At first glance, the path Aaron Maybin took to the NFL draft seems stunning and capricious. The Ellicott City native stayed just three years at Penn State, only one as a starter and that after a teammate was suspended early in the season.
But surprise and caprice played almost no role in the making of Maybin, a 21-year-old defensive end-linebacker whose explosive first step will carry him into the first round of Saturday's draft.
Not when his father covered more than 40,000 miles in a van he bought specifically for the purpose of investigating potential colleges for his son.
Not when the elder Maybin factored in Aaron's leg room in the van before making the purchase.
And not when Aaron wrote a letter - as a sophomore at Mount Hebron High - to his football coach to say his dream was to play linebacker for Penn State.
Put that all together and you have a journey that started sometime in Maybin's ninth-grade year with a conversation he had with his father.
"He said he wanted to go to college," Mike Maybin recalled last week. "I told him, 'You've got two choices - get a scholarship or go into the military.' "
Maybin, a lean, long athlete, earned that scholarship to Penn State with only a few speed bumps. One came halfway through that freshman year at Mount Hebron, when Mike Maybin pulled his son off the wrestling mat in mid-practice one day after report cards came out.
"He brought me a D," Mike said. "I don't do D's."
Suffice it to say, the Maybins didn't plot just an athletic road map to the big time, they dialed up academics, too. Aaron followed the map dutifully. At Mount Hebron, he excelled in sports but also found time to do community work, participate in drama programs and show a flair for art. He didn't bring home another D.
For all his impressive attributes, the one that stood out to most people was Maybin's work ethic. He wasn't going to be outworked in anything. He came back to finish the wrestling season but wrestled only one more year - as a junior - finishing fourth in the state heavyweight class despite giving away 60 pounds to his opponents at 215.
Although he played basketball one year, too, he knew football was his ticket. He was a Sun All-Metro pick and second-team All-State selection as a senior, posting 19 sacks over his last two years.
Nobody I ever coached worked harder in the weight room," Larry Luthe, Maybin's coach at Mount Hebron, said. "Put that with his God-given ability and he took it as far as it could be taken."
