Stay for spring season or enroll in college early? Top-tier football recruits face tough decision
With the WIAA moving high school football to the spring in Washington state, the area’s top-tier senior recruits are faced with new challenges. For those who were planning to enroll early in college after the fall season, they have a decision to make: Stick around for a potential high school shortened spring football season — which is not guaranteed — or keep their original plan of enrolling early at their selected universities.
There are no simple answers, no right or wrong decision. For each student-athlete, a variety of things factor into making the decision. Kennedy Catholic quarterback Sam Huard, considered a five-star recruit by 247sports.com, announced he’ll be returning to Kennedy for the spring season, rather than enrolling early at the University of Washington, as he originally planned. Lincoln High School’s Julien Simon, considered a four-star recruit by 247sports, announced on Twitter the end of his high school football and basketball career, saying he plans to enroll early at USC.
Steilacoom High School five-star recruit Emeka Egbuka also announced he’ll return for his senior season in the spring, tweeting: “Season postponed till March, I’m still coming for my records.”
For Huard, it’d be easy to see why he’d want to enroll early at UW. His dad, Damon, and uncle, Brock, were both prolific quarterbacks for the Huskies.
“I’ve been waiting my entire life to get to UW,” Huard said. “I was really excited to get there.”
But he’s also seen the upward trajectory of the Kennedy program during his time as the school’s quarterback. After last year’s 55-42 loss to Woodinville in the quarterfinals, Huard wants the Lancers to win a state championship in his senior year.
“I feel like we have some unfinished business at Kennedy,” Huard said. “Before I could move on to (UW), I wanted to finish this chapter the right way with my teammates.”
Huard said he’ll still take summer classes and will be on track to graduate early. If the coronavirus situation doesn’t improve and the high school spring football season is cancelled, he’ll leave the door open to enrolling early at UW.
Huard said he spoke with UW head coach Jimmy Lake about staying at Kennedy; Lake was supportive. For players of different positions, they’re able to stay in shape and stay more game-ready. But for quarterbacks, it’s difficult to replace the benefit of taking live, in-game reps.
“You can train for it, but you only really have 10 to 14 opportunities a year where you’re dropping back, having a live pass rush, making reads and making plays. The only way to simulate that is by playing actual games.”
Fellow teammate and UW commit Jabez Tinae and Arizona State commit Junior Alexander — Huard’s top receivers — also plan on sticking around for the spring season.
“We’ve put in all this work and we want to finish it the right way,” Huard said. “Just knowing we’ll look back on this for the rest of our lives. We gave it all we could, helped make it one of the top programs in the state. You never get those opportunities back. … And being able to play for (Kennedy coach Sheldon) Cross for one more year. Everything he’s done for me, I knew it’d be tough to not get one more shot at it.”
LINCOLN’S JULIEN SIMON OPTS TO ENROLL EARLY AT USC
Lincoln High School two-way star Julien Simon’s decision had already been made. He had talked it over with family, friends, Lincoln coach Masaki Matsumoto and the Abes’ coaching staff. The 2021 USC commit was going to graduate and enroll early; however, this was before the WIAA’s decision to move high school football to the spring.
There was one more group that Simon needed to notify about this monumental choice: his teammates. Right after he sent a tweet announcing he would not be playing for the Abes next spring, Simon entered the team’s group chat.
“I put out a heartfelt message,” Simon said.
“They supported me, man I didn’t know what to expect,” Simon said, laughing. “I didn’t know if they wanted to hear this. I contemplated on ‘Should I send it or not?’ Maybe just tell my coaches and he can relay the message to them. I had to tell them, I wanted to be straight up with them and it was nothing but love and support. I commend them for that because they could’ve been mad, kicked me out of the group chat, anything. It was all love and support, I knew we were already a family but those messages really helped solidify that.”
Simon’s early exit from Lincoln had been something he was planning since his sophomore and junior seasons. At those points during the process, Simon had not decided on a school until he committed to USC on May 9 this year.
As the ongoing coronavirus pandemic put a delay on things such as high school sports schedules and classes starting, USC assistant coach Donte Williams had discussed the thought of leaving early enrollment and not risking injury before he heads to Southern Cal.
From there, the plans were set in motion for Simon as he met with his high school counselor, a Lincoln academic advisor and an academic advisor at USC.
When they discovered Simon’s path to an early enrollment in compliance with the NCAA was just a few classes, Simon jumped on the opportunity right away. There was only one small problem for him in getting some dual credits through the Running Start Program at Tacoma Community College and that was classes had started four days before he enrolled.
Already behind in the classes, Simon attacked his English 101 course like he did most ball carriers in the South Sound. He attacked with quickness and execution only with the books, not a big hit.
“I’m a geek,” Simon said with a laugh.
“I caught up with everything within the same day. It wasn’t a lot. I sat down for shoot — like three or four hours and got caught up on the classes.”
After taking a few more classes, Simon is scheduled to graduate in December and from there he will play in the 2021 Adidas All-American game scheduled to take place in San Antonio. At the time of publication, the game is still slated to go on as scheduled for Jan. 10 and after that, the Tacoma product will be headed to Southern Cal.
As he departs Tacoma, he hopes that this surprising and unprecedented move helps inspire those within the Tacoma and Lincoln community.
“I felt like I left my mark on Lincoln, and I did it in the right way,” Simon said. ”I live literally five minutes away from the school, it’s my neighborhood and it’s where I grew up. Being a kid from the east side of Tacoma I took pride in that — I think it’s going to influence the younger generation. Not only did I surpass expectations but I did it at Lincoln and I hope I helped influence a generation by giving back to my community.
“People feel like they need to go to the Eastside Catholics, the Kennedy Catholics or feel like they need to go to Rainier Beach. You can make a difference and inspire others in your community, no matter where you’re from.”
