Aspiring college football players in Alaska hone skills and gain exposure at showcase

Mar. 7—Late last month, 150 student-athletes ranging from eighth grade to 12th grade who aspire to play football beyond high school were given the opportunity to set themselves up for future success at the inaugural Juanita Strong Alaska Chosen Showcase.

It began as an idea that was years in the making, brainstormed by a collection of coaches and organizers with the same common goal in mind: to help Alaska's youths gain the exposure and skills they need to excel and make it to the college level.

"We had to do something for our student-athletes that are slept on up here," West High assistant coach and co-organizer Alex Navarro said. "(Co-organizer) Gabe (Taylor) did the work and brought it all up and here we are. It's been a success."

The Juanita Strong Forever Project, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to "empower, inspire, educate, and mentor our youth while bridging the gap," was the event's title sponsor.

Coaches from schools across the Anchorage School District and from Mat-Su helped facilitate drills and instruct at the camp held at Fox Hollow Sports Dome in Anchorage.

"This is something we meant to do to let everybody in Alaska know that it's just not a certain core group of coaches from a specific school," Navarro said. "This is an all-around thing, and us getting all together like this is a great opportunity for the young student-athletes."

Brandon Huffman is a national recruiting editor for 247Sports, which plays a major role in ranking and discovering the top high school recruits in the country. He agrees that there is a wealth of untapped talent and potential in the Last Frontier that deserves more recognition and attention from the outside.

This marked his third-ever trip to Alaska. He first visited in December 2020 for the Avery Strong Alaska Showcase and came up in summer 2021 for a college showcase.

"That led to the relationship between Gabe and I, so when he said he wanted to get another camp back up here, I was on board with it," Huffman said.

Some of the attendees were as young as 13 and as old as 18. The primary goal of the event is to get student-athletes prepared to thrive and excel in bigger camps and clinics that they may participate in elsewhere around the state, and especially nationally.

"We want it to be an example when they go to the Lower 48, go to college camps and clinics and know that what we're running here is what they'll be running there as well," Navarro said.

When Huffman visited in 2020, West High senior and Alaska 2023-24 Gatorade Player of the Year Aaron Hampton was just a freshman. But even then, Huffman saw tremendous potential in him and the state's talent pool as a whole.

"You could see the raw ability that he had, but he was raw and a freshman," he said. "Now he is going to be playing in the ACC (at Cal Berkeley). Jack Nash (of Colony) is going to South Dakota State, and (South's) Jackson Harmon is at Montana State."

Huffman agrees that a lot of Alaska's top talent often gets overlooked because of their lack of exposure to college coaches and recruiters in the Lower 48. He said he's happy to take part in events like the showcase.

"In every session that I've seen, there's been at least one guy where I'm like 'OK, that's a dude who is going to be playing on Saturdays,' " he said.

Huffman believes events like the Juanita Strong Showcase give Alaska student-athletes a level of experience and comfortability with the athletic testing and position training they'd get out of state.

"These are all the things that college coaches want to look at on a spreadsheet before they determine if they're going to watch your huddle or not," he said. "They can tell the big, strong and fast parts through the testing and the skills will be seen on film."

Seizing the moment and setting an example

There were schools represented from the Mat-Su and as far as Fairbanks at the two-day event, which was held the last week in February.

"There are kids out there that are hungry," Navarro said. "We had Lathrop High School drive down here from Fairbanks. People hear about these events and want to take advantage of it, which they should."

A handful of participants in the event were seniors who have already committed to colleges but opted to join the showcase to continue to refine their own skills. Among them was Uilisone Falealo of West Anchorage, who is committed to play at Division I University of Idaho.

Huffman says that kids who attend these kinds of events, even if they don't necessarily need to attend but do anyway, are showing coaches "how bad do you really want it" and what lengths they're willing to go to get better.

"This isn't Florida where there's an event in Miami every other weekend, or Atlanta, Jacksonville or California," he said. "When you have events like this and you come from near and far, it shows something."

Huffman believes success stories such as Hampton, Nash and Falealo continue to serve as examples of what players in the Last Frontier can achieve through hard work.

"If kids can see tangible proof that their own Alaska guys can go play at the next level, it motivates them," he said.