DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PLAYER OF THE WEEK

Making high-level business deals in Chinese is something senior Sage Hill School quarterback Jamie McGee can envision himself doing one day with no problem.

But the thought of conducting an entire high school game in Mandarin is enough to leave the veteran leader shaking in his ankle tape.

“It’d be pretty difficult,” McGee said, laughing. “There would probably be a lot of things that would be missed. I’m not that fluent.”

McGee, a four-year starter at Sage Hill, is now enrolled in a fourth-year Chinese class. He was inspired to take it after his brother, Kevin Joyce, now a senior at USC, signed up for it when he was a student at Sage Hill.

“He wanted to be a sports agent and he thought China held the future in sports,” McGee said. “Just the idea of that got me hooked, and I took it for a couple weeks. I figured I could use it in business, so it wasn’t completely random.”

Joyce has since given up his high school dream of becoming a Chinese sports agent, but McGee thinks his international business goals have stronger legs.

“That whole idea went out the door after sophomore year,” McGee said, laughing. “I think he’s looking at more the direction I’m looking.”

McGee wants to play football in college, and he wants to continue to study Chinese, but the closest he’s come to narrowing down his choices is “somewhere on the East Coast.”

He’s had communication with Georgetown, Trinity (Connecticut), Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Tufts, and Williams, McGee said, naming a few schools off the top of his head.

“I’ve grown up in Newport Beach all my life,” McGee said. “I just want to experience something new. It’s important, and I can always come back. I’ve lived in California all my life and I’m willing to try and experience something new.”

Even if it involves snow?

“Even if it involves snow,” McGee said, laughing again. “Hopefully not too much.”

McGee’s game against Midway Baptist was a stellar one to add to his football resume. He was 8 of 10 for 149 yards and three touchdowns, and completed passes to three different receivers in the first quarter alone, making the score 20-0.

So by the time halftime ended, it didn’t much matter that McGee’s left ankle was taking longer than expected to re-tape, because the two offensive series he missed only made a dent in the statistics for the evening anyway. Sage Hill won, 41-6.

Still, it was a shock to everyone, including freshman backup Colton Gyulay himself, to see Gyulay taking snaps at the beginning of the second half.

“We had a comfortable lead but I wanted to get back out there,” McGee said. “I had to get the ankle taped. I didn’t want to risk spraining it again. I think Colton did a great job. He was in for a couple of series. It’s probably pretty tough for a freshman to do that.”

McGee hurt his ankle this summer, in a way that was only mildly asinine: he sustained a bad sprain during a basketball tournament, and has continued to tape his ankle before games.

“It’s getting better every week and it’s almost at 100%,” McGee said.

The Lightning quarterback hopes to commit to a school in time for the early decision deadline, sometime next month, but he doesn’t know where that is yet.

For now, he keeps focusing on evolving at his position, and trying to cram all the schoolwork and college application essays he needs to do after football practice ends at 6:00 p.m.

“It’s our job as seniors to get everyone going, and we’ve been able to do that so far,” McGee said of the undefeated squad.