Brock Purdy Has Come a Long Way From Perry High to the Super Bowl
Perry High School on Queen Creek Road in Gilbert, Ariz., is one of those low-lying, penitentiary-looking facilities with concrete tan walls and no windows in the front. The edifice was built and opened in 2007.
It’s one current claim to fame is that San Francisco 49ers QB Brock Purdy went to school and played football for the Pumas before barely being recruited by Iowa State and then drafted by the Niners as pick No. 262—dead last—in the 2022 NFL Draft.
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For that act alone Purdy became the next “Mr. Irrelevant.” When it was suggested recently it might be time for a new nickname, Purdy demurred.
“Mr. Irrelevant is just fine with me,” he said, punctuating a point made by Heather Patterson, the school’s long-time principal, in a recent interview with Sportico.
“Brock has never changed,” Patterson said. “What you see is what you get. He was just a pleasure to have around our campus.”
The world is about to get a long look at Purdy Sunday in Super Bowl 58 as the Niners take on the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The contrast between competing quarterbacks couldn’t be more stark.
Patrick Mahomes has taken the Chiefs to four Super Bowls during the last five years, winning two–in 2020 over the Niners in his second full season and last year over the Philadelphia Eagles. No NFL team has won back-to-back Super Bowls since the New England Patriots of 2004 and 2005.
The Niners haven’t won the Super Bowl since 1995 when Steve Young was quarterback. They’ve won five, with Joe Montana at the helm for the first four.
Purdy has a chance to join the pantheon of San Francisco Hall of Fame QBs. Mahomes says he shouldn’t be taken lightly.
“I’ve seen Brock play since college. I knew how good he was,” Mahomes said Monday during the Super Bowl’s Opening Night at Allegiant Stadium. “I watched him play a ton. He was a winner and he made plays happen all through his college career. Usually when you can make it happen in college, no matter what your surroundings are, you’re going to make it happen when you get your opportunity in the NFL.”
The folks at Perry High agree. An honor student, Purdy practiced his religious faith as he led the Pumas to a runner-up finish for the state championship and was named Arizona High School Player of the Year in 2017.
Gilbert is a suburban town about 45 minutes southeast of downtown Phoenix. The school has 2,296 students, and its most famous alumnus’ name is in lights on the round-robin of signs on the electric marquee that hovers over Queen Creek Road and the entrance parking lot.
The football field is around back, and the smallish, dank adjacent locker room replete with blue metal lockers hasn’t changed much since Purdy played his senior year. There’s a picture of Purdy throwing the football on the wall.
Like Purdy himself, the school staff is welcoming and unpretentious.
“What you see in the media and how he speaks, that’s the way it’s been since high school,” Jennifer Burks, the school’s athletic director, said about the now 25-year-old Purdy. “He is super genuine. He is kind. He’s the first one to give credit to his teammates. He talks about his family, about believing in God. That’s him. He’s not making that up.”
Much was made about the fact that Purdy hasn’t forgotten about the school. Despite his pro commitments and recovery from a right elbow injury and subsequent surgery stemming from the 2023 NFC Championship Game, Purdy returned to the campus on several occasions.
In one appearance he was the keynote speaker addressing the honor society. Another was to toss around the football with Puma players, said Joe Ortiz, the current football coach, who inherited the head coaching position from Preston Jones. Jones, who coached Purdy, is retired from football but still teaches at the school.
“He was training, and he asked some of my receivers to go throw,” Ortiz said about Purdy. “All the Perry High School receivers went out there and he threw to them. It was awesome just seeing that. The kids were super juiced. The kids love him and look up to him.”
Purdy has a soft spot in his heart for his former high school, he said this week as he prepares now for the Super Bowl. Perry High School continues to have a huge impact on his life and career.
“Perry High School? Just the people, the teachers, the community,” he said. “I’ve had so many great people in my life from Perry who have believed in me from Day 1. I’ll always be appreciative of them. They’ve always had my back through college and the NFL. I love Perry High School.”
That feeling is obviously reciprocal.
It’s a long way from the tracts of dry land southeast of Phoenix to the rarified turf of the Super Bowl. Purdy is the third youngest and only last pick in the NFL draft to start at quarterback in a Super Bowl game.
Purdy, playing a neat imitation of Montana, led the Niners from behind to win both the NFC Divisional Game over Green Bay and the NFC Championship Game over Detroit.
In both cases, the families and alumni of Perry gathered at a couple of local watering holes—The Brass Tap and the Trophy Bar—to watch and celebrate those games. They’ll be out there doing the same thing on Super Sunday as Purdy drops back in the pocket on another field hundreds of miles away.
Mahomes knows what it’s like to be a young quarterback playing in his first Super Bowl like he did against the Niners in 2020. It wasn’t so long ago.
“The first one is the most nervous I’ve ever been in a Super Bowl,” he said. “I won my first Super Bowl. I wish him luck. But for me, I hope Brock doesn’t turn out the same way.”
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