After suiting up at quarterback at St. Albans (DC) as a freshman last fall, Brett Paukstis is wrapping up his first high school season of tennis as the 5-foot-11, 165-pound athlete grew up around the sport.
“Both my parents are tennis coaches so I’ve been playing my whole life. Football is definitely my number one sport but tennis is a sport that, my muscle memory, I’ve always had a racket in my hand. It comes back to me every year, it’s easy to play with my parents,” Paukstis added.
But quarterback has long been the dream for Paukstis and after a season of bouncing between JV and varsity, the rising sophomore is eager to take the next step as a starting quarterback.
“I’ve been thinking of playing QB when I was really young and that really started with Peyton Manning. Even since before I was born, my parents were huge Peyton Manning fans and they kept that when I was born, baby Peyton Manning jerseys. Just like I was young playing tennis, I was young throwing the football. I didn’t start playing contact until seventh grade and then played youth ball in eighth grade for Bowie. Quarterback has always been on the mind and everyone’s ultimate goal is to start for their high school. Just the pride representing your school, your brothers.”
While Paukstis didn’t suit up for varsity last fall, his time on JV “really gave me the confidence heading into next year.”
“I had the responsibility of picking up our coverages. One of our assistant coaches, who was our JV coach, gave me a clipboard and said ‘tell me what the outside linebacker is doing on this drive’ or ‘tell me what the safety is doing here’ so I definitely felt like I learned a lot being on the sidelines.”
Along with immersing himself in St. Albans’ playbook, Paukstis has made the near-weekly trip to Gambrills to work with Chris Baucia and QB Factory. “Just about every Sunday and we’re working to establish a consistent time to work with coach Baucia in the summer. I’ve started recently making notes after every session so I like to look at it at a session-to-session basis, how can I get better from one session to the next? Becoming better every session, stacking days is something that I really bought into recently.”
Learn more about QB Factory and upcoming training sessions here!
Paukstis, who carries a 3.61 GPA into the end of his freshman year, knows what he wants to accomplish next fall.
“I want to win the IAC, that’s definitely a goal that everyone on the team has. I want to beat Landon. I just want to win, especially on homecoming.”