Lehighton tailback is taking advantage of his opportunity

For TaQuan Bradley-Chambers, football is more than Friday Night Lights.

It’s more than touchdowns. More than wins or losses.

It’s an oasis.

For Bradley-Chambers, it’s a chance to shine.

“When I came here, I was watching all the players, looking at the coaches, and one player said the quarterback wasn’t here,” Bradley Chambers recalled. “So when our quarterback came, me and him just bonded like that.

“That just made me feel like, me and him are gonna do our thing, our linemen gonna do our thing, and the whole team. It felt good.”

On the field, Bradley-Chambers and his quarterback, Cody Scherer, have been electric in the backfield. The duo has helped propel the Indians to a 7-0 start.

But it was never that simple. Or guaranteed.

Bradley-Chambers entered the school district from Summit Academy, a private, residential school in Herman, Pa. He knew little about Lehighton.

But he knew he wanted to play football.

“Where I’m at, at CONCERN, with my placement, they told me that they have a football team up here,” Bradley-Chambers said. “I played football all my life, since I was four.”

Bradley-Chambers had far from an easy life growing up in Chester, a city with one of the highest crime rates in Pennsylvania. But football has been an outlet, a stabilizing force, and something he doesn’t take for granted.

“Every time I step on the field, I’m thinking I miss these days playing football,” he said. “I think God blessed me, gave me a second chance to play football again. If it wasn’t for my prayers at night, I think I wouldn’t be out here. I think I’d just be in a cell, reading books or something.

“This is an opportunity again. I gotta take full advantage of it.”

Bradley-Chambers has done everything he can to make the most of it.

“He has been, in my opinion, the ultimate teammate,” said Lehighton head coach Tom McCarroll. “From Day 1, he came in and started working hard in the weight room.”

Bradley-Chambers and junior Alex Rosa, who is also from the group home CONCERN, have adapted quickly to their new surroundings.

“Their work ethic has been great,” McCarroll said of Bradley-Chambers and Rosa. “They bust their rear ends as much as anybody, and more so in some cases.

“They’re so coachable. Sometimes people might get a certain perception of kids. But they have been ultimate teammates, done everything we asked them to do with a great attitude. I’ve never gotten any kind of negative response from the guys. Nothing. Nothing. You talk to a lot of our coaches, they just love their approach and their attitude. It’s great.”

Despite his eye-popping stats – an area-best 1,094 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns – Bradley-Chambers acknowledged he’s still finding his way in the Indians’ offense.

“My first day, I thought it was hard,” the senior said. “Then they started guiding me, telling me the plays. I still don’t know all the plays. I’m still learning. I know the main plays that we run. We keep on adding new plays. I still don’t know everything, but I’m trying. That’s why I always got the quarterback and the linemen to help me out.”

Bradley-Chambers turned in perhaps his most impressive performance of the season last Friday against Tamaqua, rushing for a school record 373 yards in the Indians’ 41-35 victory.

He hasn’t been alone on his journey this season.

“My mom was just here for that game,” Bradley-Chambers said. “She brought my whole (family) ... it was three cars deep.

“I send her my papers in the mail every weekend; tell her how we’re doing. I talk to her every day, too.”

While he hasn’t been a part of the program for long, players and coaches have made sure Bradley-Chambers has fit right in.

McCarroll wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s not exclusive to him,” the coach said. “The reality of it is, since we’ve been here – this is our sixth year – we’ve had kids come from so many different directions. I think the two guys that are with us now, I think are like the third and fourth guys from CONCERN since we’ve been here. We’ve had probably a half-dozen foster kids that have come into the school, into the district and now come onto the team. And then you have kids come in just from different areas.

“So our program, I think, is setup that way. Some people would say, ‘Oh, well of course you’re going to love him up.’ It has nothing to do with his ability. How much we welcome kids has nothing to do with how good they are, because we don’t know. When we got him in the summer, I don’t know how good he is. At the end of the day, we didn’t really care. We tell our kids that have been a part of the program, you gotta take care of these people. You gotta make sure they feel like they’re a part of something. Because at the end of the day, some of it is all they have.”

Right now, Bradley-Chambers and the Indians have each other.

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PAYDIRT FOR PALUCK ... Marian’s Seth Paluck scored five touchdowns last Friday during a 41-28 victory against Mahanoy Area.

With the effort, Paluck tied a school record for TDs in a game.

In the history of Marian football, a total of 696 games, this marked just the sixth time a Colt player reached the end zone five times. The others were Jim Agosti (1976), Bobby Agosti (1987), Chris Perhonitch (1996), Justin Barrasso (1998) and K.J. Snerr (2015).

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ST. HILL HITS CENTURY MARK ... Jim Thorpe’s Justin St. Hill had a pair of touchdowns last Friday to help the Olympians cruise past North Schuylkill.

With the two scores, the senior became the first area player to reach 100 points this season.

Since 1970, St. Hill is the only Thorpe player to reach 100 points in the first seven games of the season. Robbie Heller had 98 through the first seven games in 2015, while Jason Figura (2004) and Rick Kuhn (1975) both totaled 94.

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SPEAKING OF SCORING ... While Jim Thorpe ran its unbeaten string to seven games with its victory last week, it also kept another string intact.

The Olympians have scored in 31 straight games, the longest stretch of any Times News area team.

The last time Thorpe suffered a shutout was Oct. 17, 2014 against North Schuylkill.

Pleasant Valley has the next best streak at 29.

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BEND BUT DON’T BREAK ... Northwestern posted a 14-0 shutout win over Bangor last Friday despite giving up a lot of yards.

The Tigers defense allowed 205 yards on the ground and 157 through the air for a total of 362, but didn’t allow the Slaters to reach the end zone.

Since 2000, Times News area teams had combined for 176 shutous prior to Northwestern’s blanking on Friday. In those 176 shutouts, the winning team never gave up more than 300 yards. In fact, only 12 times did the winners allow more than 200.

Ironically, the most yards allowed by a winning team during a shutout was 270 by Palmerton on Oct. 28, 2005. The irony is that it was against Northwestern, with the score being 14-0.

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PANTHERS STOP THE RUN ... Panther Valley’s defense completely shut down Shenandoah’s running game during its 30-6 victory last Friday.

The Panthers allowed negative-14 yards in 25 carries to key the win.

The last time PV held a team to negative rushing yards was Oct. 4, 2002 against Mahanoy Area. In that contest (154 games ago), the Panthers gave up negative-13 yards on 33 attempts. Panther Valley won that game by a 20-0 score.