Posted: Thu, 6 Oct 2011 11:44 PM - 10,850 Readers
By: Danny Davis
photography by Jay Janner
Inside the athletic offices at Westlake High , a wall displays 85 framed photographs and a framed magazine, all honoring Chaparrals who have played college football. Drew Brees can be found on that wall. So can Tanner Price. And Arizona Wildcats quarterback Nick Foles pops up on the cover of that magazine.
"There's been a lot of big names," senior Lewis Guilbeau said. "It's not so much (that) we're trying to fill their shoes, we're just trying to make our own story right now."
This season, Guilbeau and classmate Blake Box have both quarterbacked a Westlake team that opened district play with a 43-7 victory over Anderson on Thursday night. Box has passed for 940 yards and six touchdowns, while Guilbeau has thrown for two TDs among his 12 completions in 19 attempts.
Guilbeau was the Chaparrals' starter last season, but Westlake decided to hand the huddle to the 6-foot-3-inch, 175-pound Box this fall. The move allowed Westlake to rotate the 5-9, 180-pound Guilbeau between quarterback, running back and wide receiver .
"They don't really know what's coming at them with both of us," Box said. " It keeps adding all these dimensions, and it makes it hard for the defense to prepare for us."
Against Anderson, Box threw a 9-yard TD pass to his younger brother Brandon and a 17-yard scoring strike to sophomore Jon Rhoads. Guilbeau, who took 23 snaps at the quarterback spot, ran for 35 yards, had a 13-yard reception and threw a third-quarter TD pass to Brandon Box.
The win was Westlake's 215th since the start of the 1992 season, and the Chaparrals have had just as much success on national signing day during the past 20 years. In that time, Westlake has sent all but one of its quarterbacks on to college football, although not all continued to play QB after high school .
Foles and Price are currently the starting quarterbacks at Arizona and Wake Forest. Brees, Westlake's most famous football alum, played at Purdue before starting an NFL career that saw him win a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints in 2010.
Other area schools have had a run of talent at one position, including Cedar Park, which has sent six offensive linemen to college football over the previous two seasons. At Copperas Cove, senior Brandon Hamilton — who reportedly has scholarship offers from Idaho and SMU — will soon become the fifth Bulldawg running back since 2006 to sign with a Football Bowl Subdivision program.
The four quarterbacks who started at Lake Travis from 2003 to 2010 all played or now play college football, and senior Colin Lagasse, who has started four games at QB for the Cavaliers during the past two seasons, has committed to SMU as an athlete. Westlake, however, was developing college quarterbacks more than a decade before Todd Reesing, Garrett Gilbert and Michael Brewer ever threw a pass for Lake Travis.
Past Chaparral quarterbacks Charles Kean, Jay Rodgers and Duke Hasson signed with Army, Indiana and SMU, respectively, while Alvin Cowan, Adam Hall and Mark Oliver played at Yale, San Diego State and Rhodes College. Chad Schroeder and Turner Wimberly moved to wide receiver for their teams at Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.
So why has Westlake had so much success grooming quarterbacks?
"If I knew that, I could be rich. I would be training them all over the country," joked former Westlake coach Derek Long, crediting his predecessor, Ron Schroeder, for emphasizing proper techniques with Chaparral players.
When Long succeeded Schroeder — Chad Schroeder's father — in 2003, the longtime assistant kept Schroeder's pro-style offense . After Odessa Permian's Darren Allman replaced Long in 2009, though, a spread attack was installed, and Westlake quarterbacks began taking most of their snaps in the shotgun formation.
Despite the changes, Westlake has continued to churn out college-level quarterbacks.
"It was nice being able to play under both coaching staffs," said Price, a junior starter during Long's last season who said the offense he runs at Wake Forest more resembles Allman's . "It was fun to get to play with two different offensive schemes. I really enjoyed it."
Guilbeau, a two-time all-district standout in baseball who will visit Navy on a recruiting trip for that sport this weekend, and Box, who has drawn some interest from smaller college football programs, are both familiar with Westlake's storied football history .
Box listed Foles as one of the Chaparrals he looked up to as a kid, and Guilbeau chose to wear Foles' No. 7 jersey in middle school.
Years later, it's Box and Guilbeau whom Westlake youngsters are emulating.
"It's kind of weird that some kids in the future might have the same (interview) that we're having about us," Guilbeau said on Tuesday. "Hopefully that's true; hopefully we leave a mark here at Westlake."
