to ethereal matters as well. Lauren was born Jewish, Denny Catholic. Their children celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah, Passover and Easter. Older brother Josh went to a Jewish middle school and a Catholic high school. "We wanted to expose them to both cultures, concentrate on what (the faiths) have in common and then let them decide," Denny said. The boys have embraced Christianity, as has their mother.

They heard plenty of dissent from the sidelines, whether they were choosing a school or a faith. "It always surprised us that others are so willing to share with us all the mistakes we made as parents," chuckled his mother. But no outside opinion mattered in the end.

Family is all that mattered. To get Aaron really animated, ask him about the other quarterback in the family. That's his sister, Stephanie, a senior at Plant who plays in a high school flag football league.

"Her sophomore season, she threw 42 touchdowns. Last year, she broke the pinkie on her throwing hand and still threw 10 touchdowns in three games before she couldn't throw any more," he said, pointing out that playing in pain is a family trait. "She's a tremendous athlete."

Brother's choice

It is Josh, the firstborn, who has demonstrated the greatest devotion to his clan. And that extends far deeper than the tattooed initials of his grandparents, parents and two siblings he bears.

He was the elite athlete in the beginning. Born seven years before Aaron and nine years before Stephanie, he was the one they all looked up to. Denny had played minor league baseball for the Toronto organization, and Josh, a second-round pick of Milwaukee in 2002, was set to raise his father's ambitions to a new level.

But as he began traveling the labyrinth of the minors, Josh found that his heart wasn't in the journey. Ogden, Utah, and Beloit, Wis., seemed like other planets. He found himself delaying getting on that plane from Tampa to his next stop on the baseball ladder as long as he could.

His passion for the game gone, Josh quit baseball late in 2007. After visiting Aaron in January of last year, the two hatched another plan. He'd join Aaron in Athens — the Brewers pay for his tuition — and even walk on to the football team.

A senior, he is the old man of the team now, a spare DB who may never see the field. The most he can hope for is to get in on a little special team action.

Now Josh is the one in the shadows while his little brother is the object of every fan's gaze.

"I love it," Josh said. "It's his time now. I'm here for him. I'm more happy for him, more excited about everything that the future holds for him than I ever was for myself."

The brothers don't room together – Josh is in an apartment, Aaron lives on campus. But big brother is always there, always around offering advice or a cautionary tale.

Lately, his message to Aaron has been about taking control. "I tell him to look at (N.Y. Jets quarterback) Mark Sanchez. As a rookie last year, no matter the ups and downs he had, he was always animated, always getting after it. Aaron needs to have that enthusiasm, show his team he's going to be there all the time."

And Aaron will do that and more, his brother insists.

You don't know Aaron Murray yet. His family does.

They say you will learn soon enough that, as his comeback in high school demonstrated, he is tough and driven.

They say be patient; that he is young, he will err, but he will work non-stop to correct the flaws.

They say that his every habit — like not drinking soda or turning off his cell phone at 10 p.m. — was formed with one thought in mind:

"About being an asset to Georgia football," said his mother.

Just wait, they say. And you might believe, too.