Ja’vione Shepherd has never been to New Mexico or South Dakota in person. Virtually? Now that’s a different story.
St. Patrick-St. Vincent High’s senior quarterback has been offered football scholarships from Black Hills University in Spearfish, S.D., and Easter New Mexico University in Portales, N.M. The Bruins have yet to play a football game as the California Interscholastic Federation delayed Dec. 7’s practice date into January. That, however, hasn’t stopped Shepherd from being proactive with his college dreams.
“Over the summer, I had time to work on my skills and my craft,” Shepherd said. “With a small group of my teammates, I was able to work on my release and my drops and then record my progress, so I created a video and also used video of last season to show how much I improved.”
Shepherd isn’t 100 percent sure when he would officially commit.
“If we don’t have a season, I might commit around April,” he said. “If we do have a season, I might try to develop more and generate as much interest as I can.”
St. Pat’s head coach Lane Hawkins pointed to a number of different areas of improvement for his senior.
“He’s become a much bigger leader, which we expect of our seniors,” Hawkins said. “He also just understands the concepts of what we do. He’s become a coach on the field, which is great for us. He makes sure everyone is in the right position on the field.”
Hawkins said it’s a difficult time for players seeking college scholarships for a number of different reasons.
“With the way things are going with COVID, the responses I am hearing from college coaches is they don’t know what their numbers will be like because some guys may be taking an extra year of eligibility,” he said. “Ja’vi is very fortunate.”
If a season gets off the ground in 2021, Hawkins said Shepherd will run a spread offense at quarterback. The Bruins switched to a “Flex Bone” set for a portion of 2019 with Shepherd sometimes playing a wingback and Jomar Connors Jr. seeing time at quarterback.
This offseason, Shepherd said it was his goal to understand the game better, especially what was going on with the other side of the ball. He said watching film from last season helped.
“I wanted to learn the rules and responses of defenses,” said Shepherd, who runs the 100, 200 and relays on the track team. “Over the offseason, I really studied safeties and just wanted to learn the game of football better. I also wanted to trust my decisions more.”
Shepherd also wants to improve his skills at defensive back where his versatility can make him more desirable for other colleges. He said he has tried to improve his route recognition on that side of the ball.
“I want to improve my athletic ability since I know it’s better to have more than one possible spot on the field,” he said. “I want to help my team at all levels.”
Like his teammates, Shepherd was disappointed to hear that the Dec. 7 practice date was moved forward by the CIF.
“It’s not what we wanted but I understand they were trying to keep families safe,” he said. “I think it was a valid decision, but I told my teammates that we can’t forget our main goals. We weren’t happy with the way last season ended.”
On Tuesday, St. Pat’s temporarily suspended conditioning workouts. The Bruins conditioned all summer and all fall before shutting things down this week.
“It was my decision as an athletic director just because of what I was seeing community-wise and with the (coronavirus) numbers,” Hawkins said. “We’ve done such a wonderful job here and I didn’t want to see anything tainted. I just felt it was the safe decision, plus our normal break was coming up in a week anyway.”
Hawkins wasn’t 100 percent sure when conditioning would pick up again, saying it depends if and when the CIF makes an announcement on an official start date for practice.
“Students are back on campus on Jan. 19 so that would be the latest we would return,” he said. “Hopefully, it will be before that day. Basically, if the CIF told us that on Dec. 28 that we could return, we’d start on Dec. 29.”
