Steve Younger lifts his arm, holding an imaginary soccer, getting ready to throw. This act—probably the most primary side of quarterbacking—has outlined his life and, at occasions, his self-worth.
Right now, on an August night, he’s standing on the entrance of a country-club ballroom in San Mateo, lengthy retired. A bunch of professional-football luminaries are in attendance, together with the Corridor of Famer John Lynch, the previous Professional Bowl quarterback and present Stanford soccer govt Andrew Luck, and, within the entrance row, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and his spouse, Jane. The event is an occasion held by the Girls’s Teaching Alliance, a bunch striving to diversify soccer staffs. The panel dialogue matter is the state of faculty soccer. However, as at all times, the speak drifts towards quarterbacks, that uniquely American job with uniquely American tasks.
Younger was one of many biggest ever, a three-time Tremendous Bowl winner and a first-ballot Corridor of Famer. He’s 63 now, working in non-public fairness within the Bay Space. Of all of the quarterbacks I’ve met in my years protecting the NFL for ESPN, Younger stands out, not solely due to his excellence, however due to his vulnerability. Guys like Joe Namath and Dan Marino at all times knew easy methods to throw a soccer the place they needed, once they needed, and unrelenting apply solely refined these presents.
Younger is completely different. He was a pure athlete and excessive competitor, however he wanted to learn to change into a quarterback. When he was behind Jim McMahon on the depth chart at BYU, Younger sneaked a have a look at the radio station McMahon listened to in his automobile, satisfied that it was out there solely to celebrity quarterbacks. He was relieved to study it was simply regular basic rock. As a precocious backup in San Francisco, Younger studied Joe Montana, trying to find hidden clues that helped him transcend mere sport administration into one thing extra like artistry.
Younger’s eventual success is proof that greatness might be discovered, if not taught, and whereas lots of his friends communicate of quarterbacking both in language resembling business-school jargon (QBR, RTG, LTA) or in middle-school vernacular (Trent Dilfer, a Tremendous Bowl champion, usually says {that a} quarterback wants “Dude Qualities”), Younger can veer into philosophical territory. He proffers theories and ponders existential questions.
Younger tells the room about teaching his daughters’ flag-football group. At some point, he was tasked with instructing the quarterbacks that primary, magical factor that confounds everybody from dad and mom within the yard to NFL normal managers within the conflict room: throwing a soccer. He holds the microphone in his proper hand and lifts his left arm, a weapon for which no NFL protection within the Nineteen Nineties had a solution. However then Younger’s demeanor subtly modifications, and his thoughts appears to have drifted elsewhere, not again to his legendary moments, however to a major place of uncertainty, as if nothing has modified since he first picked up a ball.
“How do you throw it?” he says. “I don’t know easy methods to clarify it.”
The quarterback has by no means held a loftier place in American tradition. It’s not only a job; it’s a means of being. The very thought of the quarterback was and stays sure up with who we’re and the way we see ourselves. Johnny Unitas was bedrock institution. Joe Namath was revolt. Joe Montana was pure cool. Patrick Mahomes is smooth innovation—with a fade coiffure that’s approaching mid-’90s Jennifer Aniston ranges of ubiquity. And but a part of the quarterback’s attract is that, for all of the worship lavished on these within the place, there’s nonetheless a thriller about them. No person is aware of how the greats do it. Even the greats don’t at all times know. Once I ask Mahomes how a lot he thinks about throwing, he shrugs and says “not quite a bit.”
When Walter Camp, considered one of soccer’s founding fathers, invented the job title—“quarter-back”—in 1880, he deliberately set it aside from different positions; ever since an otherness has characterised the sport’s nice passers. Michael Oriard, an offensive lineman for the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs turned English professor, famous in his 1993 e book, Studying Soccer, that Camp’s ultimate soccer participant “was no cold mental” however as an alternative “a person whose charismatic persona was extra highly effective than mere bodily energy.”
From the second the ahead move was legalized in faculty soccer in 1906, folks knew it was one thing particular. On October 3 of that yr, Wesleyan performed at Yale. Wesleyan quarterback Sam Moore took the ball and light again. Two receivers ran lengthy. They had been decoys. Moore stared deep, then threw to halfback Irvin Van Tassell for roughly 18 yards. He was tackled instantly. At first, the gang was silent; one author in attendance referred to as it a “breathless stillness.” After which there was a roar. “Such an ovation as scarcely ever earlier than greeted a visiting group at Yale,” the journalist wrote.
