- Athletics
- Upper School
Every summer, at the close of preseason football practice, McCallie coaches gather the team together and award the No. 17 jersey to the player they feel best exemplifies leadership and toughness on that year’s roster.
But at the close of this past season’s summer workouts, second-year coach Joel Bradford added a second number to the mix, No. 57, which belonged to offensive and defensive lineman Jaden Hudgins-Key.
“That meant so much,” Hudgins-Key said Wednesday. “Linemen don’t usually get a lot of recognition. As soon as we got out of that meeting, I called my mom. I was so excited.”
Cheri Hudgins had more reason to be excited on Wednesday, as did the parents, grandparents and friends of 15 other McCallie football and lacrosse players who either signed scholarship papers or committed to various institutions of higher learning to continue their athletic careers.
In Hudgins-Key’s case, he’ll be attending Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois.
“The hospitality was great,” he said. “The coach was calling me daily. It’s in a good conference (Missouri Valley). I can’t wait to get started.”
Thirty-two years ago, Nelson Williams ‘94 was a long snapper for the McCallie football team. His son, Nelson, followed in his footsteps the last three years. Come fall, he’ll be practicing that unique skill for the University of Colorado and Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders, where his laser-like snaps will hopefully benefit former Blue Tornado kicker Elliott Arnold.
“Elliott was a big reason I wanted to go there. He talks about the culture that Coach Sanders has built there, how it’s kind of like the Brotherhood we have here at McCallie,” said Williams.
How good is Williams, who has tried to model his craft after Tennessee Titans long-snapper Morgan Cox?
“I can stand in punt formation and he can hit a pencil I’m holding in my right hand,” said Bradford. “He’s as good as I’ve seen and he’s worked so hard to be that good.”
They’ve all worked so hard and the reward is playing college athletics, which is the dream of most anyone who played youth ball onward. That work will send quarterback Elliott Drapeau on to McGill University, along with McCallie teammates Malakai Jacob and Joseph Korenblit.
That work will place fullback Kris Lloyd on the Morehead State roster, defensive end Fischer French at Butler and Gabe Abercrombie at the University of Indianapolis, as well as Jacob Lamontagne at the University of Montreal.
Then there are the lacrosse signees, seven in all, three at major colleges. Nathan Blake (Rhodes College), Owen Huckabay (Northwest Nazarene), Jimbo Irwin and Tucker Slagel (Washington and Lee) should make large and immediate contributions to those programs. But so should Henry Boyd at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Henry Toole at UMass and J.A. Hudson at Drexel.
Wednesday was an especially big day for Boyd, who grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but never dreamed he’d get a chance to play for the powerful Tar Heels lacrosse program.
“UNC has always been No. 1 for me,” he said. “But I didn’t think I’d get to play there. This means a lot.”
Henry Toole didn’t know much about UMass, but the head coach called and offered him a scholarship. “They’ve got no other guys from the South,” said the Atlanta area native. “I figure I’ll go up there and share some Southern culture.”
Hudson, another Atlanta area resident, will get a chance to share some Southern culture at Drexel, which is located in Philadelphia. He plans to major in accounting and sample the famous Philly cheesesteaks that the City of Brotherly Love is famous for.
“I like them with mayonnaise,” he said with a smile.
Though this will be Hudson’s first and only season playing McCallie lacrosse, he says what has already impressed him about the program is “The environment. Everybody pushes each other to get better. Everybody’s rooting for each other.”
That’s probably also a big reason why 16 McCallie seniors on Wednesday agreed to continue playing their sport in college next year.
- football
- lacrosse