QB impacted by Yarnell Hill fire

Israel Loveall still has vivid memories of that June 30th day in 2013 when 19 lives – men called the Granite Mountain Hotshots – were lost while battling the Yarnell Hill fire northwest of Phoenix.

“Part of our football team went and took stuff down there and helped out,” said Loveall, who was entering the eighth grade then. “I went down and helped.”

Bagdad is about 50 miles northwest of Yarnell.

“Since then, I wanted to be a firefighter. My older brother James is pursuing that now.”

Loveall wants to be a helicopter pilot and fight wildfires. First, the Bagdad High senior quarterback is set to enter the national record book.

With five touchdown passes Friday night at home against Salome, Loveall would break the national career record for 8-man football for most TD passes.

If he doesn’t break the record this week, he’ll get another chance next week when Bagdad hosts Valley Lutheran.

He already has thrown 30 TD passes in six games for the unbeaten Sultan and currently has 139 in his career, which is the most any quarterback – 11man to 8-man – has ever thrown in Arizona prep football history. And he’s done it in only three years on varsity.

Whenever Loveall does enter the national record book, he is hoping the spotlight shines on the program.

“It’s huge,” he said. “It means more for the program.”

Top-ranked Bagdad (6-0) went from being a power run team under coach Dalton Mills after Loveall’s freshman year to a spread attack. Loveall threw 50 TD passes his sophomore season, and followed that up with 59 last season when Bagdad went 11-0 and beat Williams 60-6 in the 1A state final.

A rematch this season ended up being the most memorable TD in Loveall’s life.

His 57-yard scoring pass to Scott Finnerty on the last play of the game beat Williams 28-24 on Sept. 1.

“It was an incredible feeling,” Loveall said. “The only other game where there was a similar feeling was in the state baseball semifinals my sophomore year. We were playing Bisbee. We were down 3-0 in the bottom of the sixth. We ended up winning.”

Loveall, the youngest of four footballplaying brothers (James, Zachary, Benjamin), has become a celebrity in Bagdad. He referees Pop Warner games.

But he doesn’t seek the spotlight. He’d rather give.

“His family is great,” Mills said. “They go to church every week. He’s running for homecoming king this week. (Friday night), a football player at Mayer (Cody Colquitt) died in a rollover crash, and he wasn’t talking about his (Arizona) record. He was talking about the Mayer community wanting to get stickers to show their support of (Colquitt’s) his family and their team.”

As far as his love for helicopters, Loveall said it happened a couple of years ago while on an Alaskan cruise with his family and they went on a helicopter excursion.

“I got the thrill of flying,” he said. “My dad loves helicopters. I’m the last one, so I told him I’d go for it.” went down, football and baseball. We brought them back just to get them out. A lot of them didn’t have water or electric. We had water for them. We had food in the concession stand. We gave that out before the hurricane hit.

“The kids have responded. And we’re very happy to be here.”