Sam Huard, The News Tribune’s All-Area football player of the year, was state’s top passer in 4-year career
Sam Huard’s high school football career had a storybook beginning.
The first start of his career in 2017, when he was a freshman at Kennedy Catholic, was in Husky Stadium, where his father Damon and uncle Brock became storied University of Washington quarterbacks during the 1990s.
Lancers coach Sheldon Cross remembers that September afternoon well. He had already seen glimpses of the quarterback Huard could become in the practices leading up to his debut, when the young lefty beat out two older players for the starting job.
“We believed in him from the very first day that he stepped foot on the campus, and his very first start, all the way until his very last start,” Cross said.
“We’re a quarterback program. The quarterback is the one that drives the ship, and when you have great ones, you don’t waste a second with them.”
Cross knew Huard was ready for the responsibility of piloting Kennedy Catholic’s offense even as a freshman.
He knew there would be nerves when his young quarterback took the field for the first time against Seattle Prep, but it didn’t take long for Huard to settle in that sunny afternoon at UW.
Not only did Huard guide the Lancers to a 30-20 win in the Emerald City Kickoff Classic, he completed 32-of-47 passes for 391 yards and two touchdowns.
It felt like a movie, his coach said.
“That’s about as big as it can get for a freshman in high school,” Cross said. “Especially playing where your dad and your uncle played. … He’s grown up in that stadium, and the minute he played great in that setting and that stadium, it reaffirmed even more how special he was going to be.
“We knew that was our guy without any question.”
So began one of the most prolific careers in state football history.
Huard, who is now enrolled at UW and participated in spring camp, wrapped up his remarkable four-season career with the Lancers last month. He completed 847-of-1,356 passes for 13,226 yards and 153 touchdowns in 35 games, broke the state’s career passing record in his final game, and also finished ranked third in state history in career touchdowns and completions.
For these reasons, Huard has been named The News Tribune’s All-Area football player of the year.
“I can’t even describe what it’s been like to coach him,” Cross said following Huard’s final game. “I’ve known him since he was a little kid, and I’m so proud of him for always competing. … He’s just so reliable and it’s just so fun to watch him.
“I’m going to miss watching him throw the ball live every day. It’s so beautiful.”
Many around the state marveled at Huard’s ability on the football field during his four-year career.
The Lancers didn’t make the playoffs his freshman season, but Huard led the state in passing, completing 229-of-397 passes for 3,432 yards and 34 touchdowns and was named the MaxPreps National Freshman of the Year.
He got more comfortable each game, and collected the first of his seven career 500-yard passing games in the final outing of his freshman season on a chilly, rainy night in Tacoma.
Kennedy Catholic was playing Bellarmine Prep in a nonleague game in early November. It was the finale for both teams after missing out on a playoff berth, but Huard was ready to compete.
The Lions won the game, but Huard turned in one of the best outings of his high school career, completing 36-of-54 passes for 535 yards and five touchdowns.
Longtime Bellarmine Prep coach Brian Jensen remembers watching tape of Huard earlier in the week leading up to the game, noting the quarterback’s command of the offense, his his understanding of down-and-distance and his next-level timing.
Huard was even better in person, he said.
“Competing against him game day was like paying against a four-year senior starter, and he was just a freshman,” Jensen said. “Super impressed by him and the way he ran his team and the way he commanded the field.”
Even more impressive about Huard? He never plateaued as a quarterback, Jensen said. He got better every year.
Huard opened his sophomore season the following fall by tying the state’s single game record for passing touchdowns with 10 in a win over Chief Sealth, and threw for 552 yards on 19-of-31 passing.
“It was fun,” Huard told The News Tribune following the win. “We got out there and it was a great day for football. We had a great crowd there from our school.
“The first play I threw a touchdown to my receiver Junior Alexander, and from there were all locked in. Our team was playing with great energy.”
Kennedy Catholic’s high-flying offense, and Huard’s connection with his three Pac-12-bound receivers — Alexander (Arizona State) and Jabez Tinae (UW), who each finished their careers with more than 4,000 receiving yards, and Reed Shumpert (WSU) — only got stronger.
Huard threw for 4,141 yards and 42 touchdowns as a sophomore, again leading the state in passing, and the Lancers reached the district playoffs before eventually losing to Puyallup in a stadium where his grandfather once coached, and his father and two uncles played quarterback for the Vikings.
The Huskies offered Huard, a five-star passer who could have had his pick of Power Five programs, that November, and he committed the morning of the Apple Cup, ready to focus on contending for Class 4A state titles his final two seasons of high school.
He entered his junior season eager to make a run in the state playoffs, and posted the best numbers of his high school career, throwing for 4,172 yards and 56 touchdowns on 269-of-426 passing.
“He has an unbelievable ability to stay in the pocket and go through a progression and throw it on rhythm,” Cross said. “He’s got an amazing rhythm to throwing the football.”
Kennedy Catholic advanced to the 4A state playoffs Huard’s junior season as the top seed in the bracket, but was upset by Woodinville in the quarterfinals.
Huard and several more key returners seemed primed to make a title run as seniors, but the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the fall season.
But, that season-ending loss couldn’t be the end for Huard.
“We have some unfinished business,” he said earlier this year before the Lancers opened an undefeated 6-0 run through the 4A North Puget Sound League. “Before we all want to move on to the next chapters of our life, and take that next step, we know that we still have some stuff to finish up here, and we wanted to finish it out the right way and go win some games.”
The Lancers spent nearly 500 days waiting between that loss to Woodinville and their season-opener against Tahoma, but Huard made his final three games before heading to UW count.
He completed 28-of-37 passes for 515 yards and seven touchdowns in the season-opening rout of Tahoma, and the following week, in another dominant win over Decatur, he finished 33-of-45 passing for 452 yards and six scores.
Even in a shortened season, his high school career still had a storybook ending.
His final game against Kentwood, when he broke the state passing record previously held by former Shadle Park and Boise State standout Brett Rypien, who is now with the Denver Broncos, Huard finished 40-of-56 passing for 514 yards and eight touchdowns before he left the game late in the fourth quarter to an ovation.
The most important part of that historic afternoon to him? Playing out the final moments of his high school career with the Lancers.
“It’s really more important to me knowing that we really finished this the way we wanted to,” Huard said that day. “Obviously we wanted to be holding up a state championship trophy right now, and that’s the goal, and I’m going to have to live with not being able to go compete and win a state championship, but to be able to come out here and do what we did today and just play really the best we could — I love all these guys so much.
“ … Just being able to get this opportunity to play with these guys the past four years, I’ve been truly blessed, and I couldn’t be more thankful for all of them. For Coach (Sheldon) Cross. For all of these guys. They just mean the world to me.”
Huard was the 4A NPSL player of the year this season, and was a three-time first-team pick in the league at quarterback, including being named the 4A NPSL Mountain offensive back of the year as both a sophomore and junior.
He is a three-time TNT All-Area selection, was both a Northwest Nuggets and Western 100 pick by TNT this spring, and was named the 4A state player of the year by the AP as a junior.
Now, he begins his next chapter as a quarterback for the Huskies, preparing to one day play in the same stadium where his high school career began.
“I think it will definitely be a big transition, but I’m super comfortable,” Huard said following his final game at Kennedy Catholic. “I’ve lived here my whole life, just right across the bridge, and I have so many people supporting me along the way.
“ … I have a lot of great people around me, just helping me stay focused, helping me put in the work every single day, so I definitely take a lot of pride in preparing and putting in the work, and I know that I’ll be ready to go.”
This story was originally published May 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
