Ex-Bishop Gorman backup QB Stallworth thrives in Yuma
Eight games.
2,529 passing yards.
32 touchdown passes.
3 or 4 rattlesnakes.
These are the numbers for Stetson Stallworth, a high school senior quarterback at Yuma (Ariz.) Catholic High School — who was a backup quarterback at Bishop Gorman before he transferred.
Nearly all of these numbers have been verified by the national high school web service and database MaxPreps. These numbers rank Stallworth, whose father, Steve, is a former UNLV starting quarterback and one of Michael Gaughan’s right-hand men at the South Point, 12th among national prep passing leaders.
The number of rattlesnakes hunted has not been confirmed by MaxPreps.
They were the second thing mentioned by young Stallworth during a telephone conversation after Yuma Catholic’s practice Thursday.
“Yes, sir, we’re 8-0,” he said when asked how changing schools was working out, and then he said he went rattlesnake hunting with his new coach before the season started.
He said he got three or four. You’ll just have to take his word for it.
Stetson Stallworth said a lot of people in Yuma, Ariz., call his current high school coach “Rattlesnake Rhett.”
Rattlesnake Rhett is Rhett Stallworth, Stetson Stallworth’s uncle — Steve Stallworth’s kid brother. Going rattlesnake hunting with Uncle Rhett, who had successful quadruple bypass surgery in 2014, was a bonding experience. There have been a lot of bonding experiences for Stetson since he transferred from Gorman, because there are a lot of Stallworths who still live in Yuma.
Before his father succeeded Randall Cunningham as UNLV’s starting quarterback, Steve Stallworth starred at Yuma High, the big high school in Yuma. Yuma High’s official nickname is the Criminals, so named for the territorial prison where classes were held after the old high school on Main Street burned down.
This was in 1910, even a little before Steve Stallworth started throwing TD passes for the Crims, who wear black-and-white striped jerseys.
The bonding experiences with assorted Stallworths was the biggest reason Stetson made the difficult choice to transfer. He is living with his grandmother, Dee Bagby. “My grandma is an excellent cook,” he said.
There were lots of hoops to jump through before Stetson could begin throwing touchdown passes for the Yuma Catholic Shamrocks coached by Rattlesnake Rhett Stallworth. But once everybody signed off, it was a matter of convenience (except for his parents, who now must drive about five hours each way to his games). Stetson said his grandma lives five minutes from Yuma Catholic.
“But everything in Yuma is about five minutes away,” he said of the dusty town of 93,064 that in addition to his father also produced civil rights activist Cesar Chavez and five-time All-Pro defensive tackle Curley Culp of the Kansas City Chiefs. And lots of old west sheriffs, and lots of rattlesnakes.
Statistics are what you make of them sometimes, but they are helping young Stallworth get noticed by smaller colleges. At Bishop Gorman, the only way he could get on the field was by playing defensive end, because Gorman has five-star recruit Tate Martell at quarterback, and Martell has committed to Texas A&M. And last year, Gorman also had Danny Hong as a backup quarterback, and Hong is now on the football team at Columbia in the Ivy League.
Steve and Stetson Stallworth, who stands 6 feet 3 inches and weighs 215 pounds, said sitting on the bench at Gorman was a fine apprenticeship for setting passing records at Yuma Catholic High. “I played against the best defense in the nation every day in practice,” Stetson said.
And now he’s receiving notice from MaxPreps and some of these smaller colleges, and even the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals, who named him Arizona High School Player of the Week after Stetson tossed seven TD passes in the first half of a game a couple of weeks ago.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “but the team we were playing wasn’t very good. Every play was a pass play, because the team we were playing the next week was pretty good, and we wanted them to think we were one dimensional.”
Stetson is a polite young man — he prefaced every answer by calling me “sir” — and he gets excellent grades. And now there’s a good chance he’ll get a college scholarship.
He says his mother (Stephanie) and father always have been there for him, and so, too, has Michael Gaughan, who was on hand when Yuma Catholic played Faith Lutheran this season. And so maybe if he can keep throwing TD passes, perhaps he can play at New Mexico Highlands, where Uncle Rhett played, or some place like that.
It would be a dream realized for a lot of Stallworths, both here and in dusty Yuma, if Stetson played quarterback in college. It also would justify his decision to transfer, because a college education is not an inexpensive thing, or the politicians wouldn’t be arguing about it.
I’ve known Steve Stallworth a long time, and he’s not the type for braggadocio — in fact, he’s the polar opposite, probably the most self-effacing man you’ll ever meet. But before he handed me a printout of Stetson’s stats, he took a red marker and changed 31 under touchdown passes to 32.
He said with diffidence that MaxPreps had shortchanged his son by one TD pass, but that it probably was an honest mistake or a clerical error.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him: @ronkantowski