Aden Shay is back, and so is Slippery Rock football after an explosive start to the season
Aden Shay is the type of football player you build a program around.
“I’d love to have that kid on my team for the next four years,” first-year Slippery Rock head coach Steve Monteleone said of the breakout running back.
However, as a senior who hadn’t played football in three years, Shay will move on, hopefully to a career in college wrestling. He was on the Rockets’ JV football team as a freshman, but at 5-foot-2 and under 110 pounds back then, he made the “business decision” to stay healthy for wrestling, he said.
Now 5-11, 165 pounds, Shay couldn’t pass up the chance to get back in pads and a helmet. Monteleone had approached Shay in the school weight room and questioned, half-jokingly, if he wanted to play football. Shay was immediately interested.
“You can play basketball, you can play baseball, you can play hockey, you can golf, you can hunt the rest of your life,” Monteleone said. “But, guess what you can't do? You can't play tackle football (past high school) unless you go to college.”
Monteleone also asked if he wanted to go for 1,000 yards on the ground in Slippery Rock’s run-first offense.
It sealed the deal, and three games into the season, Shay and the Rockets (2-1) are off to the races.
Shay had to get up to speed understanding the Rockets’ Xs and Os, but it didn’t take him long to emerge as Slippery Rock’s featured ballcarrier while using the wrestling techniques, leverage and skill, combined with an ability to cut it back.
He’s not afraid to lower his shoulder into a would-be tackler, either.
“One thing he always tells me is, ‘I love to get hit,’” Monteleone said.
“I like knowing that the other guy knows I’m there,” Shay said. “I want them to know the next game that he went against Aden Shay.”
In three games, Shay leads the Butler County area with 461 yards and seven touchdowns on 44 carries. The next closest rusher in the county is Knoch’s Ethan Rouleau with 409.
Shay ran for 227 yards and four TDs in Week 2’s blowout win of Conneaut, then followed that up with 191 rushing yards, 300 total yards of offense and four more scores Friday against Titusville.
He also has three receptions for 146 yards and a touchdown — a ridiculous 48.7 yards per catch average. The TD catch came late in Week 3 off a deep ball that deflected off the helmet of the defensive back trailing him in coverage and right into Shay’s hands, and he sprinted the rest of the way for an 82-yard score.
Slippery Rock hosts Iroquois at 7 p.m. Saturday.
“You’re always expecting more, but right now, I’m not gonna pressure him (like), ‘Hey, you gotta get 1,000 yards.’” Monteleone said. “I just want to take it one game at a time, one play at a time, and get him and the team to understand that if we play like we’ve been playing — because, again, the schedule’s only gonna get harder — we can be successful.”
“I’m not really worried about the stats,” Shay said. “I wanna get wins and I just want our team (to succeed).”
Monteleone certainly doesn’t have to remind Shay to work. Every snap he takes, he’s “going 100 mph,” Monteleone said. “And that’s what I want each kid to do, and it’s starting to rub off on all the other players. He leads by example.”
With Shay’s success, Monteleone now has even more of a sales pitch for those on the fence. A District 9 playoff appearance would do wonders, too, the coach believes, but he doesn’t want to look too far into the future.
“That would trickle back into the school, and then maybe some of these players that are on the bubble of playing (would be like), ‘Hey, maybe I should play,’” Monteleone said.
As for Shay himself?
“I told him, ‘Just imagine if you had come back and stuck around for a couple years,’” Monteleone said.
