Chester’s Quay Evans and Clover’s Jaylin Lane reflect on Shrine Bowl signing day
A hushed chatter fills an auxiliary room in an extravagant Marriott hotel in Spartanburg, S.C.
Some of the best high school senior football players in the Carolinas (and their families) are in this room on this Wednesday morning. They’re a few days away from playing in the 2019 Shrine Bowl. Chester’s Quay Evans wears a UConn hat, a nice sweater and jeans. Clover’s Jaylin Lane wears a hoodie and a Middle Tennessee State visor.
Photographers crowd the signing table. An announcer from ESPN making each of the kids’ introductions looks for his signal to begin talking. One of the event organizers — moments before 10 a.m., when the early signing day is set to begin broadcasting on Facebook live — stands up in front of the room and tells the athletes to make a line outside in the hallway, and they all stream out.
As Jaylin gets up from his seat, his father, Brian, taps him on the shoulder and points to a friendly father who was vying for Jaylin’s attention.
“Where’re you headed, son?” the man asks Jaylin.
The question — effectively, “Where are you going to play college football next year?” — is delivered by the man, a father of another Shrine Bowl athlete, without a second thought. It’s as if he’s asking about the weather, or soliciting directions to the nearest Publix or Beacon Drive-In restaurant.
“Middle Tennessee State,” Jaylin says with a big smile.
The man gives a dignified nod and looks at Brian, as if the two share an insider’s knowledge as to all that went into getting their sons to this moment — in front of these cameras, a few pen strokes away from solidifying their next steps in life.
“That’s great,” the man says.
Then they, and the rest of the athletes — all of whom, undoubtedly, fought their own battles before arriving here — walk out into the hallway, and stand in line.
Quay Evans: ‘Never play football again’
Quay Evans didn’t have to wait long for his moment. He was the fourth one in line. He settled into his chair in front of the cameras. His family files in behind him.
The 6-3, 278-pound defensive lineman speaks softly and conceals his smile as he speaks.
“I’ll be committing to the University of Connecticut,” he says.
More than 10 years earlier, he told The Herald on Wednesday, Evans didn’t think he’d be here.
“It’s a lifelong dream to be in this position,” Evans said. “I never thought that I would be here. It’s just a loss for words. I can’t really explain the feeling.”
Evans spent his entire life in Chester. His father, Bernard, went to Chester High School. All of his siblings — Dimario, Tia, Keona, Darius, Quinton and Kabri — are expected to graduate as Cyclones, too.
Evans began playing football in the small fry youth leagues because he was too big to play flag football. He said he soon fell in love with football, but he wasn’t really thinking about playing in college until the sixth grade — the same year a surgery almost changed the trajectory of his life.
“When I was in my fifth-grade summer, I was playing summer baseball with a travel team, and I went home and looked in the mirror and saw a bump on my jaw,” Evans said. “I got curious about it.”
After going to the dentist and then going to two doctors, he was told that the tumor in his jaw was cancerous, he said.
“And basically, I had the surgery,” Evans said. “They had to remove my jaw bone and take a bone from my leg and put it in my jaw, and he told me I’d never play football again.”
Against all expectations, though, Evans healed from the surgery faster than he was supposed to and was cleared to play football.
Perhaps nearly losing the game he loved, made him love it more. When he arrived at Chester High School, he told head coach Victor Floyd that he wanted to play football in college — and Floyd said that if Evans did what he was supposed to do, Floyd would get him there.
“Coach Floyd should be in the Hall of Fame,” Evans’ father said. “Any man that goes to a school and takes 20-something kids and wins the state championship, that says something.”
Evans’ mother Vershetia agreed.
“He’s more like a father on the field than a coach,” she said. “And it’s like they all look up to him, and they all respect him.”
Coach Floyd was there to watch him sign. He said he was proud of Evans. Defensive line coach Chuck Tauchman was there, too. He said Evans was the “most respectful kid you can ask for.”
While Evans was grinding on the field, he also was working in the classroom. He credited Wanda Mayhugh, who spent hours with him after school one-on-one to tutor him with the ACT, with helping him get there.
Mayhugh was also at the signing.
She said she was so proud of Evans that she told him: “I don’t care where the signing is, I will be there.”
“We worked so much together,” said Mayhugh, who taught at Chester for 33 years before retiring and tutoring kids for the ACT and SAT for the next 13 years. “I just told his mother, ‘I told him one day that he needs to start calling me ‘Mama’ because we worked every week, trying to get him to do well on the test.’ He probably improved more than any student I’ve ever tutored.”
She then looked to Evans, and said what everyone who came to his signing was thinking: “My boy made it.”
Jaylin Lane: ‘Days like this’
About half an hour goes by after Evans signs and Jaylin Lane gets to the table. His father and coach stands behind him, his mother sits to his right.
Last month, his team was a field goal kick away from forcing overtime against Dorman in the 5A state playoffs. Lane, a wide receiver, notched 14 catches for 281 yards and four touchdowns in his final game in a Clover uniform. He lingered on that field for another 20 minutes in tears.
Now, several weeks after he was missing his past, he sits in a chair with a smile — and is excited about his future.
“I’ve just been living day by day, thinking about my future and stuff,” Lane told The Herald on Wednesday. “And days like this, these joys just bring you up.”
Lane continued, specifically talking about his father and coach, Brian — the man who he looked up to when he would run around Brian’s high school football practices when Jaylin was just 9 years old: “We went through everything together, through the summers. And just knowing he’s proud of me … I love that dude.”
Lane knows that it took a village to help him get to this point. His parents do, too. It’s part of why his mother, Kenya, runs something within the Clover football program called “Adopt an Eagle,” where parents and other members of the community are introduced to specific Clover players.
Some pairings, Kenya said, have lasted well after the players have graduated high school.
“It’s been really good getting the community involved with the players,” she said. “We’ve had mentors in the past that, still, even after their kid graduates, they’ll keep up with them. If they go to college, they’ll go to their college games, so it’s been really good for the kids …
“Everyone needs an extra support system. It’s always good to have one.”
As the last signees made their announcements and signed their papers, Quay Evans and Jaylin Lane suited up for practice later that afternoon — aware of everything they’ve conquered to be at the Shrine Bowl.
And thankful for those who helped them get there.
This story was originally published December 18, 2019 at 4:34 PM.
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