Hi everybody! I want to thank you all for reading Pitch Dreams. Now that this story is over I want to announce that I've been working on a new book called Out of the Pocket. This book is about a high school quarterback entering his senior year with 0 scholarship offers. It follows his senior year of high school and I plan to to make this book following his journey as he hopes to make it to college ball and maybe the NFL. The first chapter is out now. Below is the first chapter as a sample.
Chapter 1 Camp Circuit Phantom
The composite score on the recruiting website was a clear zero.
Jason Evans stared at his phone, the screen struggling against the bright July sun. There was no photo, just a gray silhouette where his face should be. No stars. No national ranking. No positional ranking. Just his name, his height a generous 6'1", his weight a pushed-up 185 pounds, and his high school: Westbridge High.
He locked his phone and tossed it onto his gym bag. The digital presence did not match reality, but in today's high school football scene, if you weren't on the camp circuit, you didn't exist.
"You're overthinking it again, Jace."
Jason looked up. Marcus, his main receiver and best friend since Pop Warner, jogged back to the line of scrimmage, flipping a worn composite football end over end. Sweat soaked the collar of Marcus's gray cutoff shirt. It was ninety-six degrees on the hot turf of their high school practice field, and they had been running the same dig route for forty-five minutes.
"I'm not overthinking," Jason said, catching the ball Marcus tossed to him. He spun the laces in his palm, feeling the familiar grip of the pebbled leather. "I was just looking at the board."
"The board is trash," Marcus said, tapping his cleats with a water bottle. "You know why you're a zero-star? Because Coach Miller ran the Wing-T for three years, and you handed the ball off forty times a game. You didn't go to the Elite 11 regionals because you were at the hardware store. None of that changes what happens when you throw the ball."
"Scouts don't care about context, Marc. They care about tape. And my tape is mostly fake handoffs and blocking edge rushers."
Jason stepped back to the makeshift pocket marked out with orange cones. He took a breath, letting his frustration soak into the heat. Marcus was right on one point: the mechanics mattered most right now.
He wiped his hands on his shorts, picturing the defensive front. Senior year started in exactly four weeks. Coach Miller had finally retired. The new head coach, a young hotshot offensive coordinator from across the state, had watched Jason's arm during spring ball and immediately scrapped the Wing-T for a spread system. This was the break Jason had hoped for, but it meant he had only ten games to create a highlight reel that most elite prospects built over three years.
"Alright," Jason called out, lowering his voice as he got into his rhythm. "Trips right, Z-under. On one."
He didn't wait for Marcus to get set. He wanted the rep to feel rushed, chaotic—like a collapsing pocket.
Down. Set. Hut.
Jason took a fast, punchy three-step drop. His footwork was careful, a result of thousands of silent reps in his backyard. Plant the back foot. Keep the base wide. Eyes downfield. He hitched once, reading the imaginary safety creeping toward the sideline.
Marcus made his cut, breaking sharply across the middle of the field at fifteen yards.
Jason didn't wind up. His release was a quick, tight flick—all hips and shoulder rotation. The ball shot out of his hand with a sharp hiss. It arrived like a frozen rope, hitting Marcus perfectly in stride, right in the numbers, before he even had time to fully turn his head.
The smack of the ball hitting Marcus's hands echoed through the empty bleachers.
Marcus stumbled a few steps from the force, regaining his balance. He looked at his stinging palms, then back at Jason. A slow grin appeared on his face.
"Yeah," Marcus shouted back across the field. "I don't think the zero-star rating will last past week one."
Jason didn't smile. He jogged forward to get the ball. It was a perfect throw, but one good throw in an empty stadium wouldn't earn him a scholarship. He needed a hundred of them, under the lights, with three-hundred-pound defensive linemen trying to take him down.
"Run it again," Jason said, tossing the ball back between his hands. "And this time, break a step earlier. The window's going to be tighter than that."