Franklin Strikes a Balance

The next morning, Franklin received a call from his older sister. Their mother had passed away during the night. Franklin kept his devastation to himself all day, and that evening, Kansas State piled up 463 total yards and thrashed Colorado, 47-20. Franklin broke down in the locker room following the victory. He flew home Sunday morning to see his mother, just as he had planned, though he spent the next few days planning her funeral instead of keeping her company.

"I'm back here at Maryland, and that was a big part of me coming back," Franklin said. "My sister still lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband and kids, so that has an impact on me. I have a lot of uncles and cousins that live here in the area. That was tough. My mom was sick, and I was trying to do a great job as the offensive coordinator. I was away from home trying to balance all those things."

Franklin prides himself on his ability to maintain balance. A year out of college, he moved to Denmark to play for the Roskilde Kings, where he was the quarterback and offensive coordinator. Then he returned to his alma mater, East Stroudsburg (Pa.), where he worked on a master's degree while serving as a graduate assistant for the football team.

Denny Douds, East Stroudsburg's head coach for the past 34 years, said he and Franklin used to sit on Douds's porch each evening, munching on Klondike bars and talking football.

"He's always been a people person," Douds said. "He understood it's a people game first."

As a wide receivers coach at James Madison, Franklin made a similar impression on fellow assistant Ron Prince, who said he was struck by how the players gravitated toward Franklin. When Prince was named the head coach at Kansas State following the 2005 season, he hired Franklin to be his offensive coordinator.

No matter where Franklin went, he maintained the same approach: work hard, be positive and always compete. It is a set of guidelines he gleaned from his father, an African American who worked at General Motors for 32 years, and from his mother, an outgoing British woman who met Franklin's father while he was serving in the U.S. Air Force. It is an approach that has yet to fail.

Junior wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey said his mother, Vivian, became enamored of Franklin as soon as she met him during Heyward-Bey's recruitment.

"When he left [after the 2004 season], my mom was a little bit more sad than I was," Heyward-Bey said. "When she heard he was coming back, she was excited."

West Coast Comes to Maryland

In fact, many people inside College Park and out are eager to see the effect Franklin and his West Coast schemes have on the Terrapins' offense. Franklin said there will be some play action and a few gimmicks to go along with the precise passing and timed routes typically associated with West Coast offenses.

"He was really anxious about finding a place where he could go and perhaps be a head coach, and we feel that when the time is right there that maybe he'll have an opportunity whenever Coach [Ralph] Friedgen decides he doesn't want to coach any longer," Prince said. "But we think he's an up-and-comer, and we're really excited about his future."

The key, for the success of both Franklin and the Maryland offense, will be maintaining balance. Franklin said that doesn't mean fans should expect him to call running plays half the time and passing plays the other half. What it means, he said, is that defensive coordinators should know that under any circumstance, Maryland's offense has the ability to run or pass.

Likewise, Franklin won't use a 50-50 mind-set when choosing which battles to pick with his players. In 2005, he spent a season as the wide receivers coach of the Green Bay Packers, and he realized coaches don't have to motivate players to work hard in the NFL like they do in college. In that regard, he said he'll never hesitate to push when he feels it necessary.

He'll also never hesitate to share joy in a job well done, to walk that fine line, to find that balance.

On the fifth day of training camp, senior kicker Obi Egekeze nailed a 47-yard field goal that got the team out of a few sets of sprints at the end of practice. Amid the ruckus of an early-August football practice, a familiar strained yelp rose above the din. "Obi! Where's Obi?"

Franklin found his target, jumped, bumped shoulders with Egekeze and tumbled to the ground. After barrel-rolling one revolution, Franklin popped up and ran over to begin the next drill.