Once quarterbacks by default, two Philly trainers are helping guide the next generation of Black QBs

For Marcus Hammond, it was a game of rock, paper, scissors with a slight twist — the loser had to play quarterback.

For Vernard Abrams, playing quarterback didn’t happen until his senior season at La Salle University, and that was only because the Explorers’ starting quarterback had transferred.

Today, both men, who grew up when Black quarterbacks were far less common, are arguably the top private youth quarterback trainers in the Philadelphia area.

Hammond is also the offensive coordinator at Roman Catholic High, where his top pupil, sophomore Semaj Beals, received a scholarship offer from Alabama as a freshman.

Hammond’s seven-on-seven football program, Next Level Greats, also has earned a national reputation for producing top talent.

Abrams has developed several QBs at the NFL, college, and high school levels and has been a regular instructor at the Elite 11 national quarterback competition run by former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer.

Yet for Hammond and Abrams, getting started as quarterbacks was born from little more than chance.

» READ MORE: Roman Catholic QB Semaj Beals led as a freshman, and now he’s emerging as a top recruit

Although they run separate, full-time businesses now, Hammond and Abrams are motivated by something similar — opportunities that nearly never came.

After years of studying the position, building businesses, and shaping talent, both are schooling quarterbacks of all colors, while also inspiring those who look like them.

“That’s kind of what this whole thing is about,” Hammond said in a telephone interview. “This entire process is driven by developing the kids beyond where myself and [others] were developed a generation ago.”

Hammond, now 38, was a freshman at Sterling High School in New Jersey in 1999.

The program, he explained, was known for using a wing-T offense that relied almost exclusively on rushing the football.

Hammond and his friends also played baseball, so they wanted to fling the football, not act as turnstiles for running backs on every play.

So, when they learned that the presumptive starting QB had transferred, they left the misfortune of playing the position to chance.

“I did rock, paper, scissors with my boys and I lost, so I ended up playing quarterback,” Hammond said. “I’m dead serious.”

The Silver Knights managed some success during his tenure, but Hammond, who graduated in 2003, found he was unprepared when he arrived on campus at North Carolina A&T University.

“I never even knew I was good at football,” Hammond said. “In high school we didn’t throw the ball, so nobody ever said, ‘Hey, you’re good at football. You should try to do this.’”

Similarly, Abrams found himself behind the quarterback curve in college, but for different reasons.

He was already an established all-conference defensive back at La Salle when offensive coordinator Phil Longo approached him about playing QB.

Abrams had enjoyed terrorizing Longo’s offense in practice and talking trash about how he could also play quarterback like he did infrequently at Cardinal Dougherty High.

After the Explorers’ starter transferred heading into Abrams’ senior season in 2004, Longo needed a leader to fill the void.

“My jaw dropped,” Abrams said via phone. “I’m like, what? Are you serious?”

A speedy 6-foot-2 athlete with spidery arms and legs, Abrams hadn’t truly played the position since middle school when his mother and grandmother would say, “There goes Randall,” a nod to Abrams’ favorite player, Eagles star Randall Cunningham.

» READ MORE: Penn Charter grad and Notre Dame walk-on Jerry Rullo is more than just a ‘Rudy’ story

So, Abrams became a sponge, meeting with Longo sometimes until 1 a.m., desperately trying to learn the position.

Longo, now the offensive coordinator at the University of Wisconsin, said he has never seen another defensive player move to QB and have as much success in his 30-plus years in coaching.

That season, Abrams was named the conference’s offensive player of the year for La Salle.

“We did not survive with him,” Longo said via phone. “We flourished with him on offense.”

Hammond also took a crash course in quarterbacking.

He had made the team as a walk-on at North Carolina A&T in the spring of his sophomore year.

Frequent 6 a.m. meetings with then-offensive coordinator Kent Schoolfield, once an assistant at Temple under Bruce Arians in the 1980s, helped Hammond learn the nuances he was never taught.

Hammond took to the material quickly, applying it to what he was learning in his engineering classes.

“When details are missed,” he says of engineering, “bridges fall.”

Hammond’s college teammate, Mike Caldwell, said it didn’t take long before Hammond was teaching other players on the field.