The story of the quarterback has at all times been a narrative about American fame. Within the Forties, Bob Waterfield was the nation’s finest quarterback, taking part in for the Los Angeles Rams, and his spouse was Jane Russell, considered one of America’s most well-known pinup actresses. He seemed like James Dean, earlier than there was a James Dean. Her sultry photograph shoot for the film The Outlaw—mendacity on a stack of hay, holding a gun, shirt straps at her shoulders, revealing simply sufficient—led to a censorship battle. Soccer and Hollywood, two ascendant leisure forces, had been laying declare to this nation, and Bob and Jane had been on the middle of each, with paparazzi tailing them and—think about this—asking for permission to take a photograph.
An invite to a celebration at their home over the Hollywood Hills turned an indication of social standing, a marker of arrival. Clark Gable spent many lengthy nights there. So did Gene Autry, Judy Garland, Bob Hope, Mickey Rooney, Robert Mitchum, Bing Crosby, and John Wayne. You’ll be able to draw a straight line from “Russfield,” because the couple was referred to as, to Namath and Raquel Welch (to call simply considered one of his paramours), Randall Cunningham and Whitney Houston, Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, Josh Allen and Hailee Steinfeld, even Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. (Hey, he was a high-school quarterback!)
Steve Younger and I as soon as sat in his Palo Alto workplace and counted all the hats a professional quarterback usually wears: normal, matinee idol, spokesman for a multibillion-dollar group, newbie psychologist—we stopped at 17, and doubtless left some out. How one handles these duties is as very important as one’s capability to throw a crisp submit route. Younger would watch how Montana labored a room, how he glided and glad-handed and—that is what surprised Younger—remembered a element about every individual, whether or not they had been in entrance of him or gawking from the nook. Quarterback is a job you reside, fairly than a place you play.
Maybe that’s why we’re so unhealthy at recognizing profitable ones. Simply have a look at Johnny Unitas, who was a ninth-round draft choose in 1955, or Tom Brady, a sixth-rounder in 2000, or Brock Purdy, the final choose—Mr. Irrelevant—in 2022.
We strive. NFL groups use expertise to investigate throwing mechanics, making an attempt to map and quantify the right movement. They use exams such because the S2, a predraft cognition check, to attempt to perceive processing pace. Nothing works. Bryce Younger scored within the 98th percentile on the S2 and was drafted first total by the Carolina Panthers in 2023; till the very finish of final season, he seemed like an epic bust. C. J. Stroud, in the meantime, scored within the 18th percentile that very same yr—and has typically performed like a star for the Houston Texans. You’ll be able to’t belief analytics, both. Passing numbers on the collegiate stage have exploded prior to now 15 years, as offenses have been designed round airing the ball out; in consequence, faculty efficiency has virtually no predictive worth to the NFL—a quarterback model of grade inflation. In 2021, Bailey Zappe set a season-single document for the highest tier of faculty soccer with 62 landing passes; he’s barely held on within the NFL.
Excessive-school-quarterback showcases are a multimillion-dollar circuit. It’s a harmful house, with sharks lurking and entitlement aplenty. The will to be probably the most precocious, to be subsequent—to have fun “the hope,” as Younger places it—has by no means been higher.
One of many major characters in my new e book, American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback, is a star out of Jacksonville, Florida, named Colin Hurley. He needed to be on the quickest quick monitor. He skipped middle-school soccer altogether, going from youth ball to beginning at Trinity Christian Academy. He took college on-line, maximizing time to coach and journey to quarterback occasions. His throwing coach, arm-care specialist, and biomechanics coach really feel that his energy and launch are up there with the professionals’. After main Trinity to a Class 2A state title as a freshman and profitable Participant of the 12 months as a sophomore, Hurley “reclassified”—graduating a yr early, in American high-school-sports parlance—and entered faculty in January 2024 at Louisiana State. He was 16 years previous.
Colin is a sort child, raised nicely, however he had spent his total life pleasing adults. He all of the sudden had energy and standing and—due to a landmark 2021 Supreme Court docket ruling that paved the way in which for faculty athletes to be compensated for his or her title, picture, and likeness—some huge cash. All of this terrified his father, Charlie, a former cop who had a premonition that one thing would go improper. Was it an excessive amount of, regardless of how sensible and mature and bold his son was?
