It’s not easy being the quarterback on a team that features a Delaware Wing-T offensive set.
In fact, it’s a thankless job. You take the snap from center, you turn around and hand the football to a running back, over and over again.
Maybe, if you’re lucky, you get to throw the pigskin every so often, but the forward pass is a complete rarity in the Wing-T.
Before the 2010 high school football season began, St. Anthony senior signal caller Sylvester Wright was informed by head coach Sean Fallon that Wright wouldn’t be throwing the ball as much as he did last year, when he threw 20 touchdown passes and had only four interceptions.
“Last year, it was totally different, because we were so young and inexperienced up front,” Fallon said. “So we had to throw more. This year, with the backs we had coming back, we knew we were going to be running the ball more. I talked to Sylvester over the summer and told him about the offensive change. He didn’t seem to mind. He knew what it took to win games.”
“It didn’t matter to me,” Wright said. “I was willing to do whatever was best for the team. I knew we had to establish the ground game this year. It didn’t bother me.”
Still, you go from being a well-respected and revered passer, throwing for 20 touchdowns, to basically an offensive facilitator because the Friars had a talent-packed backfield with David Coleman, Jidamon Sparkman and Daryl Wilson. It has to bruise the ego just a tad.
“I really wasn’t worried about it much,” Wright said.
“Sylvester understood that you can’t come out throwing the ball all over the place and expect to win high school football games,” Fallon said. “It’s unrealistic to throw. Sylvester had to take a bit of a backseat for the good of the team.”
However, last Friday night, as the Friars prepared to face Hudson Catholic, there was a little bit of a change. Running back Coleman, who has been a mainstay all season, was out with an injury. So were two other reserve running backs.
It was time to switch up the game plan just a little.
“I knew that I had to have a big game,” Wright said. “We missed David Coleman, so that opened up the passing game a little.”
“The game plan for the week was to take advantage of what we were given,” Fallon said. “We knew that Hudson Catholic was going to stack everyone in the box [near the line of scrimmage], so we decided to throw a little bit more.”
It was a plan that worked to perfection, as Wright completed 9-of-11 passes for 226 yards and four touchdowns, leading the Friars to a resounding 40-13 victory, enabling the Friars to complete the regular season with a perfect 9-0 record.
For his efforts, Wright has been selected as The Hudson Reporter Athlete of the Week for the past week.
“It felt good,” Wright said about his moment in the sun. “It enabled me to get a little of my swagger back as we head to the state playoffs.”
The undefeated Friars drew the top seed in the NJSIAA Non-Public Groups 1 & 2 bracket and earned a bye this week in the opening round of the state.
“It’s good that we have the week off, because it gives us a week for our bodies to heal,” Wright said.
It’s almost unthinkable that Wright is earning top athlete honors for his football ability. That’s because when Wright entered St. Anthony, the school didn’t have a football program. Wright headed to the tiny school on Seventh Street (now appropriately named Bob Hurley Way) because he wanted to play basketball for the legendary coach.
“I was a basketball player in grammar school,” said Wright, who was a point guard at Liberty Academy in Jersey City. “I also played football for the Jersey City PAL, but I was strictly a basketball player when I came to St. Anthony. I was a pretty good basketball player. I was a point guard.”
However, point guards at St. Anthony are about as common as Big Macs are at McDonald’s. He didn’t have a bright future in hoops.
However, football offered Wright a different chance, just like it did for people like Sparkman and Coleman, two others who headed to St. Anthony first to play basketball.
“I had no idea what my future would be,” Wright said. “I always liked football.”
“He dreamed of playing basketball,” said Fallon, who is in his second year coaching football at St. Anthony. “As the luck of the draw may have it, he ended up with us playing football.”
Now Wright has established himself as a gridiron hero. He earned Hudson Reporter All-Area honors last year as a junior playing defensive back. In fact, he’s being recruited by some colleges like Maine, Albany and Stony Brook as a defensive back, not as a quarterback.
“I’m definitely glad I made the decision to play football,” Wright said. “It’s definitely paid off. I never would have thought this was possible. I’m glad Coach Fallon came along and turned the program around.”
“I feel good for the kid,” Fallon said. “He’s one of the hardest workers we have. He’s always in the weight room, always looking to get better. He thought he was going to have another big year throwing the ball, but it didn’t work out that way. He deserves to have a game like this.”
Fallon said that Wright is also a good student.
“Academically, he’s on the honor roll and has all the necessary grades and SAT scores,” Fallon said. “I don’t know if he’ll get a football scholarship, but he’ll get a chance to play someplace. He’s a good kid who always has a smile on his face. But he also understands that when he needs to be serious, he can do that as well.”
Fallon said that he has enjoyed Wright working with the younger players, especially freshman Amad Patterson, who appears to be Wright’s successor at quarterback next year.
“Sylvester has really spent a lot of time working with Amad,” Fallon said. “It’s been great to see. Sylvester is great with the younger kids.”
Wright will trade all the personal accolades and gaudy statistics for one thing.
“I want the ring,” Wright said. “I think we all want to be a state champion. It’s all we talk about. Nothing else matters. We want to be the team that everyone in the state talks about.”
So even though he plays in virtual obscurity on a team with three standout running backs, Wright is definitely doing things the right way.
“It is a thankless position,” Wright said. “But for now, I’m taking it and running with it.”
He certainly has the Wright stuff. – Jim Hague
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.