The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Rise of Hunt, Trubisky started in youth league
ESPN draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. stoked the fire of Browns fans last week when he released a threeround mock draft.
It included the Browns drafting Mentor High School graduate Mitchell Trubisky and running back Kareem Hunt of Willoughby South High School.
Imagine that, a backfield of Trubisky and Hunt on the shores of Lake Erie.
Jake Cowdrick has thought about that for a while.
It all started years ago, ever since Cowdrick, now a football coach for Mentor’s freshman team, saw the pair as squirts in the Mentor Youth Football Association.
Hunt and Trubisky might have been little squirts like the rest who were just beginning playing football. But it was clear to him they were different. Much different. “There was no question about that,” said Cowdrick.
About 15 years ago, Cowdrick coached Trubisky’s team in the youth league, the Falcons, but Trubisky wasn’t a quarterback. He and Hunt, who played for the Buckeyes team, were running backs.
“Yeah, I wasn’t quite ready to throw the ball just yet,” said Trubisky, who didn’t begin playing QB until the sixth grade.
The QB on Trubisky’s
team was Kade McClure, who’s a standout starting pitcher on the No. 2-ranked Louisville baseball team.
McClure and Trubisky remain great friends today, and it all started on the gridiron with McClure handing the ball off to Trubisky. Many times, that handoff resulted in Trubisky racing to the end zone. It was that way with Hunt, too.
“We both pretty much dominated,” said Trubisky. “It was like we both scored every other time we had the football. It was a lot of fun.”
Even at an early age, there was no denying the playmaking abilities for Hunt and Trubisky.
“You could just see it,” said Brian McClure, Kade’s father and former coach in the Mentor Youth Football Association. “Kareem was like a phenom.”
Trubisky began eyeing the QB position shortly after his youth football days. When he arrived at Mentor
High, he and longtime Cardinals QB coach Nes Janiak had already made a connection.
“Mitch came to me around the eighth grade, and we talked about him as a quarterback and taking the next step,” said Janiak, who first met Trubisky as a sixth-grade ball boy for the varsity football team. “He was very determined, and very serious about being a quarterback.”
Back to a possible Browns backfield of Trubisky and Hunt. Cowdrick still wonders about a “What If?” that might have changed the course of area high school football forever.
“Could you imagine if Mitch and Kareem had played on the same football team at Mentor?” asked Cowdrick.
It didn’t turn out that way. When Hunt was in third grade, he said his family moved from Mentor to Willoughby, where Hunt had a record-setting career as a South Rebel.
“I think it was something like 61-59. It seemed like Kareem and Mitchell scored every touchdown in that game. Once they got around the edge, they were gone.” — Brian McClure, coach in the 2003 Mentor Youth Football championship game
Cowdrick’s first impression of Hunt has stayed with him.
“He was little, but man was he shifty,” said Cowdrick.
Hunt and Trubisky faced off once in high school. In 2010, Mentor beat South in a shootout, 48-47. Hunt, who also played linebacker in high school, got a sack of Trubisky in that game.
Another head-to-head matchup occurred in a 2003 championship game of the Mentor Youth Football Association. Hunt’s Ohio State team played Trubisky’s Falcons. They were 8.
The final score is a mystery today. But with Hunt leading the way, the Buckeyes took home the trophy.
“I think it was something like 61-59,” said Brian McClure, who coached in the game. “It seemed like Kareem and Mitchell scored every touchdown in that game. Once they got around the edge, they were gone.”
Northeast Ohio is days away from finding out Trubisky’s and Hunt’s draft fate.
One or none could get drafted by the Browns.
If both are drafted by Cleveland, folks such as Cowdrick won’t have play the “What If?” game — at least as it pertains to the Browns.