Can I update the Account Owner without effecting closed Opportunities?

Hello Everyone!

We have a former user who initially set up a lot of the Accounts we use in CRM.  I've been trying to find a way to update the Owner of these accounts to either the organization team or the system admin account we have.  The problem I keep running into is that once I do that it updates the owner of each and every Opportunity that has been closed under that Account.

The way we work is that Accounts represent properties and orginazations we work with.  So any of our users could close an Opportunity with that Account.  So by changing the owner it's screwing up a few years of records in the process.  I'm trying to find a way to do it without altering our current and previous opportunities.

Is this possible to do?

If not, I can hide the owner on the Account form, but is there a way to hide the Account Owner on the mobile forms?  I've tried going into the entity and deselecting "available on mobile" but the option is greyed out.

Any help on either is greatly appreciated.  

Thank you,

Chris