William “Will” McCann — Quarterback, Class of 2035 — Simi Valley Bulldogs, Simi Valley, California

There is a rule in the McCann house, and it is not negotiable.

“Our family rule is you always play at least two sports,” Will McCann said.

So he does. Quarterback in the fall, centerfield and shortstop in the spring, and a winter spent chasing a sub-five-second 40 to get ready for track — which means the Class of 2035 prospect is essentially never not in season. Ask him for his goals and he does not give you a football answer. He gives you a calendar.

Thirty-six touchdowns this season, passing and running. A Super Bowl with his Bulldog teammates. And that 40 time, which is a track goal, a baseball goal, and a football goal at the same time, depending on which month you ask him about it.

The football came from the family too. His dad and his uncles all played college ball, so he wanted in early — five years of it now, three of them in pads. The player who sold him on the sport was not a quarterback at all.

“I am a big Seahawks fan and I loved watching Marshawn Lynch run the ball,” he said.

That tracks with what he actually likes about the position he ended up in.

“I love playing QB because the ball is in my hands every play,” McCann said. “I love running the ball with the RPO my team does.”

Every play. That is the whole appeal — not the authority, not the reads, just the guarantee of being involved. It is the most honest answer a fourth grader can give, and it happens to describe a real strength. Asked what a quarterback has to be, he listed four things — tough, quick thinking, accurate, athletic — and then named Johnny Manziel as the player he likes to watch, which is exactly the style you would expect from a kid whose favorite football memory involves a punt return.

Two of them, actually, in the same game. Two long punt return touchdowns and five rushing touchdowns from the quarterback position, all on one afternoon.

But the game he is proudest of is a quieter one. Last preseason he got hurt. He came back for the opener and scored the winning touchdown on a long run.

“I came back from an injury in the preseason and had a great first regular season game,” he said.

Coming off an injury as a young player means learning something most kids have not had to learn yet — that the body you trusted last month is a thing you now have to negotiate with, and that the first hit back is mostly a mental problem. He took the handoff anyway and ran it in to win the game.

The mechanics behind all of it come from Teddy Anderson, the quarterback coach he trains with and the person he credits most directly.

“He has helped me learn how to play quarterback better,” McCann said. “He has helped me so much with my mechanics.”

He has already gotten a look at what the next level up looks like, working the Sierra Canyon High School football camp — a nine-year-old standing on a high school field, doing high school drills, filing it away.

Eleven years from now he will be part of somebody’s recruiting class. In the meantime there is a season to finish, a Super Bowl to chase, a winter of 40s, and then baseball, because in this family the season never actually ends.

For the McCann family

Will’s calendar is already full — football, baseball, track training, camps. What he does not have yet is a place where all of it adds up to something he can point at.

That is the practical thing a Quarterback Magazine membership upgrade provides. It gives a young athlete a home for his story instead of a camera roll.

The upgrade puts custom QB Magazine graphics in his hands: designed pieces built around his name, his number, and his team, made to look the way a real football publication looks. For a nine-year-old who just went out and scored seven touchdowns in a single game, that is the difference between a moment that lives on somebody’s phone and a moment that exists somewhere permanent, in a form worth sending to grandparents, coaches, and the family members who played before him.

It also widens who sees it. When Quarterback Magazine shares an athlete’s feature and graphics, the audience is not the same audience Will already has. His is family, teammates, and people around Simi Valley who were probably in the stands. Ours is trainers, coaches, camp directors, and football families across the country who have never heard of the Bulldogs.

And it accumulates. One graphic is a good Saturday. A published feature, graphics through a season, and a profile that grows year over year become a record — so that the name has been quietly circulating for years by the time any of it starts to count. Class of 2035 is about as much runway as a player can have, and runway is the one advantage that can only be spent early.

Most of all, it keeps. Youth seasons blur, teams change names, stat sheets get lost. What gets published stays published. Years from now, the account of a fourth grader who came back from a preseason injury and won the opener on a long run — from a family with a two-sport rule and three generations of football in it — will still be there, in his own words, with his coach named in it.

More info: quarterbackmagazine.com/memberships