ATHENS, Ohio (WCMH) — Long before Joe Burrow was the quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals, he was the quarterback of his youth football team.
Last week, Burrow told the story about how his youth football coach, Sam Smathers, told Burrows that he’d be the quarterback.
“Well, I didn’t pick quarterback,” he said. “I got to my first pee-wee practice and the coach at the time, Coach Sam Smathers — I still see him all the time when I go back home, and he basically just asked me if I wanted to be quarterback, and I said, ‘no, not really,’ but then he was like, ‘Well, you’re going to be quarterback — too bad.'”
Burrow laughed after telling the story as did Smathers, who watched the clip again.
“Maybe it went that way,” Smathers said. “Maybe that’s how Joey remembers it, but we needed a quarterback and I knew he was going to be the right guy for the job for what we needed, and he became quarterback, so yeah, it’s my fault, I guess. I’m sorry.”
Smathers said Burrow was a very competitive kid who was a calm and quiet leader. He said he knew he had something special in Burrow when the quarterback was in the fifth and sixth grades.
“To throw the ball, especially with the accuracy he was throwing in the fifth and sixth grade, I knew there was something there,” he said.
Smathers thinks the Bengals can win the Super Bowl.
“Don’t ever count them out,” he said. “Don’t count them out. I don’t care what the score is. The Chiefs had them 21-3 — won that game, so you don’t count them out. When Joe Burrow’s on the field, you don’t count them out.”
