The QB battle that unlocked Patrick Mahomes

[notorious]

The QB battle that unlocked Patrick Mahomes

Ryan Hockensmith


THE SUMMER BEFORE SEVENTH GRADE, Patrick Mahomes got summoned to the Whitehouse High School football field for a special workout. It wasn't quite a secret. But let's just say the coaching staff in East Texas definitely didn't advertise it to the other 10 to 15 middle school kids who wanted to be Whitehouse's quarterback when they grew up.

The coaches did invite one other kid. The varsity's offensive coordinator, Reno Moore, was running the workout that day and asked fellow seventh-grader Ryan Cheatham to come out, too. Moore had heard hype about both kids, and he wanted to get a quick assessment of what the buzz was all about.

Mahomes was a star pitcher in the Tyler area, the son of an MLB player. Cheatham was just as good as a pitcher. Together, they were the one-two punch that led Tyler's junior baseball team (ages 13-14) to the U.S. title at the 2010 Junior League Baseball World Series.....


Great article, read the rest here: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...as-city-chiefs

[TLO]

Originally Posted by ReynardMuldrake

You're that guy in the office who hits 'Reply All' on all employees emails, aren't you?

[carcosa]

Originally Posted by ReynardMuldrake

You're that guy in the office who hits 'Reply All' on all employees emails, aren't you?

I invented doing that

[notorious]

Originally Posted by carcosa

I invented doing that

[carcosa]

Originally Posted by notorious

Thank u!

[MahomesMagic]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I bet he would have been a Hall of Fame safety. But I prefer him at quarterback.

I've never been around anyone who became a pro athlete. It would be interesting to honestly hear whether people who have that exposure knew, or if it was just "Hey, Patrick's pretty good."

If you went to high school with Derrick Thomas, did you see that he had an elite first step? Did Kelce's classmates say, "Wow, that guy's headed for the Hall of Fame"?

In basketball you have a few guys who are obviously going pro quickly and everyone knows it. But in football, the pros are years away when you're a high school kid.

I played floor hockey in elementary school with a guy that went 1st round in the NHL draft.

He'd stick handle around 10 kids like they were stationary traffic cones.

[DanT]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I bet he would have been a Hall of Fame safety. But I prefer him at quarterback.

I've never been around anyone who became a pro athlete. It would be interesting to honestly hear whether people who have that exposure knew, or if it was just "Hey, Patrick's pretty good."

If you went to high school with Derrick Thomas, did you see that he had an elite first step? Did Kelce's classmates say, "Wow, that guy's headed for the Hall of Fame"?

In basketball you have a few guys who are obviously going pro quickly and everyone knows it. But in football, the pros are years away when you're a high school kid.

My first year playing varsity in high school, I played beside a great all-around athlete, Jeff Hurd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Hurd) who played 5 games with the Dallas Cowboys during the 1987 season. That was the year of the strike, and he was a replacement player for three games, but then the Cowboys signed him to play the last two games of the season, after the strike was over. With Jeff, he was both a born athlete and a hard worker, which made it seem likely he would be a pro athlete, even though he wasn't a flashy player. I remember once before a practice and when we practicing our blocks with tackling dummies being impressed with how hard Jeff hit the dummy, as it indicated great strength but also a bit more dedication than one would normally see from teammates during warmups for a midseason midweek practice.
In the mid-1990s, on a whim, I went to a high school football game in suburban Chicago with my eventual wife, just for the heck of it. Turned out that the visiting team had a player that absolutely dominated the game on offense, defense, and special teams. He couldn't help but be flashy, as he was so far above the other players on the field in talent, and it was very obvious that kid would go to a major college and likely go pro. His name was Joey Goodspeed. He ended up being a 4-year starter at Notre Dame and had a NFL career, but I was a little surprised it wasn't more impactful. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Goodspeed) There are kids that come along every now and then that you realize as you watch them play that they are among the best you've ever seen and if the stars align, they will go far.

[notorious]

Yes, there are kids that are just naturally better by miles, and when you see them it’s like they are playing a different sport than the competition.

Mahomes looks like this compared to other NFL quarterbacks, though. It’s insane.

[Jewish Rabbi]

Has anyone posted the whole article on here? ESPN is blocked on my computer

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by DanT

My first year playing varsity in high school, I played beside a great all-around athlete, Jeff Hurd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Hurd) who played 5 games with the Dallas Cowboys during the 1987 season. That was the year of the strike, and he was a replacement player for three games, but then the Cowboys signed him to play the last two games of the season, after the strike was over. With Jeff, he was both a born athlete and a hard worker, which made it seem likely he would be a pro athlete, even though he wasn't a flashy player. I remember once before a practice and when we practicing our blocks with tackling dummies being impressed with how hard Jeff hit the dummy, as it indicated great strength but also a bit more dedication than one would normally see from teammates during warmups for a midseason midweek practice.
In the mid-1990s, on a whim, I went to a high school football game in suburban Chicago with my eventual wife, just for the heck of it. Turned out that the visiting team had a player that absolutely dominated the game on offense, defense, and special teams. He couldn't help but be flashy, as he was so far above the other players on the field in talent, and it was very obvious that kid would go to a major college and likely go pro. His name was Joey Goodspeed. He ended up being a 4-year starter at Notre Dame and had a NFL career, but I was a little surprised it wasn't more impactful. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Goodspeed) There are kids that come along every now and then that you realize as you watch them play that they are among the best you've ever seen and if the stars align, they will go far.

