DeAngelo De La Torre — Quarterback, Class of 2034 — Grand Island, Nebraska

Most quarterbacks never have to find out which arm they throw with. DeAngelo De La Torre did.

“My father noticed when I was younger that I was ambidextrous,” he said. “We started QB training and discovered my left arm is the dominant arm.”

That is an unusual beginning, and a lucky one. Plenty of kids who can use both hands get sorted into the right-handed world by default — by the equipment, by the coaching, by everyone around them assuming. His dad paid attention instead, and the training answered a question the family did not know it was asking. The arm was there the whole time. Somebody just had to look.

There was a model already in the house. “We always been huge Mike Vick fans,” he said, which is the kind of detail that makes a story click into place. The most electric left-handed quarterback the sport has produced was the household favorite before anyone knew the household had a left-handed quarterback in it.

Now heading into his fourth season, De La Torre talks about the position in the simplest terms available, and there is nothing wrong with that at ten years old. What he enjoys most is throwing a touchdown and helping his team. He likes learning the plays with his teammates. That is the honest version of why kids play, and it is worth writing down before the answer gets more complicated.

The hardest part so far has been the equipment. “Getting used to throwing with my pads and helmet,” he said. “I found it hard to throw the ball.” Anyone who has coached young quarterbacks knows this is real. A kid spends a summer building a clean motion in a T-shirt, then puts on shoulder pads and discovers his arm no longer goes where he told it to. Some players never fully get past that. His answer was not complicated. “I worked hard and didn’t give up,” he said. “The dedication and hard work will always pay you back.”

Ask him what it takes to be a great quarterback and he gives you a line rather than a list. “Train hard, as much as you can, almost every day.” He attributes it to himself, which is either confidence or accuracy, and at his age both are fine.

He trains privately with a quarterback coach and credits another one — a coach named Jaden — as the person who has mattered most. The reason is four words long and about as good a reason as exists in youth sports: he never gave up on him.

The quarterback he studies now is Bo Nix, and what he admires is both aesthetic and tough-minded. He likes the spirals, which tracks for a kid whose own favorite memory is a throw. “My favorite play is when I faked a handoff and threw the post,” he said. “It was a nice spiral.” He also mentions that Nix once got hurt and finished the play anyway, which is a thing a ten-year-old notices only if he is watching closely.

The last thing he offered was not asked for, and it is the most revealing line in the whole questionnaire. “When I have adapted to being locked in, I ignore everything around me and focus on developing the play.” That is concentration described from the inside by someone still learning to do it on purpose — the sound going away, the field narrowing to the thing he is trying to make happen.

His goals for the next six months are keeping up his training through the offseason, straight A’s, and winning his first ring. The family just relocated to Grand Island, which means a new team, new coaches, and a new set of people about to meet a left-handed quarterback who has been getting ready for them.

A Note for DeAngelo’s Family: What an Upgrade Builds

At ten years old, none of this is about recruiting. It is far too early for that, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. What an upgraded QB Magazine membership does at this age is simpler and, honestly, more valuable: it starts the record.

The most immediate piece is the custom graphics. Our design team builds player assets around your athlete specifically — his name, his class year, his team, his numbers — clean, professional pieces made for sharing. A fourth-season quarterback who just moved to a new state has a lot of new people to meet, and a real graphic with his name on it is a nicer introduction than a phone photo. Families tend to keep these long after the season ends.

There is also reach. Upgraded members have their content shared across QB Magazine’s platforms, where the audience is coaches, trainers, and people who follow the quarterback position seriously. For a family that just landed in Grand Island, that is a way to be known in the wider football community while the local one is still getting acquainted.

Over time, it accumulates into something better than any single post. A feature, a set of graphics, and a profile that grows with him become a running account of how he developed — which, for a player in the Class of 2034, is the only thing that could possibly matter yet. There is no clock here at all. There is just a long stretch of seasons ahead and the option to document them as they happen rather than reconstruct them later.

And it stays. Ten-year-old arms get stronger, teams change, films get lost on old phones. A published feature does not move. Years from now, the story of a left-handed kid whose dad noticed something and went looking for the answer will still be there in his own words, with Coach Jaden in it, right where he put him.

More info: quarterbackmagazine.com/memberships