QB Magazine Athlete Feature

Ask most fourth graders for their favorite football memory and you will get a touchdown. Ask Evan Shahan Goorabian and you get a situation.

“Definitely those one minute left to score games have been my most memorable,” the Class of 2034 quarterback said. “I thrive for moments like those, and it’s just a feeling you never forget.”

Not a specific throw. Not a highlight. A category of pressure — the one where the clock is the defense, the sideline goes quiet, and everybody in the huddle looks at one person. That is the part he says he wants.

Since Before He Could Read

Evan has been playing quarterback since he was five, though the football itself showed up earlier than that.

“I’ve always had a football in my hand since the age of two,” he said.

What keeps him at the position now is not the throwing. It is the job description.

“I enjoy being a QB because of the responsibilities it comes with,” he said. “I enjoy studying the plays, knowing my receivers, and being the first person with the ball after the snap.”

That last line is worth reading twice. The first person with the ball after the snap. He is describing the moment when every play becomes his problem — and he lists it as a reason he likes the position.

It fits with how he defines the job overall: staying calm under pressure to keep a clear mind, and being a leader his teammates can look up to. Both are about what happens to everyone else when the quarterback holds steady.

Learning to Lose

The hardest thing he has faced so far is not a drill or an opponent.

“The biggest challenge I’ve faced is learning to lose,” Evan said. “But I’ve learned every loss is a lesson.”

Losing is genuinely difficult at nine, and a lot of talented young athletes handle it by deciding the game was rigged, the refs were bad, or somebody else made the mistake. Evan named it directly and did the work of reframing it — which, at his age, is a skill on the same shelf as footwork.

He credits his dad for a lot of that.

“He is always there for me to break down film, keep me calm, and remind me I am capable of anything I set my mind to,” Evan said. “My dad does a lot for me to be successful on and off the field, and that’s something I really look up to.”

Film study and calm. Those are the two things he singles out — and they map exactly onto the two things he says the position requires.

The Work

For a fourth grader, Evan has already put himself in front of serious coaching. He has been through Elevate QB Camp in Arizona, QB Universe, and Nike Darkside, and was the youngest athlete invited to You Are Athlete. He trains with Coach Vinny Passas, Rob Henriquez at Revolution Academy, and Coach Vince Womack.

His goals, given that access, are notably unglamorous.

“My short-term goal is to continue mastering the little details in my form with my QB coaches,” he said. Long-term: keep learning the game and get better at reading coverages.

No talk of rankings or highlight reels. Just form and film — the two things that take the longest and pay off the latest.

Which explains the quarterback he picked. “My favorite quarterback is Tom Brady, because of his pocket presence and champion mentality,” Evan said. A kid who wants the ball with a minute left, and who studies the details in the meantime, chose the guy who built a career out of exactly that combination.

He has a long way to go and plenty of time to go it. But the instinct is already there, and it is the rarest one: when the game gets tight, he wants it to come to him.

A Note on Memberships

Evan is nine, and there is a lot of football ahead of him. The most useful thing a membership does right now is keep track of it.

Heading into the fall, an upgraded QB Magazine membership adds a professionally designed athlete graphic and a profile that grows with him season by season — a record of the camps, the coaching, and the progress as it happens, rather than something assembled from memory years from now. At his age it is simply a place for the story to live while it is being written.

Explore membership options at quarterbackmagazine.com/memberships.

Instagram: @evan.shahan.qb1