It was over before it started for 18-year-old Zach Lee.LSU’s prized quarterback and pitching recruit traded in his purple-and-gold helmet and green practice jersey for a Los Angeles Dodgers blue cap and plenty of green from Dodgers owner Frank McCourt after the team selected him with the 28th pick in June’s amateur draft.Minutes before the official deadline for Major League Baseball teams to sign their draft picks, Lee decided the $5.25 million the Dodgers had on the table and the opportunity to play professionally was too much to pass up.”[The decision] was extremely difficult,” Lee said in an interview with ESPNLosAngeles.com. “LSU is a great program, and I really enjoyed my time being down there. They were tremendous people. But here, as well, these are tremendous people. It’s a very good program in terms of player development. I just felt at this time, this opportunity was too good to pass up.”Up-and-coming major leaguer Clayton Kershaw previously held the record for the highest bonus dealt by the notoriously stingy Dodgers at $2.3 million, a figure Lee more than doubled.The move, though not wholly unexpected by the brass for both the LSU football and baseball programs, certainly left a dent in the talent level on both rosters.”This was a very personal decision for Zach and his family,” said LSU football coach Les Miles. “This opportunity was just too difficult to pass up. We wish Zach and his family the very best. He’s an outstanding young man, and we hope he develops into a great Major League pitcher.”The baseball program took the biggest hit of the night. The team lost Lee and ace pitcher Anthony Ranaudo, who similarly waited until the last minute to sign a $2.55 million deal with the Boston Red Sox.LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri understood the situation Lee was in.”They put $5.25 million in front of him,” Mainieri said. “How many of you would turn down $5.25 million? It’s hard to walk away from that kind of money.”With the prototypical size for a college quarterback, Lee was making steady progress in the weeks he spent with the football team. Miles said he didn’t rule out the possibility of Lee seeing playing time during the 2010 season.”Lee is much further along in his approach and how he learns than really a number of quarterbacks I have been around,” Miles said at LSU’s Media Day on Aug. 10. “He is just young right now, but when his body matures he will be something special. He is            getting the snaps, and he is certainly very comfortably our third quarterback. We are planning on him getting a lot of reps and him being a part.”Lee’s decision left LSU with two scholarship quarterbacks on the roster. Juniors Jordan Jefferson and Jarrett Lee bring a combined 23 games of starting experience into the fold.Where Zach Lee’s decision hurts LSU is in the future. If Miles wants to avoid handing the reins of the program over to another underclassmen, the team must find their next quarterback in a hurry, as next year will be the last for both Jefferson and Jarrett Lee.—Contact Luke Johnson at [email protected].