The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Dustin who? Higley doesn’t miss a beat
New Midview quarterback carries team to a 3-0 start
Packed in the Midview lunch room, the 2017 Midview football team sat hungry at a team dinner just 24 hours before a critical Southwestern Conference matchup with Amherst.
But the players aren’t hungry for the food that dozens of parents, teachers and members of the Grafton community
have provided for the team. These big football players are hungry for stickers.
Helmet stickers.
Recognizing the great play of the 3-0 Middies, no one’s name was called more than senior quarterback Seamus Higley as he happily collected the stickers to change the shimmering silver of the helmets to a blue of stickers.
Higley’s story has been shared hundreds of time throughout the country by hundreds of different athletes, but he is doing it in his own
way.
Filling the big shoes of Midview’s all-time great Dustin Crum, Higley is now the man behind center and Crum is 57 miles away at Kent State, but if not for Dustin, the play of Higley may not be what it is today.
“Dustin was amazing last year and he was an awesome guy to be behind,” Higley said. “He was the why our team is as good as it was last year. He taught me all the reads, he taught me everything, but most importantly, he taught me how to be a Midview quarterback.”
Becoming a perennial playoff power and force since joining the SWC, many expected to see a drop-off in the Middies’ success after sending Crum off to a Division I school.
But the Middies expected success.
“We loved being the underdog (this offseason). It made us work a lot harder when people don’t expect us to be good,” Higley said. “We just build on it. We love it.”
The success isn’t a fluke. Joining the powerhouse conference that has seen two state champions and two state runner-ups since 2000, coach DJ Shaw and players like Dustin and Higley have taken on a personal responsibility to continue the winning tradition in hopes of becoming champions in their own right.
“We just love being Midview,”
Higley said reflecting. “We love the tradition that we have here. We love everything Midview stands for.”
Picking up a football in the first grade, Higley recalls when he would stand by the fence on his toes waiting for the varsity to come out.
“I just remember watching all the old teams and always just thinking that I’m going to be out there one day,” Higley said.
“I love being out there Friday nights just because I loved football then and I love watching football now and watching those teams then was so much fun for me.”
Now the fun comes in long touchdown passes to his favorite targets in seniors Nick Crum and Ben Gendics.
Making his mark on the area this season, Higley has tossed for 599 yards in three games while completing 65 percent of his passes and throwing for 10 touchdowns.
In every sense of the way, Higley earned his time while waiting behind Dustin. Putting in the hours in the video room when his team was off playing video games, Higley never shied away from any moment to get better, even as the punching bag on scout team.
That’s how he caught the attention of the coaches around him.
“I thought (Higley) could have started for a lot of teams last year. Not many people knew about him when he was taking our JV reps very seriously,” Shaw said. “The other thing last
year was Seamus was the guy who stepped in every single day and ran our scout team and took that very serious, too. Honestly, he got a lot better and he worked very hard between last year and this year.”
Sculpted by not only Dustin ahead of him on the field, but also Scott Crum, the Middies offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, Higley has been the player to take all the coaching he can to make himself better.
“You’ve got to give our offensive coordinator, Scott Crum, a ton of credit,” Shaw said. “He’s the quarterback guru, not me, but he’s worked really hard and he’s a product of our system.
“We didn’t wholesale change our offense like some people thought we would do. We didn’t change any of our offensive goals. Everything has remained the same.”
Using the cliche of taking one game at a time, Higley follows his normal routine on Fridays; a sub from Subway, watching some final game-prep film and locking in with some music.
Putting all of his cares and worries away with music, Higley sheds the headphones before coming out to a roaring home crowd and a high that can’t be matched. Then he focuses on the opponent.
“We’re 3-0. I like winning,” Higley said with a grin. “We can’t look ahead to any games. We treat every game like it’s our last game and it’s a playoff game.”