Football
Favorite athlete: Baker Mayfield
Favorite team: Washington Redskins
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating CB West this year in the final minute 27-20
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Fumbling out of the back of the end zone after a trick play
Music on mobile device: Rap, Pop, and Country
Future plans: Go to college to study business management and hopefully continue my athletic career
Words to live by: “I don’t lose, I either win or learn.”
One goal before turning 30: To get my master’s degree and be happy
One thing people don’t know about me: I love to go to New York City during Christmas time
By Ed Morrone
To know everything you need to know about the head on Evan O’Donnell’s shoulders, as well as the humility that comes with it, ask him about his junior year football season.
You see, O’Donnell, the senior quarterback at Central Bucks East, set just about every passing record possible last season (nine of them in total). Touchdowns, passing yards, completion percentage, you name it, O’Donnell probably broke it. But as the Patriots strive toward a possible district playoff berth and hopefully their first postseason win since 2005, O’Donnell has no interest in talking about all of his individual accolades.
No, he wants to talk turnovers.
“I threw eight interceptions junior year,” he said. “I know I broke school passing records and all of that, but what mattered to me was the turnovers and me not taking care of the ball. Sometimes you have to throw the ball away, or make a play with your feet to gain a few yards; but you can’t take sacks and you can’t turn the ball over, and that’s what I focused on. I don’t know everything, but I know the little things matter. Knowing I can make throws, that’s great, but knowing I can make a play in a time we need one is even greater.”
Humble and star quarterback don’t always go hand-in-hand, but O’Donnell credits his parents with raising him to be grounded and to be a leader on and off the football field. He didn’t want to talk much about his own success until after he credited his teammates for helping him do the yeoman job he’s done in his third season as East’s starting signal caller.
O’Donnell’s been a quarterback since he started playing football around four or five years old and never had much of a desire to play anywhere else. However, it wasn’t until he got to high school when he truly began to appreciate the subtle intricacies of the position.
“Being a quarterback isn’t just being able to throw,” O’Donnell said. “It’s the mental aspect, the physical aspect, moving in the pocket, making plays when you have to in clutch situations and keeping your cool. In the huddle on the freshman team, I was so confused. Everything was going on in my mind and I messed up some things, but before my first start sophomore year, the coaching staff and the older players helped me grasp what I had to do. They told me I’ve been playing football all my life, so go do what you know how to do.”
After that — and his first career interception and big hit, both of which occurred in that game, were out of the way — things came easier to O’Donnell. He’s not your prototypical quarterback, in that he’s maybe 6-feet tall, doesn’t have a Howitzer for an arm and can’t run a 4.5 40-yard dash, so O’Donnell makes up for it with his brain, his legs and his accuracy.
He models his game after quarterbacks like Drew Brees and Baker Mayfield, shorter guys who play with confidence and swagger.
“You’ve got to think you’re the best on the field or you don’t have the mental capacity to be the best,” he said. “If I can have as much fun and lead my team like those guys do, we’ll win football games. That’s the key thing at the end of the day. You can have all the records in the book and not be winning.”
Speaking of winning games, the Patriots have done just that the last two weeks to keep their playoff hopes alive. Two weeks ago, O’Donnell threw a 29-yard score to receiver and best friend Chris Lochetta with 1:10 remaining to beat CB West, 27-20. Then, last weekend, the Patriots reclaimed the CB Cup in their 23-18 victory over Central Bucks South, moving to 4-4 overall and 2-2 in the SOL Continental Conference.
More importantly, O’Donnell and company stayed alive in the district hunt; in 6A, the top 16 teams qualify, and currently, the Patriots are ranked at 18, but teams 15-19 all have identical 4-4 records, meaning if East wins at Tennent this weekend and against Pennridge in the regular season finale, there’s a good chance the team will get another game.
After that, everyone is playing with house money, and with East playing the district’s top current team, North Penn, to the wire earlier this season, anything is possible.
