JOAN AND STEPHEN Dydak experienced quite the shock while watching Game No. 3 in Central High's 2008 junior varsity football season.
Their son, Ryan, had been a slot receiver to that juncture. A second-teamer, at that. And in youth ball, he'd served exclusively as a lineman.
Now, he was playing quarterback.
"I didn't even tell them about the switch," Ryan said Thursday. "They were proud of me, but shocked. They were asking me afterward, 'Why are you at quarterback? How'd that happen?' "
Let's build the suspense.
First, digest the fact that Central yesterday humbled Horace Furness, 34-8, in relentless wind at 11th and Bigler streets to claim the Public AAAA Silver regular-season title at 6-0, as Dydak contributed 115 yards of rushing/passing.
Though he threw for no scores, he twice posted completions that advanced the ball to the end zone's doorstep. Overall, he went 8-for-11 for 87 yards. His 28 ground yards came on five carries, and four times he turned flush-outs into first downs.
OK, back to 2008 . . .
Dydak became the JV quarterback in quite bizarre fashion. One day he went to practice, only to notice both QBs were not on the premises. The assistant JV coach quickly whipped together a mini-tryout, with close to a dozen candidates, and the guy decided Dydak had fared the best.
He did not exactly throw, say, 56 bombs downfield, showing pinpoint accuracy on each and every one.
"I threw one pass. A 10-yarder," he said, laughing. "It wasn't even that good of a throw. But I guess it was better than everyone else's. Some of the other guys were so bad, the coach was making fun of them.
"One of the quarterbacks went down [with an injury], and the other guy wasn't there for that third game. The coach threw me out there, and I guess he thought I did OK, because I started the rest of the season."
In that first game, did Dydak fire for two TDs? Three? Four?
"I threw one pass. Wasn't even complete," he said, laughing even harder.
Despite that quite humble beginning, Dydak has become quite the presence for coach Rich Drayton's Lancers (6-1 overall). This season, he has completed more than two-thirds of his passes (49-for-73) while averaging 9.4 yards per attempt (685 total). In 2010, he saw action in only the last two games, going 19-for-35 for 202 yards, as Central went 3-3 in Silver and 6-6 overall.
