Rookie QB shows an old pro’s work ethic

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This article was published 03/06/2019 (2287 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s almost a prerequisite for the job.

If you expect to be a successful pro quarterback, chances are you have a Type-A personality. You know, the high-energy, ambitious, ultra-competitive workaholics you frequently hear about when the most accomplished signal-callers are rated.

In the NFL, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are the standard bearers. In the CFL, Bo Levi Mitchell and Mike Reilly are as good as it gets.

And, for three years earlier this decade at Franklin High School in suburban Milwaukee, it was Sean McGuire. The 23-year-old rookie signal-caller from Western Illinois is battling incumbent Bryan Bennett for the No. 3 job behind established vets Matt Nichols and Chris Streveler at Winnipeg Blue Bombers training camp.

His high school mentor believes McGuire is well-qualified to be a pro, and his attributes go far beyond his 6-3, 228-pound frame and physical tools.

“I’ll say this, in all my years, he’s the hardest-working kid I’ve ever coached and the best leader,” said Louis Brown, head coach of the Franklin Sabers varsity football program for the past 26 years. “He was a captain for us as a junior and a senior, and I know he was a captain in college as a sophomore. This stuff he does off the field is more impressive than the stuff he does on the field.”

To illustrate McGuire’s commitment to the job, Brown recalled a summer day in 2013. Wisconsin high school regulations permit five days of contact practices supervised by coaches and his Franklin team had already scheduled a full complement.

“I came up here one day early in the summer when (McGuire) was going to be a senior and he had — I’m going to say 80 kids up here and he was pretty much running the practice on his own,” Brown said.

“I couldn’t believe it. He took our team to the state championship (game) that year and he just makes the kids around him way better and want to compete for him.”

McGuire’s explanation about running practice that day is very matter of fact.

“I just like to win, I like to compete and so I thought if I got everyone on the same page and we have that mutual goal… At that time, it was easy to get a bunch of guys with that similar mindset and work and do things,” McGuire said.

“Just because the coaches aren’t there, doesn’t mean we can’t still get better. It worked out for that year. That’s a long time ago, but I’m still trying to implement that into my daily life today. If I have a break, I’d rather be doing something productive than just sitting around watching TV or whatever it may be.”

That day, it wasn’t just a fun workout with high school buddies for McGuire. 

“He had the whole team around a huge tractor tire and they were hitting the tractor tire with sledgehammers,” Brown said. “He’s super intense. He brings the most out of the kids around him.”

McGuire got an early opportunity to show some of what he had been learning in his CFL pre-season debut against the Edmonton Eskimos, completing six of 10 passes for 69 yards and lugging the ball once for 13 yards in a relief appearance in Friday night’s 20-3 Bombers victory. 

“He seems to have picked up the game very quickly,” Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea said. “He seems to have command of the huddle, understands the playbook and what we want to do. I think at this point in camp, what happens with these guys is the install has decreased significantly. So now, they can flip back a bunch of pages and get caught up again and revisit ideas that they need to look at.”

McGuire admits one of his chief tasks has been to mimic the old pro Nichols, who exhibits a similar devotion to his craft. He has also enjoyed getting to know second-year pro Streveler, the emerging star he faced twice during his college career.

On Sept. 30, 2016, McGuire went 20-for-39 for 286 yards and two TDs in a 35-34 win over Streveler’s South Dakota squad. Streveler, meanwhile, went 29-for-40 for 373 yards and two touchdowns while also rushing for 102 yards on 21 carries.

In the rematch on Oct. 29, 2017, Streveler completed 19 of 32 for 328 yards and three TDs and 89 yards rushing on 24 carries in the Coyotes’ 38-33 win over the Leathernecks. McGuire also had a huge game, connecting on 31 of 48 passes for 441 yards and four majors.

“It was always a tough one,” McGuire said of facing Streveler. “The games were always crazy. We always talked about that. We actually had the same college coaches, too. (Bob Nielson) left where I went to school and coached Strev, so we always had that common ground.”

McGuire’s work ethic likely has something to do with the example set by his parents, Terrence and Deborah McGuire.

“I have really hard-working parents,” said McGuire, whose mom is a history teacher at Franklin. “They don’t take a lot of time off. If they’re not doing one thing, they’re doing something else. I learned early on (and) that it helped me lots.”

His old high school coach believes McGuire was also motivated by being under-recruited and never getting a scholarship offer from a major college, needing to go the route of Western Illinois, a smaller Division I FCS school.

“I think it was the fact he ran a 4.8 (40) and he wasn’t in the 4.6 or 4.7 (range),” Brown said. “The thing people don’t realize is… his competitiveness and fire really motivate him and drive him and take him to that next level.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14