Justin wrote an email to a good friend this morning while taking the train into the city. It is the most detailed description of what has been going on for us (well for Nate), so I thought it would make a good blog post to help us remember this time of transisiton.
Here is the letter:
Sorry up front for the length of this email. I didn’t realize I was going on like I did. Hope you’re well!
Hey Doug. We’re getting closer to getting settled. The house hunt took a while. You wouldn’t believe what you have to pay to get a home big enough for a family of 7! Ouch!!! We finally found a home we actually love. It’s a foreclosure so we got a really good deal (by Cali standards) and hope to be moved in within the next two weeks. We’ve been hoteling it for this whole time so it will be great to get into our own home!
So you asked about Nate. Let me give the rundown on how things have gone for him. I did my research, as any fanatical father who’s been grooming his son since birth would do. J I found that most of the homes we were looking at lived in the boundaries of Clayton Valley High School. They’re crazy strict about the boundaries here. You play where you live….period. However, I found one little loophole in the system that applied to this year only. Clayton Valley became a charter school this year (the first in Northern California), which everyone is raving about being a great thing. Anyway, that’s another conversation. Because they went charter they allowed people for this year only to go to another school in the district. I found out that Clayton Valley runs a double wing offense, which as you know is basically 90% running, 10% passing. A total waste of Nate’s arm!! So I did a little homework and found that Concord High throws the ball like crazy. Two years ago their QB led the state of California in passing (the Lloyd kid who’s now playing for Ole Miss). Anyway, they really throw the ball around so I went and introduced Nate to their coach. Keep in mind this was the second week of August . They’d already been practicing for weeks and pretty well had their main positions lined up. Well Nate went to the first day of practice and the Varsity coach watched him practicing and asked him to stay and work out with the JV team. He stayed and they invited him to come back that night (two-a-days) and practice with the JV. After three days the JV coach told me “your son is my guy”. Nate had already earned the starting JV quarterback position after 3 days. That set him up the next year to be a three year varsity starter at a Bay area school. (Concord would be a 4A school in Utah). Well this is getting long so I’ll try to be more brief. The coaches know football, but I couldn’t believe their language. They flew the F-bomb every other word. So did the boys. We didn’t like that, but assumed it would be that way at any of these schools…..we were wrong.
We decided we should at least go speak with the Clayton Valley coach so we went over there. The first person we run into is the Clayton Valley head baseball coach. Clayton Valley is a baseball school first, similar to Spanish Fork. We had been told that it was probably too late to get Nate into Clayton Valley because they’d already taken in everyone they were going to admit. Anyway, we tell the coach that Nate plays three sports and is pretty good at all of them. He asks me when Nate’s a little ways off, “how good is he really”? I told him, I’ll take off the dad glasses and just give you the facts. He led his baseball team in innings pitched and K’s. He had the highest batting average and on base percentage, and had his share of home runs. I then told him that Nate had been invited as an incoming Freshman to play on the Sophomore basketball team in their summer league and led that sophomore team in scoring for that tournament. I threw in some comment about him being a good QB. The coach walked us to the registrar’s office and watched Nate get enrolled in school. He was pretty happy to have Nate. We still weren’t sure, but it felt right to be there. We weren’t sure until that night when we had a coach/parent meeting and the coach said, “I won’t swear and I won’t let the boys swear”. “Dad’s please don’t drink beer in front of the boys”. Passing the ball became less of a priority at that point.
There were other big factors too. The seminary is right across the street from Clayton Valley high school so Nate can walk from early morning seminary to school. At Concord we would have had to drop him off at 7:00, and then give him a ride to school again at 8:00. Academically everyone acknowledges that Clayton Valley is superior. The only draw to Concord was that they ran the right offense……you’re one of the only people who get what I’m talking about with that. People think I’m crazy, and I am, but that was a nice setup for Nate.
Another quick intermission story…..we told the Concord coach and he took it well. About a week later I called him to offer Nate’s brand new cleats (green). Clayton Valley is Blue, white and red. Anyway, I’m speaking with him and he says to me. I know I’m not going to coach your son so take this as a 3rd party honest opinion. Your boy can spin it. I haven’t seen an arm that natural and gifted in a long time. I know a guy you need to get in touch with to ensure that he develops that talent. I don’t want to see it go to waste at CV”. That last part stung…..I’ll admit it, but it was kind of him to say those words. He sent me a contact of a famous QB coach in the area.
Back to the story. So Nate starts at CV two days before their scrimmage, and a week and two days before their first game. Needless to say, he’s got a lot of catching up to do to learn the offense in that much time. He earned the starting outside linebacker position for the first game, but was still learning the offense so he was 2nd string QB. After the first quarter of game 1 we had thrown the ball a total of zero times, and we were already down 21-0. 2nd quarter they score again. 28-0. They decide to put Nate in at QB. Of course, handoff……handoff……handoff…..punt. Wouldn’t you know it they returned the punt for TD. 35-0 at the half! They started Nate at QB coming out of the half and fortunately we got into a 3rd and long situation. What do you know, they passed it! Nate rolled out and had a guy hanging on him when he found a receiver running a deep post. Nate laid it out perfectly in front of him and he took it to the house! 35-7. Next series we held them on D. We get the ball . First and 10 and the passed….holy smokes! Nate completed the pass. Ran it again, then passed again! This time Nate was on the run and hit a guy right in stride again for a 60 yard touchdown! 35-14. We held them again, but then turned it over on downs. Held them again, and then Nate made one of the best plays I’ve seen him make. After completing a couple of passes we were on about the 50 yard line. Nate dropped back and had a guy coming at him fast. He had a kid streaking down the middle, and had a step, but with three guys converging. Nate laid the ball out in front of him. The kid caught it in stride on about the 15 yard line and ran into the end zone. 35-21. That was with about two minutes left in the game. We didn’t get the onside kick and that’s how it ended. A moral victory, if there is such a thing.
So Nate’s coach after the game was talking to the team and said, “Nate Keisel, welcome to the team MVP”. Nate was made the starter . The next day at school Nate was in line to get food and some of the Varsity players were ahead of him in line (in their game day jerseys). Nate heard them talking about the “Utah quarterback” and they’d heard he “had a hell of a game”. The Varsity coach came up to him and said, “you know I run the ball, but with an arm like yours trust me we’ll throw it”.
That’s helped Nate’s transition quite a bit. He’s been able to make a few friends, which is an answer to prayers. The bummer is that he got a pretty bad concussion in practice Tuesday. It’s his own fault though. They were doing a tackling drill and he jumped in at running back. He knows better as a QB, but he did it anyway and went helmet to helmet with a kid two inches taller and heavier than him. He ended up in the ER. CAT scans came back with a concussion, but not significant damage. He’s out two weeks. It will be hard to watch tonight without him in the game. The harder decision will be if he gets another concussion. I never thought I’d says this, but I may encourage him to focus on basketball and baseball at that point. Him getting this concussion rattled me. I got concussions, but there wasn’t the awareness then that there is now. I just kept playing, but I deal with the consequences of that today, and don’t want that for Nate. Another concussion and I think he’s done. Sad thought!!
Anyway, this has turned into a ridiculous long email. Sorry about that, but it was fun to write it. Thanks for reading…….if you made it this far! ;-)
Take care Doug.
Justin
Some more wild than others:
