THE EASY thing — some would even say the smart thing — for Spiro Theodhosi would have been to walk away from football after a second season-ending knee injury before what would have been his senior season at Brown University last fall.

He's a Brown guy, after all. He could have completed his degree in economics and had his choice of jobs to pick from. That's what Ivy League men do.

But before there was Brown, there was Londonderry High School, where Theodhosi was part of coach Tom Sawyer's final team. He led the Lancers to the semifinals of the Division I playoffs and finished with more than 2,000 yards rushing in his career, a mark no other player in program history had ever reached.

Theodhosi — more commonly known by his middle name, Alex, back then — was Ivy League material, for sure, but he was also a running back of extraordinary talent, the kind that does not come out of New Hampshire too often.

He was a 5-foot 10-inch, 210-pound package of speed and power, a back Sawyer said would rather run over people than around them.

He had a chance to go to Nebraska as a preferred walk-on guaranteed of making the team, but he chose Brown for the Ivy League education.

“There's reality in the whole thing,” Theodhosi said at the time. “Not everyone is going to make it to the NFL. My best chance in life is to go to an Ivy League school, have fun and play football.”

By the time he got to Brown, he was known as Spiro, his legal first name, because that's what college recruiters saw on his paperwork. But, he said, most people now call him Theo.

“Either way, I'm the same person,” Theodhosi said.

And that's why he couldn't walk away from the game when others wouldn't have looked back.

You can call Spiro Alexander Theodhosi anything you want — Alex, Spiro or Theo — but you'd better call him a football player. Of course he went to Brown because he wanted an Ivy League education, but it was also for the chance to play football. It is part of who he is.

He first showed his ability in college as a sophomore when he was called on early against Yale after all-Ivy League running back Zach Tronti went down with an injury. Theodhosi stepped in and ran for 167 yards and a touchdown that game, following up with 138 yards and a touchdown against Dartmouth.

The future looked bright, and Theodhosi went to spring practice the next year ready to assert himself.

Then came the first knee injury. He hyper-extended his left knee making a cut after catching a short pass during a scrimmage. He needed surgery to repair his anterior cruciate ligament and would not be able to play that fall.

“It was kind of devastating,” Theodhosi said. “You work so hard to be good at something, and it crushes you.”

He went through the process of building the knee back up and went to spring ball of his junior year with a renewed sense of purpose.

And then he blew out the other knee during a practice.

“I put my foot down in the ground, and I felt my leg go sideways,” Theodhosi said. “I was limping off the field, and I knew it wasn't good.”

Not good at all. Another surgery, another season over before it even started.

And that's when Theodhosi, heading into what should have been his senior season, came to a crossroads.

He had one year of eligibility left. He could use it this fall, but that would mean taking the previous spring semester off from school since the Ivy League only allows athletes eight semesters to complete their eligibility in football. Or he could graduate on time and begin life after football.

“I could have said right then, 'It's not for me,'” Theodhosi recalled. “I was close to doing that, but there was unfinished business. I couldn't go out that way. I needed to play.”

And, boy, has he played.

He ran for 120 yards in his first game back, a 24-21 win at Holy Cross, followed that up by rushing for 85 in a 45-31 loss to Harvard, then totaled 142 yards with a touchdown in a 37-10 win Saturday at Georgetown.

“That first carry, it was very real,” Theodhosi said of his first touch against Holy Cross, a seven-yard run on Brown's second possession of the game. “I got to be in the moment, and then I had to move on to the next play.”

He was honored by the New England Football Writers with the Gold Helmet Award as the Division I player of the week in New England after the Holy Cross game and is third in the Ivy League and 16th nationally in rushing with an average of 115.7 yards per game going into Saturday's contest at in-state rival Rhode Island.

Brown coach Phil Estes, a New Hampshire native and University of New Hampshire graduate, said he would have been surprised if Theodhosi didn't come back.

“He was determined to do everything he could to come back,” Estes said. “He felt like he was robbed.”

Estes believes Theodhosi, who is playing around his high school weight, may be attractive to NFL teams as a fullback because he can add 25 pounds to his frame and still retain his speed and ability to run downhill.

For now, Theodhosi said he is relishing his time back with the team. He only wishes the Bears were 3-0 instead of 2-1 because the goal is to win the Ivy title.

Was it worth it to come back?

“We'll find out at the end of the year,” Theodhosi said. “Obviously that's something you think about, but I knew I could help out, and that's all I cared about.”

That's the football player in the Ivy League man talking.

jfennll@unionleader.com