Colin practically died this previous January when he drove his automobile right into a tree at 3 a.m. He was discovered respiratory however unresponsive. Within the ambulance on the way in which to the hospital, he mumbled that he thought he was at soccer apply. Police mentioned that impairment was not suspected within the crash. Fortunately, he recovered absolutely. He’s now again on the group, with a newfound appreciation for his chosen line of labor, hoping to change into QB1.
Football’s energy is unquestioned. In 2023, 93 of the 100 most-watched broadcast packages in America had been soccer video games. But it is usually going through existential hazard. Mother and father, scared by the specter of mind harm, are reluctant to let their children play deal with soccer. Flag soccer is on the upswing. And but NFL quarterbacks have by no means been extra distinguished in American tradition. The blokes who do it now—Mahomes, Allen, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, even the College of Texas’s Arch Manning, a dynastic presence who has achieved little in faculty soccer however one thing excellent in life, managing to make it this far with insane expectations and hype—are so celebrated that it’s now not intellectually sincere to match them to different athletes. A quarterback is nearer to a pop or film star—and as our tradition continues to fracture, few of these have the type of broad attraction of the NFL’s really elite passers.
To outlive a ruthless winnowing—to go from considered one of about 16,000 high-school quarterbacks every year to one of many 10 good ones within the NFL to one of many three or so every technology who earn the Corridor of Fame’s gold jacket—hones sure traits inside them and strips others away. Quarterback is an isolating and lonely place, regardless of total infrastructures reverse-engineered in service of those that play it, to say nothing of the frilly playbooks created for them. Ultimately, whether or not high-school children or NFL superstars, they’re alone with Steve Younger’s existential questions:
How do I do it?
Can I do it?
You received’t know till you do it, and simply since you do it as soon as, or twice, or for 12 years, that’s no assurance that you just’ll come by way of the subsequent time. Tom Brady took a nap earlier than his first Tremendous Bowl; he didn’t know higher, didn’t know what it would really feel wish to lose on the most important stage. By his final Tremendous Bowl, as a champion many occasions over, he was practically sleepless the evening earlier than the sport, maybe attempting to quiet doubts and persuade himself that but once more he was worthy of his label: Biggest Ever.
A quarterback can not enter the huddle with any doubt or concern. Anxiousness should be saved someplace. Some guys flip to the bar, or faith, or ladies, or Instagram, or avocado ice cream. Burrow took me by way of his pregame course of—designed to land him in a headspace the place he not solely feels no strain however feels virtually nothing altogether: sitting within the locker room, staring in silence, listening to hip-hop, coming into a tunnel with room for under himself, attempting to flush all emotion till there’s none.
“To play quarterback, you’re not allowed to fret about something besides the duty at hand,” Luck informed me. “And that seeps into different areas of life. It’s not the healthiest method to stay.”
Last yr, Steve Younger was on BYU’s campus for an alumni occasion. Somebody informed him about an alumni soccer sport that evening, and requested if he needed to play.
At first Younger thought, Don’t do it. However one thing ignited inside him that he hadn’t felt for some time. An opportunity to throw. On a soccer discipline, that sacred house. To transferring targets. In entrance of followers, below lights on a Friday. A possibility to wake a dormant reward. To really feel that factor. What the heck? He determined to see what he might do.
It was heat that night, within the 60s and partly cloudy. In a hoodie, Younger took the sector in opposition to males half his age, some much less. He threw an interception on his second play. However later within the sport, he drove his group down the sector with a couple of brief passes. He was close to the top zone. The ball was in his arms. He bounced on his toes. He seemed proper, then noticed a receiver named Aleva Hifo crossing the sector left. He was open, in a window most individuals can’t see. Younger simply reacted, fluid and fast. The ball was out of his arms, like that, towards the nook of the top zone, the place Hifo caught it with inches to spare. Folks cheered. The blokes surrounded Younger and lifted him on their shoulders. He leaned again, raised his arms, and yelled, not not like when he was handed the Lombardi Trophy.
That evening, Younger was gazing his cellphone in mattress when he acquired a video of the play. The angle was from behind, an ideal look to check himself, to reply that query: How do you do it? His footwork was elegant, his launch excessive and quick, the ball a spiral, with the magical mixture of contact and energy. “A reminder of what’s in me,” Younger says. He watched it once more. And once more. And once more. And once more.
*Lead picture credit score: Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Otto Greule Jr / Getty; Jim Gund / Allsport / Getty; Jeff Speer / Icon Sportswire / Getty.
This text has been tailored from Seth Wickersham’s new e book, American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback.
By Seth Wickersham
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