There was: Joe, who had just thrown for 2,783 yards and 18 touchdowns for the Blue Hens, asked Keeler whether he could play baseball, too.
Keeler was incredulous.
"My response was: 'Baseball?! OK, where? You mean here at Delaware? You realize you're going to be a [NFL] draft choice?' "
"Oh, really?" Joe said, as if the thought had never occurred to him.
And that was the end of that discussion, with Keeler quickly declaring that both Joe and the school had too much invested in his football career for any baseball nonsense.
Football is where Joe decided to make his mark - and he's getting plenty of family support. Last year, the entire Flacco family - including Mike - traveled to Baltimore to see Joe's first home game as a Raven - the second preseason game against the Minnesota Vikings. "We were just anxious to see him do well," Steve said. "We expected him to go out there and let everyone know he could be the starter someday."
Mike took a more circuitous route to a pro career. He played football, basketball and baseball at four different high schools, then starred in baseball as a fifth-year graduate at Peddie School, a prestigious boarding school in Hightstown, N.J.
He also shot up from a skinny 5 feet 7, 135 pounds as a sophomore to 6-2, 200 pounds as a senior, a frame more like his older brother's.
"The overview with Mike always was that he'd be a baseball player," Steve said. "Growing up, he was always the best player on his team."
At Peddie, Mike made an immediate impression on coach Erik Treese.
"We went to Florida for spring training and he was just ripping line drives in the [batting] cage one day," Treese recalled. "I just turned to my assistant coach and said, 'Wow.'
"[Mike] looked effortless in a lot of the things he did. That's what all the kids talked about: how smooth he was."
But a mysterious back ailment, never fully diagnosed, sidelined Mike for the next two years.
Steve enlisted the help of Tim Bishop, former strength and conditioning coach for the Orioles, to see whether something could be done to ease the pain and stiffness in Mike's back.
Ultimately, the only thing that really helped was rest. But the connection with Bishop led to Mike's decision to attend CCBC-Catonsville in 2008 and play baseball; he led the team with a .399 batting average, 14 home runs and 51 RBIs while attracting the attention of pro scouts.
