La Salle’s Gavin Sidwar has remarkable poise. He’ll need it to beat rival St. Joe’s Prep for postseason play

No matter what happens on the field when bitter rivals La Salle College High and St. Joseph’s Prep meet Saturday, Gavin Sidwar likely won’t get rattled.

In some ways, the 6-foot-3, 190-pound La Salle junior quarterback with a rocket for a right arm has been preparing for this moment since before he could crawl.

“He was a baby that could just sit up in diapers,” Sidwar’s father, Bryan, said in a phone interview. “He took a Matchbox car, sitting on his butt, and fired it across two rooms into a wall.

“My wife [Tara] was like, ‘No, we don’t throw in the house, Gavin,’” Bryan added. “And I was like, ‘No, maybe we do throw in the house!’ I put a foam ball in his hand, and I was like, ‘Throw it again!’ He’s been throwing ever since.”

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Sidwar, who finished the regular season with 2,487 passing yards, 29 touchdowns, and five interceptions on 71% passing, seems to possess all the skills a quarterback could need.

Arm strength? Check. Accuracy?

“As a former quarterback and quarterback coach,” said his coach, Brett Gordon, a hall of fame quarterback at La Salle College High and Villanova, “accuracy in my opinion, is the most important aspect of throwing the football, and Gavin does it as well as anybody I’ve ever seen.”

Check.

Some skills have come naturally. Others have been hard-earned, while still others were born from techniques borrowed from the fathers of famous athletes.

Sidwar will likely need them all against the Prep at Wissahickon High on Saturday at 1 p.m. in a PCL Class 6A classification game. The winner continues to the PIAA playoffs. The loser’s season is over.

This season, La Salle won its first Catholic League title since 2021, finishing undefeated overall (10-0, 6-0).

The Prep (6-2, 4-1) suffered its only league loss in the Oct. 5 contest in which La Salle needed a desperate two-point conversion in the fourth overtime to win, 35-34.

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La Salle receiver Joey O’Brien found fellow junior Desmond Ortiz after the Explorers’ attempt at recreating the Eagles’ famed “Philly Special” fell flat.

The poise O’Brien wielded during that sequence was what Bryan Sidwar has been nurturing within his son for years.

Bryan played safety at Berwick High under legendary coach George Curry, who died in 2016 at age 71.

Curry, who earned coach of the year honors 28 times during his 46-year career, coached 12 teams that finished the regular season undefeated.

Curry’s Bulldogs once had a 47-game winning streak from 1981 to 1985. Curry, who played football at Temple, also led the Bulldogs to USA Today national championships in 1983, 1992, and 1995.

Bryan Sidwar won two state titles in three years under Curry before graduating in 1996.

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Among Curry’s most notable lessons, Bryan said, was about having mental toughness.

So when Gavin Sidwar told his dad that he wanted to let go of baseball and focus on football at around 12 years old, Bryan trained his son with tips gleaned from the fathers of other athletes.

“I actually would read up on Tiger Woods’ dad,” Bryan said. “I’d read up on Bryce Harper’s dad. I would read up on a lot of these people’s dads that were able to identify they had really talented kids and then see what they were doing differently.”

When father and son threw in the backyard, fundamental form was always essential. Eventually, Bryan also added distractions the way Earl Woods famously dropped clubs, jiggled change, or coughed during his son’s backswing.

Sometimes Sidwar’s younger brother, Luke, who plays golf and lacrosse, would push him after throws. Sometimes, Luke, now 14, wouldn’t.

“Think about me standing right against your shoulder looking into your ear hole,” Bryan said. “I would just be that close to him and he still had to make a throw. And sometimes I’m going to push you. Sometimes I’m not. So you’re going to get hit sometimes and sometimes you’re not. Or I’d have his brother run into him.”

When push comes to shove on Saturday, that poise under pressure might serve Sidwar well.

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It already seems to inform the maturity with which he’s approaching Saturday’s contest. Before the Explorers won last month, the Hawks had dominated La Salle the previous three seasons.

“It’s a rivalry,” Sidwar said. “I mean, yeah, it’s a big game. We know what’s at stake. It’s win or go home. But it wasn’t really a rivalry until we won. That’s what we said this year. It’s not a rivalry until we win. They’re a great team, great program, but our goal is just to win each week. So we’re not going to make it bigger than it is. We just want to go out and win.”