By Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – Summer workouts, camp trips and seven-on-seven contests all provide football coaches with a valuable early glimpse into what players can do on the field.

For a new coach those summer sessions are often the first available opportunity to see what they’ve got as a team.

First-year Clear Creek Amana coach Gabe Bakker saw enough from senior Dylan Sheely in those workouts to come away impressed.

That impression had nothing to do with what Sheely did on the field.

“Dylan worked quarterback stuff all summer and about halfway through he approached me and asked about moving to receiver to help the team,” Bakker explained. “He has put the team first and his leadership with that has been huge.”

Sheely spent three seasons working to earn the quarterback job at Clear Creek Amana.

He was one of three players to see action at the position in his varsity debut season in 2015 and battled Ashton Carpenter for the job last fall before spending the season primarily as the backup.

Sheely started the final game last season, throwing a touchdown pass and running for another score in a 42-6 win over Central DeWitt.

As his junior season ended Sheely fixed his focus on earning the starting spot as a senior and battled West High transfer Ethan Postler for the job during the summer.

Midway through the summer Sheely walked up to Bakker and asked to move to receiver.

“I think if you ask anybody out here they are going to do what’s best for the team and it’s the same for me,” Sheely said. “I saw Ethan come in and he is the type of guy that no matter what happens you can trust him so I thought the best spot for me and the team was to go out to receiver and help us out there.”

Bakker, who was looking for team leaders to emerge over the summer after being hired as the head coach in the spring, quickly found one in Sheely.

“I love his leadership,” Bakker said. “We want him to rep quarterback because we might need him but that’s a big step for an 18-year old kid to see that and do that for the team.”

The 6-foot-2, 185-pound Sheely used his knowledge of the offense to pick up the receiver position quickly.  

Sheely used the same knowledge and skills and he worked to develop on offense to become the quarterback of the Clipper defense at free safety.

“He’s been doing a great job at receiver and he’s going to be a big leader on defense for us at safety,” Bakker said. “I am happy for him and that just shows what kind of a kid he is.”

After years of working to develop a connection with his receivers, Sheely now tries to read that quarterback and receiver relationship from across the line of scrimmage.

Sheely had three solo tackles and also picked off a pass in his first career start at safety last week in a 14-7 loss to Mount Pleasant.

“I think when you play a position like free safety you are constantly breaking things down,” Sheely said. “Whether it be tells with the receivers rubbing their hands or certain things quarterbacks and receivers are doing you are always trying to pick up on those things and have played those positions helps.”

Clear Creek Amana (0-1) will try to get back on the winning track on Friday and earn the first win under Bakker when it travels to Independence (0-2) on Friday.

“Every year that I have been here we have gotten better and better as a team,” Sheely said. “I think we keep rolling with the punches and whatever comes at us we take it and we try to step forward and I think we are going to continue to do that this season.”