“We lost to North Penn 31-21, but it was 24-21 until about two minutes left,” O’Donnell said. “We hung with the best team in the district and we know we’re a good football team, we just have to show it. Our goal has always been to make the playoffs. We lost some close ones this season, but we’ve learned from the experience and showed we can win close games these last two weeks. Our next two games are playoff games, and we’re so focused on reaching our goal.”
On the season, O’Donnell has thrown for 1,170 yards and 10 touchdowns, completing 68.9 percent of his passes. He’s also added 229 rushing yards and six scores, and while those numbers may be below the 1,724 passing yards and 25 total touchdowns from a year ago, none of that matters with the team knocking on the postseason’s door.
“Evan said during the offseason that he would trade in his stats for more victories,” CB East head coach John Donnelly said. “The stats might not be as high as they were, but if we’re winning, then we’re playing better football, and the individual stats will take care of themselves. It says a lot about Evan’s character, and he knows how to keep things in perspective. He’s our leader on and off the field, and he does a fantastic job in the way he carries himself.”
O’Donnell isn’t 100 percent sure if he’ll be playing football next fall, which makes these next two games all that more meaningful. He’s considering Division III programs with sterling academic reputations — Donnelly mentioned Ithaca College in upstate New York as a possibility — but O’Donnell also has interest in latching on to a major Division I program as a manager or a similar role, that way he can still be part of a team without playing (Donnelly and O’Donnell both mentioned Wake Forest University in North Carolina, where O’Donnell has visited). Either way, O’Donnell knows football is too deeply ingrained in the fabric of who he is to walk away from it yet.
“I’ve never really had a time in my life without football, but I know I won’t play my whole life and that it has to end at some point,” O’Donnell said. “The best thing is, I can pick what I want to do with my future. I haven’t decided yet, but I know I don’t want football to be out of my life completely. Some people get worn out and are done with the game, while others wish they had started playing sooner. Me? I started at 4 or 5 years old, and it’s never bored me.”
O’Donnell is an exemplary student, taking a course load full of honors and AP classes. Early on in the recruiting process when he still had Division I aspirations, Brown and Harvard were both sniffing around, so grades are not a problem for this young man. Just like on the football field, O’Donnell challenges himself to be one of the top students in school, even if, by his own admission, that he isn’t one of the smartest. He’s interested in studying business management in college with hopes to also earn a Master’s degree before he turns 30.
When he’s not busy hitting the books or being the school’s star quarterback, O’Donnell is involved with his church, as well as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes program at CB East. His faith, he said, is another important facet of his personality that keeps him so grounded and humble, no matter how many touchdown passes he throws or football games he wins. He’s also a typical teenage boy in that he enjoys playing video games, goofing around with his buddies and spending time with his family and girlfriend of 11 months.
Another thing O’Donnell said he is “absolutely obsessed with” is going to New York City, especially during Christmastime. Just this past weekend, he and his family went up for the day to see The Lion King on Broadway, and with Christmas only about two months away, O’Donnell has something to look forward to after high school football is a thing of the past.
But before he can look forward to seeing the big tree at Rockefeller Center, O’Donnell has to take care of some other business first. With two regular season games left on tap, O’Donnell and the Patriots hold their destiny in their own hands. With a record-setting quarterback at the helm and a team that hasn’t won a playoff game in 13 years, maybe, just maybe, a storybook season could be in the cards.
“Of course we want to get there and win the whole thing, but our goal is to get to the playoffs and win a game,” O’Donnell said. “It was our goal before the season started and we want to end it there. I’d keep that with me forever, and it would be the best way to end my senior season.
“This rush, I’m going to miss it. High school football really is different than any other level. To be able to gather so many people together in the community who want to come watch us play, it’s amazing. It’s overwhelming sometimes, but that’s my platform. Once it ends I probably won’t know what to do with myself for awhile, and I wish it was a full-year sport. I’d play it all year long, no matter what. I’ll miss it, and it’s all going to hit me at some point, but for now let’s just try and go make the best of our next two-plus games.”
