Waiting in the wings

Payton Veraldi has not had a varsity start for Dalton High’s football team.

Even so, he’s impressing people.

The Catamounts’ backup quarterback recently attended two football camps and received high praise and recognition for his on-field work and film-room scores. Veraldi, who will be a sophomore this year, earned a spot in two high-level competitions later this summer, along with a scholarship for when he makes the jump to college.

Veraldi scored in the top 5 percent of all quarterback participants at the National Underclassmen Combine on June 8 in Atlanta. His performance earned him a trip to the Southeastern finals this weekend in College Park.

He competed against quarterbacks in grade 6 through 11 from seven states, including Georgia, performing the 40-yard dash, vertical jump, long jump, bench press and shuttle run while also performing two-on-two, three-on-three and seven-on-seven drills. He will do the same this weekend in the finals.

He also earned a $750 leadership scholarship, which he can use to any college of his choice.

At the National Football Academy PSP Camp on June 13 and 14 Columbia, S.C., Veraldi earned one of the highest scores in the film and on-field tests. Veraldi said a score of 17 “was the highest ever,” and he scored a 15 in the film and coverage read tests.

“There’s a video session, and you had to read coverages and pick out the correct coverage and pick out the open man who you should throw it to,” Veraldi said. “You had like three seconds to do it.”

His score in the coverage tests, along with strong showings in the arm strength and accuracy drills, earned him a spot in the Duel of Dozens competition next month at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Veraldi will go against quarterbacks in grades 7 through 11 from across the United States and Canada when he makes the trip to Canton, Ohio.

“It’s basically everything together,” Veraldi’s father, Paul, said. “It’s an on-field assessment which looks at accuracy, footwork, reading coverages as well as the classwork stuff. So you’ll compete in the individual things, and then there will be some two-on-two things, then three-on-three things and seven-on-seven. And they give you an accumulated score based on that.”

The younger Veraldi said there were around 45 to 50 quarterbacks at each event and that the competition level was obviously high.

“I saw a lot of really good athletes, kids who ran (4.40-second 40-yard dashes) and as quick as could be,” he said. “There were tremendous athletes all around me, so it wasn’t like the talent level was nothing.”

Veraldi dressed for Dalton’s varsity team his freshman season, playing “a couple” snaps in a win against Murray County, and played on the junior varsity and freshmen teams. He will be on the JV and varsity rosters for 2012.

Dalton head coach Matt Land said Veraldi will play “some free safety and wide receiver, along with quarterback” in 2012 for the Cats.

“I would say that he has two extreme strengths,” Land said. “One is that is required to play quarterback at Dalton, and probably anywhere else ,and that is leadership. You have to be a leader and make the right choices both on and off the field.

“The second thing is he is very accurate with his arm. He throws a great ball. The thing is for me, from coaching him for a year and him being at these camps, I don’t see a single downside with him. I think he’s only going to get better.”

A three-sport athlete in football, baseball and basketball, Veraldi is putting in the extra time and effort to make a name for himself in the sport he loves the most.

Veraldi competed at a Mercer University camp the weekend of June 15-17 and another at Middle Georgia College the weekend of June 1-3.

“Based on the talent I’ve seen, I’m cautiously optimistic,” Veraldi said. “I still have a lot of work to do ,but it’s good to see where I stand against other competition.

“The main thing I need to work on is speed and strength.”

Veraldi started playing football when he was 6 years old, and he hopes to keep playing for a while longer.

“My dream school is Alabama, but I just want to go wherever I can play football and get my education,” he said.

Land called Veraldi the “future” for Dalton football and said he is “pretty confident we’ll see a lot of him through the next two or three years.

“He’s definitely someone who, as Cole Calfee leaves next year, will be in the mix to be a quarterback,” Land said. “The big thing is Payton is a great athlete, and if you’re a great athlete, we are committed to getting you on the field. So even though we have a great returning quarterback as our starter, we will get Payton on the field.”

Dalton High School Catamounts

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Waiting in the wings

Sophomore Dalton QB earning high praise at camps

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