He hadn’t played a high school football game. Now this Lakewood Ranch junior is their QB
The chatter started last offseason.
It piqued Lakewood Ranch head coach Rashad West’s interest. The initial reports coming from junior varsity head coach Tommy Cuervo were confirmed by former Mustangs head coach Mick Koczersut.
There was an athletic baseball player in Koczersut’s physical education class, with talent to try the gridiron.
It was March 2022 and West went to see if he could throw a football.
The prospect in question, Clayton Dees, was a rising junior that had never played a down in high school football. West said he had Dees throw the ball about five or six times.
Those initial throws caught West’s attention.
“It was a natural motion, it wasn’t something he had to clean up and the ball was jumping out of his hands,” West said. “I was like, ‘Oh man, there may be something here.’ Obviously there’s much more to playing the position than just going out back on a PE field and throwing, but at least there was a place to start with some arm talent. We just had to see if he could pick up the rest.”
But it wasn’t a lock that Dees, who drew interest from the Miami Hurricanes in eighth grade as well as Florida State and Virginia for his baseball skills, was leaving the diamond to join the football team in the fall.
Spring is baseball season and Dees was in the midst of that, but did come to some spring football practices and made appearances in the summer while also playing for his travel ball baseball team.
As a middle infielder who has dabbled at third base and outfield, Dees’ quick release and varying arm angle throws from baseball translates to making throws as a quarterback.
West, who was a quarterback in his playing days, spotted what other coaches on campus had told him about Dees. Once Dees decided to commit to football in the fall, he soon won the starting job and entered his first game — the preseason Kickoff Classic — ready to experience varsity football.
That meant a quick introduction to something not felt in baseball: getting tackled. So West called a run play for Dees to start the game.
It’s a move that West said dates back to when he played and a designed run at the start to ease him into the game.
“I thought the same thing,” West said. “We can get the nerves out by letting him get tackled, take a hit, get up and realize it’s just football and he’ll be fine.”
Dees said, “I was like, ‘All right, that’s it. Let’s do it. Let’s roll.’”
The NFL quarterback room features several players with a baseball background. Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston each were MLB draft picks that currently play quarterback in the NFL.
“A lot of the quarterbacks in the NFL have a background in baseball, whether it’s been in college or they were drafted … and so I’ve been seeing that with a ton of quarterbacks and learning from their movements and what they’ve done,” Dees said.
Dees said he definitely wants to play both sports in college. Prior to this season, the junior hadn’t played since the seventh grade in youth football.
West said Cuervo had noticed Dees during Young Life, a Christian youth group, and mentioned his name following last school year’s winter break.
“We’ve got 2,500 kids on campus, I hear about kids all the time that can be great football players that aren’t playing,” West said.
But talking to Koczersut confirmed the talent Dees has.
And as Dees continues gaining experience, there’s more progression in his game from reading defenses to improving at guiding the offense.
The next step comes Friday when Lakewood Ranch (4-3 overall, 0-2 district) travels to St. Petersburg Gibbs.
This story was originally published October 21, 2022 at 10:40 AM.