“I saw firsthand when we were watching film, even playing video games,” said the now 37-year-old Caldwell, who played receiver. “Nothing got by him.”

Hammond’s football career, however, was cut short after two seasons when a car accident left him with a severe concussion.

A neurologist, he said, suggested that if he wanted to use his brain as an engineer, he might consider walking away from football.

“I learned a lot of football,” Hammond said, “but I didn’t really play a lot of football.”

Both Hammond and Abrams built their respective businesses slowly.

After graduating in 2009, Hammond returned to New Jersey and worked as a civil engineer.

He eventually found a passion for coaching after his older brother Robert, who also coached youth football in Jersey, talked him into training a young quarterback.

A business model emerged later after several parents inquired about his services. He even started holding free camps.

Perhaps too eager at the outset, Hammond says he bought hot dogs, hamburgers, and drinks, estimating that maybe 100 children would have attended his first outing. Only three players showed up. His disappointment, however, didn’t last long.

“Instead of canceling the camp,” he said, “I ran it as if there were 100 kids.”

After a while, Hammond says he created a database of contacts, including parents, high school players, and college coaches. He also slowly learned more about the recruiting process. Before long, college coaches respected his opinion on prospects.

» READ MORE: Imhotep names its basketball gym after coach Andre Noble

In 2012, he founded Next Level Greats. By 2019, it had won an 18-and-under national championship.

“When the kids have the right academics, paired with the right training, paired with the right seven-on-seven,” he said, “you see the results.”

Last year, Hammond left his career in engineering to pursue football full-time.

Around 2021, Abrams also left his teaching career at La Salle College High School, where he spent more than 10 years.

Asked if leaving the security of a steady paycheck was stressful, Abrams chuckled.

“Was?” he joked. “It’s a business. You have to structure it and run it the right way. And it fluctuates, too, because things lighten up during football season when you’re not training as much.”

After he graduated from La Salle, Abrams played professional football in Italy and later in the Arena Football League.

Later, he returned to La Salle, where he coached quarterbacks, receivers, and defensive backs before Longo hired him as a graduate assistant at Division II Minnesota-Duluth.

After one more stop in the Arena League, Abrams hung up his cleats to help family in Germantown.

He coached at his alma mater, Cardinal Dougherty, then eventually coached a few quarterbacks at Imhotep Charter.

At first, Abrams doubted if he had the experience and knowledge to coach the position. After all, he hadn’t been taught until he was in college.

The more he learned, however, the more he believed. Abrams even paid his own way to attend quarterback camps along the East Coast, absorbing information he could give to his players.

Among others, Abrams trained former Archbishop Wood standout Anthony Russo, Martin Luther King’s Joe Walker, and La Salle’s Chris Ferguson, each of whom became Division I prospects.

“I used the passion from me not being able to make it and not getting the formal training,” he said. “I just called upon the pain I had from not making it and just tried to help these guys as much as I could.”

Both Hammond and Abrams say they remember when people assumed Black players didn’t have the mental capacity to thrive at quarterback unless they were exceptional athletes.

They are optimistic about the number of Black quarterbacks currently in college and in the NFL. In fact, last season Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes became the first Black quarterbacks to meet in the Super Bowl.

Areas for improvement do exist, Hammond and Abrams say.

“If we have the resources and have people who can teach us,” Abrams said, “we’re capable. Don’t just throw us out there at receiver if we want to play quarterback, have the aptitude, the leadership, and the love for the game, because that could be the next Jalen Hurts.”

As far as future quarterback trainers who look like him, Hammond seems to also be doing his part.

Aran Lee played quarterback mostly at Woodrow Wilson High in Camden but graduated from LEAP Academy in 2016. He also played for Next Level Greats. Lee, now 25, played one season at Delaware State, where he received a full academic scholarship and graduated in 2020 with a degree in physics.

Now he works as an engineer and quarterback trainer in Colorado. He also helps Hammond coach when he returns home.

“Having Marcus and everyone else at NLG as coaches,” Lee said in a phone interview, “was a big influence on me as a quarterback and made me want to become a coach and be an influence to kids who look like me.”