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Serra High School’s football program has consistently produced scholarships and next-level athletes over the past few years and it is ramping up. The most recent product that came right out of Tom Brady’s alma mater is 6’5″, 230lb TE Christian Pedersen. He is one of the few athletes we followed from sophomore year up until he crossed the stage on graduation day. Christian’s progression from an athlete with some potential to one of the nation’s best was impressive to watch thanks to some behind-the-scenes work done by a team of people. Football recruiting is a business and if you make the right decisions with the right people, you will see progress and success. The decision for him to transition from wide receiver to tight end was key but what’s even more important was trusting the process. Trusting the advice of his coaches to go all-in on becoming a real football player by committing to a workout regiment that resulted in him becoming a next-level athlete made him a major asset that colleges wanted. The Covid-19 pandemic affected the entire world including the college recruiting scene here in the US. Only the essential businesses were allowed to conduct business. As the world shut down for business, Christian’s recruiting stayed open. The work he put in from freshman season to junior season became a valuable asset that eventually landed him his first scholarship from San Diego State on March 11th of 2020, two days after the official shut down of the country happened. That offer sparked an avalanche of inquiries from other programs looking for next-level talents. While the majority of the world was dealing with not-so-good things, Pedersen’s recruiting racked up 23+ offers from March to May. Other than the essential businesses like the health care and food industries, only a handful of other industries stayed open and even flourished during the pandemic like the financial industry. The main reason was demand and positioning. Call it luck or whatever but the investment Christian made along with his circle of supporters two years prior to the pandemic proved to be the game-changer. He was like Amazon and Door-Dash and everyone saw his value and wanted it. With this fall season’s active roster, Serra has at least twelve high-potential next-level talents so far. Seven of them already got offers from major colleges including sophomores Danny Niu, Joseph Bey, and Jabari Mann, and three seniors Nate Elu, Drew Azzopardi, Dominique Lampkin, and Hassan “The Missil3” Mahasin. Juniors Ryan Silver, Seamus Gilmartin, and seniors Kai Hoeft, Andrew Stewart, and Sione Laulea will most likely land their first and multiple offers in the next few weeks. There are a handful of players that will most likely make noise this fall as well like Ryan Mahe and Patelo GI just to name a couple. Both started this past spring and made major contributions to the undefeated, 5-0 squad.
In 2019, Serra promoted five players to play D1 football, Nate Azzopardi at Idaho, Daylin McLemore at Arizona State, Jackson Lataimua at Washington State, Terence Loville at San Jose State, and Nusi Malani at Virginia. There were a handful of other players that were overlooked and are currently playing at the College of San Mateo including Nate Sanchez, who was probably the best all-around player from that team. Five football players signing on National Letter of Intent Day was the most for Coach Patrick Walsh at that time. That number will most likely be outdone come February of 2022 but who’s counting right.
This segment is just a short excerpt from the upcoming season two of Padre Football, GSF360º docuseries to be released soon. Make sure to follow and subscribe to our social media and thank you for watching.
This segment is just a short excerpt from the upcoming season two of Padre Football, GSF360º docuseries to be released soon. Make sure to follow and subscribe to our social media and thank you for watching.