48
mouth.” Nearly 20 years later, his spring and
summer days are full. On a recent Thursday
in July, he ended an early-morning shift at
the firehouse, drove to north Atlanta for a
one-on-one session, traveled west to the Mud
Creek soccer complex for group work with
Julian Lewis and 15-year-old Bryce Archie
and then had two more afternoon trainings.
Four sessions in a day is about average for
this time of year. On Sundays, it can climb
to six. Lawrence still trains with Veal, and so does Fields,
but their college schedules limit sessions to May, the one
month of the year that they’re home.
N A JULY afternoon, two hours northeast of
Atlanta, Lawrence slides into a chair, looks
across a conference table in the Clemson foot-
ball facility and smiles. “Boy,” he says, “lots
has changed in a year.”
Not even Veal expected Lawrence to overtake a veteran
starting quarterback midseason, throw for 3,280 yards and
30 touchdowns and lead his team to a championship. “Not
in my wildest dreams,” Veal says.
Lawrence is a celebrity now, not only in the tiny north
O
private trainers, but they’re warming to the industry.
Some even send their own children to them. For the last
four years, Chandler Morris, the son of Arkansas coach
Chad Morris, has trained in Dallas with Kevin Murray,
a longtime quarterback guru and the father of the 2018
Heisman Trophy winner. “Being a coach and a dad, what
I have seen is, as a coach, when you get a quarterback,
you can focus on footwork and fundamentals for only a
certain amount of time,” Chad Morris says. “You’ve got
to get into schemes and reading coverages. Although they
may look at coverages, private coaches are more focused
on the technique.”
Private coaches, of course, are not necessary to land big
scholarship offers. Florida quarterback Feleipe Franks, at
one point the top dual-threat QB in his class, never had
one, instead learning through high school coaches and
training videos on YouTube. Others swear by the private
coaching industry. “I don’t know where Bryce would be,”
Broddrick says, “without Ron Veal.”
O
F COURSE, Veal isn’t the only individual
behind Lawrence’s success. Even he says he
doesn’t warrant such distinction. “Whoever
takes credit for the arm, it’s a flat out lie,”
Veal says. “He’s a natural thrower.” There are other influ-
ences in Lawrence’s life, like King, his former high school
coach in Cartersville, Ga., or Michael Bail, Cartersville
High’s quarterbacks coach. And, of course, the Clemson
coaching staff, like co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott
and Tony Elliott, and quarterbacks coach Brandon Street-
er. In any case, the end product has been a uniquely ad-
vanced QB. “Just from watching him on TV, I thought
that guy could have been the No. 1 pick last year,” says
one NFL scout. “He’s the most exciting quarterback pros-
pect since Andrew Luck.”
Veal, originally from near Jacksonville, and a Univer-
sity of Arizona quarterback from 1987 to ’90, only began
training quarterbacks by happenstance in 2001, after
spotting an unschooled father attempting to train his son
at a local park. “I found a lot of kids needed help,” says
Veal, a firefighter on the side. “It spread through word of
KEVIN D. LILES
“I THOUGHT [LAWRENCE] COULD
HAVE BEEN THE NO. 1 PICK LAST
YEAR,” ONE NFL SCOUT SAYS. “HE’S
THE MOST EXCITING PROSPECT...
SINCE ANDREW LUCK.”
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