Avery Perkins | Quarterback | Class of 2032 | Sequoia Pathfinder Academy | Buckeye, Arizona
The film that got Avery Perkins into football is older than he is.
He came across the old tapes of his dad playing, sat down with them, and that was it. Two years later he’s a seventh-grade quarterback at Sequoia Pathfinder Academy in Buckeye, Arizona, building tape of his own.
Two years is not a long time in a sport where plenty of kids have been strapping on pads since kindergarten, and Avery is clear-eyed about what that means. Asked what the hardest part of his football journey has been, he doesn’t reach for anything dramatic. “Lacking the experience that my age group had because I started so late,” he said. It’s an unusually honest answer from a seventh grader, and it tells you something about how he’s approaching the position — as a problem with a solution, not a ceiling.
The quarterback position is what pulled him in, and specifically the part of it that never sits still. “I love the technical and tactical challenge of the quarterback position,” he said. “It’s a different muscle every day, and I like the challenge.” That’s the job in one sentence. Footwork on Monday, protection reads on Tuesday, keeping eleven people calm in a huddle on Friday. For a kid who came to the position late, the fact that it asks for something different every day isn’t a burden. It’s the fastest way to close a gap.
He’s been closing it at Elev8 QB Academy, where he trains under Mike Giovando. The work there has a stated purpose: sharpen his mechanics and deepen his knowledge of the game. Those two goals go together for a quarterback his age more than most people realize. Clean mechanics buy him accuracy now, but the football IQ is what will let him see the field faster at fourteen, sixteen, eighteen — and understanding the why behind a throw is what turns a young arm into a young quarterback.
What he brings to a team, in his own words: leadership, hard work, and a great attitude. Three things that don’t require two extra years of reps to develop, and three things coaches notice in the first week.
Ask him about the coach who’s shaped him most and he declines to pick one. “I’ve been under the same leadership since I started tackle football, and there’s no single coach that I would name here, because there’s such a dynamic group,” he said. That’s a rare answer. Most players, given an open invitation to single someone out, take it. Avery spread the credit across everyone who’s had a hand in it.
The quarterback he models himself after is Cam Newton — not for the highlights, but for the fit. “I think it’s most like myself,” he said. It’s a telling comparison from a player still growing into his frame. Newton was a quarterback who played the position his own way, on his own terms, and was unmistakable doing it.
Avery keeps one highlight up on his profile, a single clip that shows off the skills he’s been working on and what he can do athletically. One clip, chosen deliberately, from a player two years into the sport. There’s a lot of room left on that reel.
He was given the last word, an open message to anyone reading, and he used it on other people: “I wish my fellow peers all the best in their upcoming years of football.”
Somewhere in Buckeye there’s a box of old tape that started all of this. Avery Perkins is making his own now.
Six Seasons of Tape
A note for Avery’s family
Avery’s football story began with footage. He found his dad’s old tapes, watched a player he’d never seen play, and decided he wanted in. That’s what film does — it outlasts the season it was shot in, and it reaches people who weren’t in the stands.
This fall is the first of six seasons between now and the spring he graduates, and everything he does in them can be captured, packaged, and put in front of the right audience. That’s what an upgraded QB Magazine membership is built to do.
Custom graphics. Upgraded members get professionally designed QB Magazine graphics built around their own photos, stats, and milestones — commitment-style pieces, season announcements, camp recaps, and highlight callouts. They’re made to look like they belong in a football publication, because they do. A coach scrolling a feed stops on a clean, branded graphic in a way he simply doesn’t for a phone snapshot with text over it.
Reposts that reach past his own following. A seventh grader’s Instagram audience is mostly family, teammates, and classmates. QB Magazine’s audience is coaches, trainers, camp directors, recruiting staffs, and other quarterback families across the country. When his content runs through our Instagram and X accounts, it lands in front of people who evaluate quarterbacks for a living — an entirely different room than the one he can reach on his own.
Repetition that compounds. This is the part that matters most for a player Avery’s age, and the part that’s easiest to underestimate. One post is one post. Two dozen posts spread across six seasons is a name that starts to feel familiar. By the time he’s a sophomore or junior walking into a camp, the goal is that someone glances at the roster and thinks I know that name — not because of one viral clip, but because he’s been visible, consistently, for years. Starting that clock in seventh grade is the single biggest advantage a young quarterback has over one who starts it as an upperclassman.
A record that stays. Every article, graphic, and post lives permanently on his QB Magazine profile. Years from now it’s a complete archive of how he got from two years in the sport to wherever he ends up — the same kind of record that lit the whole thing up for him in the first place. He said he wishes his peers all the best in their upcoming years of football. This is how those years get documented.
More info: quarterbackmagazine.com/memberships