Marty Kirkland: Smart decisions are part of Sams’ path to success

Levi Sams enjoyed a record-setting career in two years as Southeast Whitfield’s starting quarterback not because he was the biggest, fastest or strongest guy on the field, but because he listened to his coaches, learned the system and made good decisions on Friday nights.

Turns out Sams — who will graduate with honors today as Southeast says its farewells to the Class of 2012 — is pretty smart off the field as well.

Like a lot of high school football players, Sams had hopes of playing in college. But he never made that goal such a priority that he was willing to put his athletic concerns in front of his academic ones. Sams sees himself as a student-athlete, not an athlete-student, and so the school had to fit his needs before the football program could.

In between the lines and outside of them, Sams did his best to make the right decisions.

“I got offers from a lot of small places,” he said, “but I didn’t really want to go to a place where I didn’t want to go to school.”

Well, one of the schools high on his interest list has a place for him in the locker room, too.

Sams will be one of the players who brings football back to Mercer University in Macon, where they haven’t fielded a team since 1941, but will do so in 2013 under the guidance of former Furman coach Bobby Lamb.

After devoting this fall to practice, the Bears will begin competition next year in the Pioneer League, a Division I football-only conference in which member schools do not offer athletic scholarships.

Sams had already been accepted at Mercer by the time Lamb offered him a spot on the team, and he said playing football will be “a bonus” for his college experience.

“I knew Mercer was where I wanted to go, so playing football on top of that, I’m really happy that happened,” he said. “I think I want to major in education and try to coach later on in life, so I figure playing college ball will be a really good experience for me. That opportunity was given to me and I decided to take it.”

He made the most of his opportunity at Southeast. In both of his seasons as the Raiders’ starter, he was our pick at quarterback for The Daily Citizen’s All-Area Football Team. As a senior in 2011, he threw for 23 touchdowns and 2,237 yards, numbers that helped him finish his high school career with 43 touchdown passes and more than 4,000 yards passing. He also left with all of the program’s game, season and career passing records.

Most impressive, though, was his improvement in accuracy between those two seasons as his interception total in Southeast’s pass-heavy offense dropped from 23 to 11.

David Crane, who’s now an assistant at Northwest Whitfield but was Southeast’s head coach all four years that Sams was in school, thinks those numbers tell the story of the quarterback’s progress and his utilization of his best football asset — his mind.

“I think just overall, his mental approach to the game and his intelligence is one of his biggest strengths,” Crane said. “He’s a very smart young man, and he really picked up what we wanted to do as an offense. I think his best football is probably ahead of him. The more he plays and matures, the better he’ll get. His decision-making really improved from his junior to senior year.”

Said Sams, “I think it was all about experience. (As a junior), I had a decent year, but I threw a lot of interceptions and was more nervous. But after that year of experience and working with the guys and getting more comfortable with the play calls and everything, I understood the offense just as well as anybody out there besides coach Crane. Sometimes I could almost call the next play — I knew what was coming.”

What is next for Sams may not be easy, though. Football players practice with the goal of playing, but Mercer is more than a year away from its first real game. This fall, there will be intrasquad scrimmages with pads and hitting and — because everyone wants to impress the coaches — lots of competition. But the lack of a schedule will also require lots of patience on the part of those players.

Still, Sams believes this is the choice that’s best for him. With only 160 pounds on his 6-foot-1-inch frame, he knows he needs to get bulkier and stronger. He’s already following a workout plan given to him by his future coaches, and the intensity will only increase when he arrives in Macon.

The added year is one more for him to grow.

“I see it as an opportunity to prove myself,” Sams said. “Everyone’s coming in on a level field, so I’ll be just as looked at as the guy in front of or behind me. There’s no set depth chart or whatever, so I think that’s really good. ... I’ve just got to work as hard as the person next to me, and hopefully I’ll get the playing time.”

Who knows? When the time comes for Lamb to pick a starting in quarterback in 2013, Sams may have made it an easy decision.

Marty Kirkland is sports editor of The Daily Citizen. You can write to him at martykirkland@daltoncitizen.com.

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Marty Kirkland: Smart decisions are part of Sams’ path to success

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