A missed opportunity

Leo’s Darwin Rogers (right) and Aurora Christian’s Jordan Roberts work out at the QB1 camp.
(Tom Cruze/Sun-Times)

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It used to be the area’s football event of the spring. But the NCAA changed that.

Maine South offensive coordinator Charlie Bliss’ QB1 camp grew to the point where 145 coaches attended a one-day showcase for quarterbacks, receivers and linemen last spring.

On Wednesday, nobody from the Big Ten or other Division I or IAA schools was in Park Ridge because the NCAA passed a rule to prohibit coaches from Division I schools to attend Bliss-like camps and combines.

‘‘I have no idea why,’’ Bliss said. ‘‘I suppose there were some combines that were unscrupulous, but this has been free for the kids and high school coaches who are teachers of the the game donated their time to help kids.

‘‘It is the most pure form of doing football in a state where there is no spring practice. What do we tell coaches, go watch a kid play shortstop on the baseball team?”

Recruiting analyst Tim O’Halloran has been on board with Bliss since the camp started five years ago. ‘‘There is no question that there are kids here that could be helped if the Division I schools could come,’’ O’Halloran said. ‘‘We do plan to videotape the event and send to it schools that want it for free. But the only ones who lose with this rule are the kids.’’

Bliss, a Schurz graduate who has coached at Maine South since 1988, started his camp because he wanted to give football players more exposure to college coaches in order to showcase their talent. They are given instruction and invited to participate for free.

‘‘The first year, we sent over 100 e-mails and faxes to colleges, but no one said they would come,’’ Bliss said. ‘‘On the day of the combine, Illinois coach Ron Zook and 31 other coaches showed up.’’

While some athletes chose not to participate because Division I and I-AA coaches could not attend, there were several with multiple scholarship offers who did come.

One the hottest prospects in the area is Sandburg’s 6-7, 275-pound lineman Mike Schofield.

‘‘I just want to be competitive,’’ Schofield said. ‘‘You see where you’re at. And I got a chance [to meet] new people and learn stuff from some different coaches.’’

Leo, which is loaded with prospects, had several players in attendance, including quarterback Darwin Rogers, who showed remarkable athleticism and, Bliss said, just received his first offer, from Western Michigan.

‘‘I came to improve my technique and fundamentals,’’ Rogers said. ‘‘And this is fun, even though it’s a long way to come from Leo every Sunday. I also get to watch other guys and see how they learn.

‘‘We have guys who came in and wanted to play at Leo. And coach [Mike] Holmes [who played at Leo and Illinois] wants to bring Leo back to its glory days in football — like track and basketball.’’

Team tutor earns scholarship

Whitney Young senior Nathaniel Marshall was one of 28 high school seniors from lower-income backgrounds to receive a college scholarship from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.

Marshall, who was raised on the South Side by his mother and grandmother, is a National Achievement Scholar, placing in the top 1 percent of black students in Illinois who took the PSAT. He is also on the Principal’s Scholar Honor Roll. He placed as the top individual teen poet in Chicago’s Louder Than a Bomb Teen Poetry Festival. His work was published in the anthology The Spoken Word Revolution: Redux and his poem, ‘‘Wilting,’’ was selected as the top 2007 submission to Wisconsin-Whitewater’s annual creative writing festival.

He also is a member of a rap group, Daily Lyrical Product, which has released two independent albums.

‘‘Nate is a wonderful, wonderful student, who has thrived with diversity,’’ Young principal Joyce Kenner said. ‘‘He played basketball as a freshman and now he is the tutor for the team.

‘‘As a rapper, he has gotten things played on some major radio stations. And my son [Young senior baseball-basketball player Julian Kenner] said, ‘Mom, he’s pretty good.’’’

Marshall, who will attend Vanderbilt in the fall, was able to explore journalism and foreign policy. He took a journalism class at the Harvard Summer School Secondary School Program and a foreign policy class at the Junior Statesman Summer School. His most inspiring moments as a Young Scholar came during Scholars Week. In a release, he said: ‘‘I met some of the most gifted, driven, inspired and inspiring people I had ever encountered in the form of my fellow scholars.’’