David Lewerke
FIXME

Top basketball recruit Michael Humphrey is also nation's tallest quarterback

October 10, 2013 by David Lewerke, AZPreps365


Photo by Mark Jones

At 6-foot-9, Michael Humphrey towers over his teammates on the Sunnyslope High School football team. He is also a Top 100 hoops recruit according to 247Sports.

A year ago at this time, Sunnyslope (Phoenix) senior Michael Humphrey thought his athletic future would play out on the gridiron.

But a growth spurt put a change in those plans.

Already standing 6-foot-6 last fall, Humphrey was hoping to draw attention from college football programs at the quarterback position. But he kept growing, shooting all the way up to 6-9 by the end of his junior year at the Phoenix school.

College basketball programs took notice when he hit the club circuit. He was a standout at the prestigious Pangos All-American Camp in June and saw his recruitment skyrocket in the months to follow.
Photo by Mark Jones

Michael Humphrey, Sunnyslope


Prior to his appearance at Pangos, Humphrey was hearing from Ivy League schools (he's a 3.9 student), Arizona State, Portland, Portland State, Tulsa, Rice and Utah State.

Then things blew up. Arizona, Indiana, Louisville Stanford, Texas, UCLA and Virginia were among the over two dozen schools to eventually extend an offer to the skilled forward.

Pegged as the No. 84 prospect overall in the Class of 2014 by 247Sports, he is expected to choose between Arizona and Stanford in November.

But Humphrey didn't bypass his final year of football in an effort to concentrate on basketball — and Sunnyslope head coach Damon Pieri has to be thrilled about that.

The Vikings are 6-0 and the prized hoops recruit has thrown for 1,081 yards and seven touchdowns while completing over 60 percent of his pass attempts. His best game this fall came two weeks ago against Fairfax (Laveen), where he completed 9 of 12 attempts for 337 yards and two TDs.

Humphrey and the Vikings continue their quest for an unbeaten regular season Friday night at home against La Joya Community (Avondale).

See Humphrey in action on the gridiron below.