Valley teen has big dreams of the gridiron

Boys dream big. Spencer Shaw is no different. A starter on every organized football team on which he’s ever played, the Spokane Valley teen always dreamed of playing college football.

And not just playing for any college. The defensive MVP of the Greater Spokane League dreamed of playing for the University of Miami, a team loaded with some of the fastest, most talented athletes in the country.

Wednesday would be a life-changing day for the 18-year-old East Valley High School senior if his dreams were to be realized. It’s the day prep players all over the country fax letters of intent to colleges that have recruited them for football.

Signing day, as Wednesday is known, also marks the end of an era for the students who didn’t catch a college program’s eye. There are more kids left behind than picked up. Shaw could very well be one of the former.

“Western Washington called me. I’m going for a visit,” he said last week. The Division II school in Bellingham is a long way from the Miami he was shooting for. “I might walk on at Eastern Washington.”

Sweat runs down Shaw’s forehead as he speaks. Though football ended for the linebacker more than two months ago, he is still showing up at the high school gym three days a week at 1:30 pm. He stays until the weight room closes at 5 p.m.

When you want to play as much as Shaw does, football becomes you. Even at the high school level, the preparation and training is a year-round thing. Students pour their souls into sport, and then suddenly it’s over.

East Valley coach Adam Fisher tells his seniors every year to appreciate playing on a team, the long practices, even the lung-burning runs he requires because they’ll probably never play the game again. There’s no city league tackle football like there is baseball or basketball, no marathons to run. Football, because of equipment costs and the sheer number of players required, quickly ends without school support.

Wednesday, if Shaw has no college to commit to, he will have to weigh the merits of walking onto a college team and fighting for a space on the roster. The choice will mean committing himself to what really amounts to a full-time, year-round job without the benefits of a scholarship. He will still have to pay for school and meals and housing, with little time for night work.

On the opposite end of Sullivan Avenue, Central Valley High School player Zach Chesher is weighing his options. He’s a defensive back for the CV Bears. Like Shaw, he hasn’t had any big-time college football offers. The wisdom of his coaches, who told him to approach every practice as if it were his last, is starting to hit home.

“It started sinking in a while ago, our last home game,” Chesher said. “I was kind of sad for a while.”

Chesher, who started playing football in the seventh grade for the Evergreen Grizzlies, filled his summers with conditioning and seven-on-seven drills, when receivers and defensive backs like Chesher race across the turf battling for thrown footballs.

Chesher, 17, has thought about staying in the game by walking on at a local college, but he’s spoken with friends about the role of a non-starter on a college team. It’s a bruising experience, taking the hardest hits from the biggest and fastest athletes. The only payoff can be watching from the sidelines while those players win. And perhaps for the first time, being the kid who doesn’t get picked to play.