Home

Steamboat Springs — Ask the various people surrounding the Steamboat Springs High School football program for their favorite Jack Spady highlight and there’s little chance you’ll get the same answer from any two people.

The varied responses help point to why the lanky senior will be one Steamboat’s top threats on both sides of the ball Saturday when the Sailors take the field in the second round of the Class 3A playoffs.

“My favorite Jack Spady highlight — our first game this year,” said Austin Hinder, Steamboat’s senior quarterback who’s been throwing footballs at Spady since the two were in elementary school. “That first game against Holy Family, that was probably one of the best. He just jumped up and snagged a ball one-handed.

“That was unbelievable.”

Spady has racked up 831 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns in 2009 alone.

Plenty of his 47 receptions have come thanks to a late high school growth spurt that helped him fill out his lanky 6-foot-3 frame.

It was such a transformation from one season to the next it left Sailors coach Aaron Finch doing a double take last summer as he reviewed old game film in preparation for the new season.

A small Sailor cut across the field running a slant route and pulled down a catch.

“It was Jack,” Finch said. “I couldn’t even believe it was the same kid.”

It wasn’t all about a change in height, either.

In fact, Finch’s favorite Spady highlights didn’t happen anywhere near the football field.

“There was a point early in the summer in the weight room where Jack just turned into a team leader,” Finch said. “He was always there, helping lead and building his speed, his strength and all those important football skills.”

That effort went deeper than biceps and 40-yard dash times, too.

Described by friends and coaches as a leader, a listener and a hard worker, Spady developed a soft set of hands to accompany his towering physic.

“I’ve thrown the ball to him since second grade and never had someone catch it better,” Hinder said.

Rarely was that more obvious than in one of Steamboat’s most lopsided 2009 wins.

The Sailors got up early and blew out a squad from Battle Mountain.

Spady played a huge role.

After the game’s first touchdown, he lobbed a pass on a fake extra point kick, finding Joe Dover for a two-point conversion and an 8-0 lead.

Later, playing as a cornerback on defense, he drifted back after the ball was snapped, letting the receiver he was covering get several yards behind him.

That didn’t escape Battle Mountain quarterback Jake Engle, who spotted the seemingly open wideout and tried to lift the ball high to his receiver.

He had no such luck. Spady leapt up and came down with an interception. He returned it 29 yards for a touchdown.

Later still, he hauled in a 47-yard, over-the-shoulder catch from Dover for yet another score.

But a game with scores coming via an interception, a pass and a reception didn’t qualify as Spady’s own favorite highlight.

That game and that highlight came in a 28-21 white-knuckle victory that helped establish Steamboat as one of the state’s top teams.

“It was a play designed so I could get behind the safety, and Austin just threw it up. It was coming in, and I followed it back over my shoulder,” Spady said. “Right as I was coming up with the guy was grabbing on my back, before I made the catch. Then I caught it and just fell into the end zone.”

He paused for a moment, thinking before he continued relaying the memory Wednesday afternoon before rushing off to practice.

“That was my best catch,” he said, putting his stamp on a fact many Sailor fans would love to debate.