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Young quarterback impresses coaches

Staff photo by BILL WARD

Armwood junior quarterback Josh Grady at a training session last month.

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By ADAM ADKINS

aadkins@tampatrib.com

Published: October 14, 2009

SEFFNER - If Sean Callahan was tasked with putting together a men's volleyball or basketball team, Josh Grady wouldn't get a sniff. To start a football team, however, the Hawks longtime football coach admits he probably wouldn't look at anyone else before snatching up Grady.

"What he is," Callahan said of Grady, the Hawks' starting quarterback, "he's a real football player."

Callahan has thrown plenty of athletes under center during his tenure at Armwood. Grady is a different breed, though. The coach jokes about Grady's athletic prowess - or lack thereof - in relation to other sports. When it comes to football, however, Callahan isn't sure if he's seen as much potential in anyone else.

"I think I'm an athlete, but on the football field, I'm just more comfortable," Grady said. "It's where I feel I can do whatever I need to."

The most intriguing aspect about Grady is that he's still a newbie at the quarterback position. He grew up playing linebacker and running back on youth fields for the Temple Terrace Jaguars. When he entered Freedom's program the summer before his freshman season, he was intent on locking down a starting position at safety. It didn't take long, however, before he made the position switch to quarterback at the request of then-Patriots coach Marquel Blackwell.

Until that time, Grady's experience as a quarterback was relegated to pick-up sandlot snaps with his friends. Still, the position always intrigued him because "you have total control of the game," he said.

Under the tutelage of Blackwell, a former area high school and college standout at Dixie Hollins High and the University of South Florida, Grady quickly grasped the position. It didn't take long before he took control of the starting quarterback position as a freshman, nor did it take long for him to display his talent - he threw for six touchdowns in a triple-overtime victory over Middleton that season.

"Most of the things I know, he taught me," Grady said of Blackwell, now an assistant at USF.

Now in his third season as a varsity starter, his first at Armwood, Grady admits he's still learning the position. Nevertheless, he's established himself as one of the area's top signal callers, capable of making plays with his feet as well as his arm.

"He's a gamer," Hawks quarterbacks coach Evan Davis said. "You look at him and he doesn't have the best fundamentals, but when the ball is snapped, I don't know if there is a better guy in the county playing back there."

Callahan said Hawks coaches are still getting to know Grady and his abilities, considering he hasn't been in the program a full year since transferring from Freedom after the 2008 season.

"As we learn more about Josh, we're putting more on him. He's handled it really well," Callahan said. "We're trying to design things around him, because we think he's that good of a football player."

A player who, by the time his high school career his over, could be regarded as the top quarterback to play at Armwood, Callahan said. And Grady doesn't take those words lightly.

"It definitely puts a chip on my shoulder, but at the same time it humbles me that Coach Cal thinks so highly of me," Grady said. "It makes me push myself even harder to strive to be the best quarterback that's been through here."

Reporter Adam Adkins can be reached at (813) 259-7616.

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