TRUSSVILLE, Ala. — A tired Hewitt-Trussville football team circled its coaches, taking a knee while seeking a reprieve from the punishing Alabama sun.



Minutes before, the Huskies had finished an arduous summer workout, their first of the coming season. Sweat — and every so often the regurgitation of breakfast — spilled onto the track as players counted every grueling stride up and down the bleachers.

For most, the shrill sound of the whistle brought an end to the toil. However, a handful of players still had work to do. Pierce Quick was one of them.

The senior offensive lineman had wrapped up his reps on the stairs long before the end of practice but elected to hang back as a handful of straggling teammates finished their final flights. Quick spurred on a freshman from a distance while patting the back of a fellow offensive lineman who drudgingly slumped through the drill.

“Come on man, we have to hurry. They’re meeting without us,” he said.

Quick eventually rejoined the rest of his team just as it had been dismissed for the showers. By the time he made his way to the far end zone to retrieve his helmet, he was the last player to walk off the field.

“We’ve never won a state championship at Trussville,” he explains. “The guy I was helping, we need him to be a starter for us this season.”

Last season, Hewitt-Trussville’s perfect season came to an end as it fell 56-21 to eventual state champion Hoover in the Class 7A quarterfinals. With a slew of Division I talent returning to this year’s roster, Quick is willing to do anything it takes to make sure he ends his high school career on top.

“I feel we should be running for it this year," Quick said. "I feel like our main problem in the past was we just weren’t mentally there, so I want to make sure everyone on the team is mentally ready. Being the leader of the team, if you slack off running everyone is going to see that and they’re going to slack off running. If you skip reps in the weight room, everyone is going to be like, ‘Well if Pierce skipped weights, I’ll skip, too.’ It’s a little bit of pressure, but you’ve got to embrace it. This is what I’ve wanted forever, so I love the pressure.”

If Hewitt-Trussville does win its first state championship, Quick figures to be one of the driving forces. The 6-foot-5, 270-pound Alabama commit is rated as the No. 7 offensive tackle and No. 48 player overall in the 2019 class. While he’s best known for clearing holes for the Huskies’ playmakers, he’s made just as big of an impact off the field.

“He’s a go-getter, he’s a guy who’s vocal,” Hewitt-Trussville head coach Josh Floyd said. “You don’t have to be a vocal guy to be a leader, but you need somebody to be vocal on your team, and for us, Pierce is one of those guys.”

Quick is one of three Alabama commits on Hewitt-Trussville’s roster, joining 2019 quarterback Paul Tyson and 2020 wide receiver Dazalin Worsham. In fact, the offensive lineman played an instrumental role in recruiting both players after committing to the Crimson Tide last year during A-Day.

Quick officially shut down his recruitment in March, choosing instead to focus his attention on becoming the leader of Alabama’s 2019 class. Using his magnetic personality, the persuasive offensive lineman has helped the Crimson Tide climb to the top of the team rankings.

“It’s an awesome feeling, just to have all the fans call me a leader and stuff like that,” Quick said. “That’s why I feel it was necessary to shut down my recruitment. I feel like after I shut down my recruitment a lot of guys believed, ‘He’s not going to go anywhere else.’ When I was visiting other schools, I was 99.9 percent sure I was going to Bama, but now I want to show everybody I’m 100 percent sure. They can trust that I’m going to be there when they get there.”

Quick’s latest target is someone who might be lining up beside him at the next level. Five-star offensive lineman Clay Webb is rated as the No. 1 center and No. 10 player in the 2019 class and is considering Alabama as well as Auburn and Georgia. Fortunately for the Crimson Tide, Quick has built a friendship with the Oxford, Ala., native over the past year in a half and has been in his ear constantly, urging him to follow him to Tuscaloosa.

“Me and him became really tight over the past year and a half,” Quick said. “Even on the beach during spring break, he came out and hung out with me and Paul and all the group we went to the beach with. We’re just really close, and I’m telling him, ‘Come where your friends are. If you come, we’ll win a national championship and have a really good time.’

“He’s visited Alabama a lot of times. I think he wants to make sure he’s 1,000 percent sure before he makes a choice. I think he’ll end up at Bama.”

Quick, who is scheduled to graduate early and enroll at Alabama in December, said he isn’t slowing down until he helps lock down the No. 1 class in February. That’s good news for the Crimson Tide as the offensive lineman doesn’t quit until he gets what he wants.

“He wants to win, he wants to be great,” Floyd said. “That’s the thing about Pierce, whatever he does in life he goes all in.”