Carter Riggins | QB | John Bassett Moore School | Smyrna, Delaware

The play was dead. Carter Riggins knew it before anybody else did.

He was in the pocket with nobody open, the rush closing, a sack about to happen. What he describes next is the standout moment of his young career, and it took about seven seconds.

“I was about to be sacked, so I ran 47 yards for the TD.”

That is the whole player in one sentence. Riggins is a fifth-grader at John Bassett Moore School in Smyrna, Delaware, three years into playing football, and the thing he does best is refuse to accept that a play is over.

He is direct about his own strengths in a way most kids his age are not. Asked why he enjoys quarterback, he does not talk about being the center of attention.

“I am accurate and I’m good at controlling the pocket,” Riggins said. “I am also very mobile.”

Those are scouting terms, used correctly, by a ten-year-old. They also happen to be his definition of the position: quick, accurate, mobile, and able to read the field. He is describing the job and describing himself at the same time, which is either confidence or self-awareness, and at his age it is probably both.

He did not start there. Riggins came to organized football late, and not by choice.

“My biggest challenge was having a late start at little league due to health problems that I have overcome,” he said. “It made me more determined and focused to be great.”

He does not elaborate, and does not need to. The relevant part is what he did with the delay: he showed up behind and decided to close the gap.

Even once he arrived, quarterback was not the plan. Riggins spent his first season at wide receiver. It was his offensive coach who saw something else.

“Coach Steve started me as WR my first year, but year 2 he thought I was better at QB,” Riggins said. “He pushes me to be my very best.”

Since then the development has come from a few directions. He trains with Uncommon Breed Athletics, and he has worked the DeSean Jackson football camp at Delaware State — a Delaware kid learning from a Philadelphia legend, which is thematically perfect given where the rest of his football loyalties live.

Riggins is a serious Eagles fan, and his favorite quarterback is Jalen Hurts. What he admires is not the highlight package.

“I admire how calm he is under pressure and his ability to win games,” he said.

It is a revealing pick. Hurts is the quarterback who extends plays when the design breaks down and stays composed while doing it — the professional version of a kid who turns a certain sack into a 47-yard touchdown. Riggins did not choose a gunslinger. He chose the guy who does not panic.

His goals are equally grounded. In the short term he wants to keep improving through training and make the 7v7 team. Long term, he wants to finish Pop Warner and earn the starting spot on his middle school team.

Not a scholarship. Not a ranking. The next job, and then the one after that — which, for a player who started late and had to catch up, is probably exactly the right way to count.

Building the Résumé: Why Upgrading Your Membership Matters

Carter has a free profile. That is the right first step, and it is also where a lot of players stop — a page that exists, sitting there, waiting for somebody to find it on their own.

Almost nobody finds it on their own. That is what upgrading changes.

Custom graphics turn his moments into something people stop for. Every month, an upgraded member gets a professionally designed graphic built around him — his photo, his play, his name in a format that looks like it belongs. The 47-yard scramble deserves one. Right now it is a sentence on a form. As a graphic it becomes something coaches and trainers stop scrolling for, something teammates share, something his family can actually post.

Reposts on Instagram and X put him in front of people who are already looking. This is the part families underestimate. A post from his own account reaches the people who already found him — friends, family, classmates. A repost from QB Magazine reaches a feed that coaches, trainers, camp directors, and other quarterbacks follow on purpose. Those are two different rooms, and only one of them has people in it who are looking for a quarterback.

Engagement compounds. Weekly reposts across both platforms build familiarity, and familiarity this early is worth more than it looks. A name that appears once is noise. A name that appears every week becomes that kid from Smyrna. By the time Carter is competing for that middle school starting job and the 7v7 roster he wants, the people around those programs will already know who he is.

And there is the part that has nothing to do with recruiting. Carter started late because of health problems he had to beat first. He got moved to quarterback because a coach saw something in him. He turned a sack into a touchdown because he would not go down. That is a story worth having written down somewhere permanent — not a clip that disappears down a feed in a week, but a record of a kid who kept refusing to accept the play was over.

He did not wait for the play to work. This is the same idea.

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