Austin Green is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism graduate student assigned to cover Chandler for AZPreps365.com

On a Chandler football team full of stars, sophomore running back Ca’lil Valentine was often overlooked coming into the Wolves’ 2021 season. It took him one quarter to change that.

Valentine opened Chandler’s (6-0) Sept. 3 game against Centennial with a 60-yard kickoff return. Later in the first quarter, he caught a checkdown pass from quarterback Blaine Hipa off of a broken play and sprinted 72 yards down the sideline for a touchdown, sending a Centennial defensive back flailing out of bounds with a nasty juke move in the process. 

As his teammates mobbed him upon his return to the bench, Valentine remained calm, staying true to his mindset entering the night.

“I was able to just lay back and [say to myself], ‘Oh, OK. Just play football. Play how you play. Don't let nobody tell you anything different,’” Valentine said. “And then I went out there and just showed my talent.” 

He has not stopped showing that talent since then. At just 15 years old, Valentine has seized the starting running back job on the best high school football team in Arizona. Through six games this season, Valentine has a team-high 352 rushing yards and five touchdowns on 50 carries, as well as 142 yards and two touchdowns on 10 receptions.

“He’s got skills,” Chandler coach Rick Garretson said after the Wolves’ season-opening 28-7 win over Centennial. “He’s... diversified enough that we can put him anywhere on the football field in the skill spots--running back, slotback, wideout.”

Still, Garretson realizes that starting at Chandler, which has a 42-game win streak going back to 2018, is a massive responsibility.

“It's not easy playing varsity football as a sophomore, let alone varsity football at Chandler as a sophomore,” Garretson said earlier this week. “He's got a natural ability of being able to make jump cuts and things that, I'm not saying you can't teach, but things you don't really teach. The kids really kind of have that or they don't.” 

One of those things is Valentine’s “home run” ability, as Garretson calls it, which has been on display recently. Valentine recently recorded a long touchdown run in back-to-back games, going 61 yards to the end zone on Sept. 24 against Liberty and 65 yards on Oct. 1 at Pinnacle.

“He picked up the system extremely fast, and he has a knack for the big play and the big moment,” said Eric Richardson, the longtime running backs coach and assistant head coach at Chandler.

Richardson has seen plenty of good tailbacks come through his position group in his 25 years with the Wolves. He currently has five alumni playing running back in NCAA Division I college football, but is still impressed by what he sees from Valentine. Most notably, Richardson singled out the 6-foot, 175-pound sophomore’s strength and durability at such a young age.

“Even the teams that aren't very good are really physical in Arizona football,” Richardson said. “A lot of these kids just aren't ready physically, but [Valentine] has really matured over time and he's adapted to the physicality of it all. He doesn't shy away from it.”

Valentine’s combination of physicality and versatility reminds Garretson and Richardson of Chase Lucas, another former running back with the Wolves who switched to defensive back at Arizona State.

“Chase was an offensive player at Chandler and he could do a bunch of different things and [be] all over the place,” Garretson said. “Ca’lil is very similar in that sense.”

Lucas also starred at Chandler as a previously unknown sophomore, but he was over a year older back then than Valentine is now. Also unlike Lucas, an Arizona native, Valentine was born and raised and got his start in football in Alameda County, Calif., near Oakland. After the coronavirus pandemic caused the shutdown of high school sports throughout most of 2020 in his home state, Valentine got an opportunity to move to Chandler and join the Wolves’ program last season.

“I'm really grateful that I got the opportunity to come out here, and not just come out here, but also start as a sophomore,” Valentine said. “It feels very good and I just thank my coaches that they take me under their wing and believe in me as a sophomore to play a part in a team like this.” 

The feeling is mutual among Garretson and his staff. Chandler’s coaches pride themselves on how hard they make their players work and are pleased with how unafraid Valentine is of that work.

“I've coached all kinds of players with different sizes and shapes and temperaments,” Richardson said. “He makes it fun coming to work every day because it's not a challenge. He doesn't do the prima donna shuffle when he gets torn in half, because he gets torn in half... I look forward to coaching him every day.”

Valentine’s next goal is to play collegiately like the Chandler backs who came before him, and his coaches are optimistic that he will reach that level. Garretson labeled Valentine as a future Power Five-caliber player and is entrusting Richardson with the young tailback’s development.

“We're going to really work,” Richardson said. “We have a plan put in place for him in the offseason to help develop his explosive power. We have an acceleration program that he'll be working with me to get that part of it down.” 

If all goes according to plan, Richardson believes that "the sky's the limit" for his new sophomore star both at Chandler and beyond.