I think I have a big gap in seeing something like that because I was not allowed to play any sports for the most part, so I had little exposure to good athletes on the field of play. My school didn't produce any really good major-sport athletes during my high school years anyway. (Well, we had one guy who was in Major League Baseball for a cup of coffee, but I didn't pay attention to baseball, and baseball players don't really look like exceptional athletes anyway.)

Probably the closest I've come is seeing some elite runners back when I was running hard-core mountain races. But those guys for the most part were finished products and weren't still developing as athletes.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Jewish Rabbi

Has anyone posted the whole article on here? ESPN is blocked on my computer

Here you go. I copied it into a special link for you.

ESPN Article

[Hammock Parties]

this has to be one of the most hilarious things our man DJ has read all year

Mahomes got a standing ovation as he took the mound -- the excitement around him as Texas Tech's quarterback was inescapable. But fans weren't on their feet for very long. Mahomes walked the first hitter, including one pitch behind the guy's back. He hit the next batter in the buttocks. He walked the next guy on five pitches and was pulled. He threw 15 pitches and didn't record an out. All three guys scored, giving him an ERA of 99.00. Mahomes played two games the rest of the year as a backup third baseman, finishing 0-for-2 at the plate. He had a bright future -- but it wouldn't be on the diamond. He let coaches know after the season that he was hanging up his baseball cleats.

[Hammock Parties]

can you imagine the guy on the right outdueling mahomes for a starting job? wow

[JohnnyV13]

.

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I bet he would have been a Hall of Fame safety. But I prefer him at quarterback.

I've never been around anyone who became a pro athlete. It would be interesting to honestly hear whether people who have that exposure knew, or if it was just "Hey, Patrick's pretty good."

If you went to high school with Derrick Thomas, did you see that he had an elite first step? Did Kelce's classmates say, "Wow, that guy's headed for the Hall of Fame"?

In basketball you have a few guys who are obviously going pro quickly and everyone knows it. But in football, the pros are years away when you're a high school kid.

I went to grade school or high school with 4 people who played professional sports: 2 future NFL players, 1 MLB pitcher, and 1 NBA player.

The two football players were in the same class as me at Rockhurst High School: Paul Migliazzo and Kevin Wyatt. Migliazzo was the "other" starting linebacker on Oklahoma's 1987 nation championship team that starred Brian Bosworth. Kevin Wyatt played corner at Arkansas and later for the Chargers and as a replacement player for the Chiefs in 1987. Migliazzo had a cup of tea as a linebacker with the Bears.

Wyatt and Migliazzo played on a state champion Rockhurst team when we were seniors, and Migliazzo was the fullback and Wyatt was the QB. My memory was they were really good, but weren't gods on the field in high school.

I actually had brushes with both of them as a kid. Migliazzo and I went to the same tiny Catholic grade school as well as the same HS. One of my athletic claims to "fame" is that I once solo tackled Migliazzo during football practice, which surprised everyone because I was the smallest kid on the team and he was the biggest.

We were in 7th grade and I weighed 69 lbs and he was around 135. The "tackle" consisted of me playing safety and being too stupid to get out of the way, which meant he tripped on my body in the process of running over me.

Kevin Wyatt and I "matched up" in a HS gym basketball game bc we were both short (he ended up around 5'9" as a HS senior). I couldn't play basketball to save my life, but I did have a good reaction time and could play a bit of defense and had some ability to.make steals. Since I was pretty much quicker than everyone else as a kid, I tried to crowd Wyatt on defense.

He absolutely torched me. Of course, this was right at the start of our Freshman year, so I didn't know he was the best overall athlete in my class and was good enough to be the starting varsity point guard our senior year.

The MLB pitcher was David Cone, who was in the class ahead of me at Rockhurst. Funny thing is Rockhurst didn't have a baseball team, so I never saw him play his best sport then. He was also the Rockhurst QB. My memory of him was he had a cannon arm but wasn't hugely accurate When he was a senior, Rockhurst lost 3 games, which was a bad year by their standards in football.

The fourth guy was future NBA center Jon Koncak. He also went to my Catholic grade school, and was, of course, the tallest kid in the neighborhood. He was a year older than me and he ruled in basketball just by hovering around the goal during recess. Really pretty pointless to play against him, bc any team that had him was going to win. I really don't remember exactly how tall he was then, but he had to be well over 6 ft as middle school kid.

I do remember him jumping off the high dive at the local YMCA pool and trying to make a big enough splash to nail the lifeguard.

He went to Center for HS and was the all metro basketball center in KC (he was, I think, 7'1" by the time he went to SMU as a freshman). He lasted over 10 years in the NBA but was never a star. He was a big body that was stronger than most pre shaq centers.