Shannon Patrick is part of an exclusive club of athletes who have one up on NFL superstar Lamar Jackson.
Jackson may have won a Heisman Trophy and twice won NFL MVP, but never was he The Palm Beach Post’s Player of the Year while at Boynton Beach High School.
It was Patrick, not Jackson, who was The Post’s Large Schools Offensive Player of the Year when both were seniors in 2015.
Now, Patrick, 28, enjoys watching Jackson forge a Hall of Fame career with the Baltimore Ravens after an electric three years at the University of Louisville, where he won the 2016 Heisman as a sophomore.
“It’s been crazy watching him play in college and the NFL,” said Patrick, a graduate of Wellington High School. “He’s holding the torch up high for the 2015 class. That’s for sure.”
But does Patrick, who played seven seasons in college due to injuries and COVID and two years of semi-professional football in Mexico, ever have the urge to say “I one-upped him” when seeing Jackson collect more hardware?
“I definitely could say it, but I don’t,” he said. “I give him his props. The people who were around at the time, they know. But I don’t talk about it too much.”
Shannon Patrick has played two years in Mexico
Still, Patrick has plenty to talk about when recalling his career, one that includes stops at five colleges before he was recruited by Reyes de Jalisco in Mexico.
After throwing for nearly 12,000 yards and accounting for about 100 touchdowns after leaving Wellington – not to mention collecting a degree in physical education from the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff – Patrick’s football career finally is behind him.
Maybe.
The West Palm Beach resident is hoping to become a firefighter. He completed EMT training and applied to the Fire Academy. If accepted, he may have thrown his last pass competitively.
But if he has to push back the Fire Academy six months, well, then perhaps Reyes de Jalisco will come calling one more time next spring.
“It has to time up correctly,” Patrick said.
Patrick’s career has been a whirlwind since leading Wellington to the District 9-8A championship his senior year while throwing for 3,438 yards and 49 touchdowns. By comparison, Jackson had 1,293 passing yards and 20 scores while rushing for 1,039 yards and 19 TDs that same year.
Patrick, a 247 Sports two-star recruit, received little interest and signed with the University of Pikeville in Kentucky. After two years, he chose the junior college route hoping to be discovered.
“I felt like I could have been playing at a higher level,” he said. “I didn’t want to stay at that level if I had an opportunity to leave.”
Patrick went from Cisco College in Texas to Northland Community & Technical College in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, where he became a JUCO All-American, leading the NJCAA in passing yards (4,122) and touchdowns (41).
That led to one Division I offer, from Arkansas-Pine Bluff, where in two years he totaled 2,906 passing yards, 25 TDs and 13 interceptions while completing nearly 65% of his passes.
After securing his degree, he chose to play his seventh (and final) year at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach.
Patrick was healthy for his first two starts at Bethune, losses to Texas-El Paso and UCF. He threw for a combined 453 yards and four touchdowns. But a groin injury limited his production the rest of the season. He finished with 1,360 yards, nine touchdowns and 10 picks.
“You have to have patience with the whole process,” he said. “I knew I really love football. Wanted to give it every chance I could until I couldn’t anymore. I got blessed a couple of times given redshirt years so I got to extend that process.
“My parents told me I should have been a doctor considering how many years I was in school.”
And just when he thought he was out, they pulled him back in.
Among league leaders in first year with Reyes de Jalisco
The Liga de Futbol Americano Professional is the top American football league in Mexico. It launched in 2016 with four teams, has had as many as 11, and settled with eight.
Reyes de Jalisco joined in 2022. The team is based in Zapopan, about 350 miles west of Mexico City, and plays in the 1,500-seat Estadio Reyes Comude.
In 2023, Patrick received a message from one its players through social media saying the team was looking for a quarterback and saw film of Patrick.
Patrick said he’d be interested. After being contacted, he took the leap of faith.
“I didn’t know they had a league until they reached out,” Patrick said. “I really wanted to play.”
Reyes de Jalisco reached the semifinals for the first time in its history in Patrick’s first season. He finished among the league leaders with 2,658 passing yards and 21 touchdowns.
Patrick did not play in 2024 after a death in the family and was not planning to return this year, until the team reached out and said they needed a quarterback.
The LFA has a $100,000 salary cap per team with five foreign players (mostly Americans) and two Canadians pulling in the highest salaries along with bonuses for housing and food.
Those salaries are around $1,400 a week with veteran quarterbacks commanding up to about $3,000 a week.
“Football is growing a lot in Mexico,” Patrick said. “The fan base, they go crazy for it. They’re really big on football. They watch the NFL. All the fans are reaching out to you on social media. You see them when you are walking throughout the mall. Going out.
“It’s a pretty cool experience.”
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Where are they now? Shannon Patrick, the quarterback who beat Lamar Jackson for POTY
Reporting by Tom D’Angelo, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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