Ask most fifth graders why they play football and you’ll get an answer about touchdowns. Ask Emery “Shay” Martindale and you get a family tree.

“When I think about the athletes who came before me in my family, it doesn’t just motivate me, it fuels me,” the Class of 2033 quarterback said. “I feel like I’m carrying something bigger than myself every time I put on a helmet and touch a football.”

He is not exaggerating. Shay’s older brother — eight years his senior — came up through Dragon Youth Football and went on to play varsity at Carroll Senior High School, which in Southlake, Texas is roughly the local equivalent of making it. His dad played in high school. And his grandfather took it further than any of them, lining up as a defensive tackle at the University of Texas in Austin while also competing as a dual-sport athlete, throwing the shot put and discus at the Pan American Games. Shay grew up inside all of that, watching a brother he idolized run out of a tunnel almost a decade before it would be his turn.

His own start came early. He began in kindergarten with flag football and moved into tackle by third grade, six seasons in total at a point in life when six seasons is most of what he can remember. Now he’s a quarterback at Durham Intermediate in the Southlake Carroll system, and the thing that keeps him there isn’t the position’s glamour. It’s the job description.

“What I love most about football is the competition, but what truly drives me is the opportunity to lead,” he said. “As a quarterback, I’m not just managing plays, I’m setting the tone for the entire team. I genuinely love encouraging my teammates and coaches, speaking life and positivity into the people around me, and being someone they can count on both on and off the field. Leadership isn’t just a position to me, it’s a purpose.”

The football side is there too — a strong arm, and a real appetite for the chess match. He talks about breaking down strategy, reading the field, and making smart decisions under pressure the way older players talk about it, and he studies film daily, by his own account not because anyone makes him but because he genuinely loves the game that much.

Pressed on what actually separates a good quarterback from a great one, Shay doesn’t lead with arm talent. He leads with character, and the list is longer and more specific than you’d expect from a ten-year-old: leadership, because a quarterback sets the standard for everyone around him. Excellence as a non-negotiable. Discipline and self-control — managing your emotions, staying composed, making the right decision when everything is moving fast. Faith, to stay grounded when things don’t go your way. And routine.

“Greatness is never accidental,” he said. “It is always the result of intentional daily habits.”

Then, and only then, the football part. “A great quarterback also has to be a student of the game. That means studying the playbook, watching film, understanding defensive schemes, and always looking for ways to sharpen your football IQ. The best quarterbacks in the world never stop learning, and that mindset starts right now, at every level of the game.”

His two models make the same point from opposite directions. Michael Vick is the one from before his time, and what Shay admires isn’t the highlight reel. “It wasn’t just his extraordinary athleticism, it was his mental fortitude. No matter how far down his team was in a game, Vick never quit.” Josh Allen is the one he watches now, and the appeal there is the backstory as much as the arm. “He was overlooked, doubted, and underestimated, yet he never allowed anyone else’s opinion to become his reality.” Both, in Shay’s reading, get to the same conclusion: “The greatest quarterbacks are built not just in the weight room or on the practice field, but in the moments when quitting would have been the easier choice.”

He has already had one of those moments, and he can tell you exactly when it happened.

It was the first spring game of last season. The coaching staff had challenged the team to go 1-and-0. The opponent scored twice on the identical play, and Southlake went into halftime down 13-0. Shay describes the locker room at the break as the defining moment of the season — a team that could either accept the result or decide the result wasn’t finished. They picked the second one.

The running back took the opening drive of the second half in for a touchdown, and the game changed shape. The defense locked in. In the fourth quarter, with the opponent at the one-yard line and about to put it away, the ball came loose. Shay’s team recovered, marched the other direction, scored, and converted the extra point to take their first lead of the day at 14-13. Then, with the opponent driving again and the clock running out, a teammate delivered a tackle that tipped the ball into the air — and it came down in Shay’s hands. He slid, the clock hit zero, and it was over.

“That game taught me more than any victory ever could,” he said. “It taught our entire team that adversity is not the end of the story, it is simply the moment that reveals what you are truly made of.”

Two other snapshots stick with him. The first came in third grade, on a designed run to the right that had nowhere to go. He stiff-armed a defender, reset his eyes, and cut back left for a 40-yard touchdown — his first real lesson that great players don’t panic when a play breaks down, they build something out of the wreckage. The second came this past season, when he was playing as a utility guy: backup quarterback, receiver, running back, and snaps on both lines. When the starter went down with an injury, Shay went in. On the second drive he threw a screen to his slot receiver, who took it 66 yards to the end zone. “Preparation, versatility, and staying ready are what separate players when opportunity comes knocking.”

He’s been building the résumé off the field too. Riley Dodge Football Camp from 2022 through 2025, the You Are Athlete Junior 150 in both 2025 and 2026, and QB Ranch in 2026 — a steady climb in the level of competition he’s putting himself in front of.

Ask him about the single biggest influence on all of it and there’s no hesitation. It’s his dad, who has coached him since kindergarten in some form or another — head coach some seasons, assistant or sideline mentor in others.

“My dad coaches with purpose. He comes into every season with specific goals, not just for the team, but for each of us individually. He wants us to grow as players, but more importantly, he wants us to grow as young men.” What Shay values most is the calibration. “He never lets a loss crush our spirit and he never lets a win inflate our ego. He keeps us grounded and focused on what truly matters.” The lesson underneath all of it, repeated often enough that Shay now repeats it himself: how you carry yourself, and how you treat your teammates, your coaches, and your opponents, matters as much as any stat. “He is not just my coach, he is my foundation.”

Away from football, Shay is a devoted believer in Christ — a faith he describes not as something he practices but as the thing that shapes how he treats people and what standard he holds himself to. He was recently named Student of the Month for fifth grade. And at home, he’s the big brother now, doing for his younger siblings what his own brother once did for him from eight years ahead. “I understand that leadership is not a title, it is a lifestyle.”

The next six months are about fundamentals: footwork and drop steps, consistency in his training, nutrition, and conditioning, daily film, and more camp exposure against better competition. The twelve-month version is broader — growing in his faith, earning more starting opportunities, getting stronger and more explosive, and beginning to build a name that stands for something.

“My goal is to be the kind of athlete and young man that others look up to, on the field and off it.”

He has a grandfather who played at Texas, a brother who played at Carroll, and a father on the sideline every season. Shay Martindale isn’t trying to escape any of that. He’s trying to earn it.

Follow Shay: @shaymartindale_ on Instagram, @shay_martindale on X Full profile:quarterbackmagazine.com/profile/shay-martindale