Shane Steichen Has Been Obsessed With Football From A Young Age. Just Ask His High School Coach, Chris Jones, And His High School Wide Receiver, Austin Collie.

Philip Rivers, Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts are three completely different quarterbacks who share a couple things in common.

They were all coached by Shane Steichen, first of all. Steichen was Rivers’ quarterbacks coach and interim offensive coordinator with the Los Angeles Chargers; he was Herbert’s offensive coordinator with the Chargers and Hurts’ offensive coordinator with the Philadelphia Eagles.

And Steichen, in coaching them, observed a singularly important quality in each player.

“They’re obsessed with their craft,” Steichen said. “If you can find that in a quarterback, you’ll probably have some success.”

Two decades ago, he was that guy. A quarterback obsessed with his craft.

Chris Jones, Oak Ridge High School’s football coach, admits he was “young and inexperienced” when he said yes to an idea Steichen and a few players presented to him. Steichen, Oak Ridge’s starting quarterback, wanted to do something productive with his weekend nights. And around El Dorado, Calif. – a far eastern suburb of Sacramento – there wasn’t much else to do besides a typical high school party.

Steichen, though, wasn’t much of a partier. Neither was his friend, star wide receiver Austin Collie (yes, that Austin Collie).

So he went to his head coach and asked: Hey, could we get the lights turned on at our stadium?

“They would rather go throw the ball around at night than go to a high school party,” Jones said. “What’s not to like about that as a coach?”

Jones would leave the stadium gate open on weekends and gave Steichen a key to turn on the lights. He put an immense amount of trust into Steichen – Jones never once fielded a call from someone asking why a couple of high schoolers were messing around on the field.

“They were there to work, and to compete, and to get their work in,” Jones said. “And they brought similar guys along with them, which was awesome.”

Collie and Steichen would occasionally poke their heads into those typical high school gatherings, but would usually bail…