St. James looks for more success with new signal caller in Perry
St. James quarterback Chase Perry loads up for a pass during a recent 7-on-7 camp. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
A lot of St. James’ success over the past two years can be traced to its record-setting quarterback, but KJ Jackson is playing football at the University of Arkansas now and the Trojans are entering a new era.
With Jackson playing in the Southeastern Conference, the focus this summer has shifted to his replacement, junior Chase Perry.
“My mindset this year is just to be the best I can be for the team,” Perry said. “It’s not about me this year, it’s about how good a team we can be.”
Over the past dozen years, it’s rare for the Trojans to have unproven talent at both quarterback and tailback and if you throw in the transition to new coach Aubrey Blackwell, this season is unique, making the 7-on-7 workouts this summer a valuable experience for the Trojans.
“I can see us progressing, especially at quarterback and wide receiver,” Blackwell said. “Actually, moreso with our ‘twos,’ the guys that haven’t played a lot. We’ve been a wing-T team at the middle school level the past four or five years and we’re going to transition out of that, so we’ve got a big learning curve.
“They have to learn the spread, so they’ve come a long way already, learning how to run routes and how to cover.”
The Trojans competed in their third 7-on-7 tournament on Wednesday at Alabama Christian Academy, spending the previous week at Alabama State and the week before that at Troy University. Now, they’ll get a break for the holidays before returning to ACA on July 10.
“I think we’ve gotten a lot better these past few weeks,” Perry said. “We’ve competed well, we’ve learned from our mistakes, our receivers are getting back into their route running, our DBs are getting better every day, our younger guys are getting more reps and getting better and they’re going to help us a lot this year.”
Perry may be inexperienced at the position, but Blackwell likes the leadership displayed by his junior this summer.
“He shows up every day to work,” Blackwell said. “He’s one of our guys that shows up on Fridays and even on the weekends to get extra work in. He’s always bugging me to get in the weight room and to get extra time on the field with our guys. The want-to to be good is there and that’s the biggest hurdle you have to overcome with a young quarterback is making sure he puts in the time to be really good at that position.
“I’m never going to compare him to KJ because I don’t like comparing my players to any other player because God made us all unique. But watching his growth and watching him show up to work every day has been good.”
As the morning workouts continued in the blazing heat with competition against Verbena and Isabella, Blackwell’s frustration grew at times over his team’s mental breakdowns.
“The biggest thing I’m challenging my guys with -- and we’re struggling with -- is just staying consistent with our focus,” he said. “Which I expected. That’s something you’ve got to train in young players.”
Perry picked up on Blackwell’s message immediately and spent the rest of the morning challenging his teammates.
“I want to see our mindset get better,” Perry said. “I want us to go into each game with better energy, high energy, go out there and want to win every game. I want to see us get more crisp and win every rep.”