“Mr. Irrelevant” sounds more like a Taylor Swift song about a bad breakup than the miscast moniker for the starting quarterback of her boyfriend’s Super Bowl opponent.
There is nothing diva or gossip-worthy about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, who — just two years removed from being the absolute last pick in the NFL Draft — has become Super Bowl Sunday relevant.
His loved ones won’t be rushing on a luxury jet from Japan to catch him on American sports’ biggest stage Sunday. He won’t be rocking the bold burgundy or plaid suits of rival Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes when he strides into Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
A gray pullover and white sneakers that could’ve been on the sales rack at Kohl’s are more Purdy’s style, said Jared Patchett, Purdy’s childhood friend.
The 24-year-old QB’s lightning-quick path to Super Bowl LVIII wasn’t on anyone’s radar six years ago when he was coming out of Perry High School in Gilbert, Arizona, desperately trying to get the attention of college football recruiters at any level.
But now, as Purdy leads the 49ers against the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, there is a more appropriate Taylor Swift song title to fit his legendary rise: “Mr. Perfectly Fine.”
The aw-shucks, nose-to-the-grindstone image is the real deal, insist friends and family from back in the sprawling Phoenix suburbs.
“He’s definitely your hometown hero,” said Perry High Athletic Director Jennifer Burks. “He was just someone that was continually working and trying to get better and never just said, ‘I’m good enough.’”
Kind to everyone — check! Fellowship of Christian Athletes — that too! National Honor Society — bingo!
“I always kind of joke,” Burks said, “Whatever it is, Brock had it.”
Of course, he doesn’t have a Super Bowl ring. Yet.
San Francisco 49ers starting quarterback Brock Purdy (13) has his photograph taken with his family after his first career start and the 49ers 35-7 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Sunday, Dec. 9, 2022. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
Humble beginnings? Turns out he had those too. Twice he led Perry High to the Arizona state championship game, and twice he lost to rival Chandler High.
After a scholar athlete luncheon in Phoenix, when Purdy was a senior looking uncomfortable in a tuxedo, he sought out emcee Brad Cesmat, a local sports radio and TV personality, for advice. Barely anyone was recruiting him.
“He’s just this shy little kid and he said, ‘Mr. Cesmat, what community college do you think I should be looking at? I got nothing.’”
Yet, when Big 12 school Iowa State finally took notice, Purdy found himself quickly racing up the depth chart: third-string to start the season but bona fide starter by the end. He pulled that same trick his rookie year with the 49ers when he seized the starting role after injuries to Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo cleared the way for “Mr. Irrelevant” — the name given to the 262nd and last pick in the NFL draft.
To celebrate the road to the Super Bowl, family friend Kevin Rowe, who runs a string of law firms across Arizona, has rented 75 digital billboards from Tucson to Yuma to Bullhead City and dozens more in Las Vegas to rally the home-state crowd that has never sent a homegrown quarterback to start in the Super Bowl. The 49ers’ logo is absent — he didn’t want to offend the Arizona Cardinals fans — but the message is clear: “Let’s Go Brock Purdy!”
At Perry High on Friday, more than 3,000 students, teachers and staff donned “Brock Nation” T-shirts thanks to a private donor. The principal, with help from city crews, unveiled a fresh name for Perry Puma Drive that turns into the campus parking lot: “Brock Purdy Way.”
At Perry High School in Gilbert, Ariz., where San Francisco 49ers quarterback graduated in 2018, city crews swap out a street sign on campus with “Brock Purdy Way” to celebrate the alum’s journey to Sunday’s Super Bowl. (photo by teacher Brian Bernier)
And Perry High’s badminton coach, Lerina Johnson, who often handed Brock a racket during his free sixth period, will be driving her white 2002 Honda Accord five hours to watch him play. She has no ticket yet but is determined to land one when she gets there. Wearing a Brock Purdy shirt, she said, she will wave a Perry Pumas flag in the stands.
“I just can’t miss it,” Johnson said. “I’ve got to be there screaming.”
Take that, Swifties!
For all the glitz and glam and hyped romance that the pop megastar and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce will be bringing to Vegas — fans will be following Swift’s flight from her concert in Tokyo like a Santa tracker and hoping to lip-read “I love you’s” between the power couple when she gets there — Purdy, like always, will be all business.
“It’s basically night and day,” said Patchett, one of Purdy’s high school football teammates. “Mahomes, Kelce — they seem on the verge of a dynasty, right? Kelce has all these endorsement deals. Taylor Swift’s bringing all this money to the NFL. Brock on the other side is this unsung hero, this underrated underdog, who’s all about working. That’s how he’s been his whole life.”
Brock Purdy, right, with his high school friend Jared Patchett. (Courtesy of Jared Patchett)
Purdy was such a straight arrow as a kid, his worst transgressions were playing doorbell ditch, Patchett said.
“He always stayed out of trouble in high school. That’s why I tried to hang out with him,” Patchett said. With so much on the line during football season, “the last thing I want to do is get caught up in a high school party.”
Purdy was the only one to follow the rules when Burks, the athletic director, asked the all-star players to wear jeans without holes on picture day. “So the photographer took Brock’s legs and put them on every other body,” Burks said. “He listens and does what people ask him to do.”
Purdy comes from a family of athletes. His father, Shawn, played minor league baseball for the then-California Angels in Southern California, where he met his wife, Carrie. After leaving the Angels, he played in the minor leagues for the San Francisco Giants’ organization.
Spring training in Arizona lured the growing family to settle there and they raised the kids in Queen Creek. Their first-born, Whittney, played softball for Southeastern University in Florida and the youngest, Chubba, transferred from Nebraska to play quarterback at the University of Nevada at Reno.
Shawn Purdy started a hot-tub business and was working a swap meet in the fall of 2022 on the Sunday when the 49ers were playing the Miami Dolphins. The seller in the stall across the way mentioned that Garoppolo injured his foot and the backup was sent in.
“Shawn had to close up shop and hightail it home in his truck to see Brock,” said Cesmat, who has become a family friend. “He told me he hit every red light.”
For a teenager who showed so much promise, Purdy was often waylaid by bad luck.
He lost more than 20 pounds after a bout with mono entering his junior year, then he was sidelined during spring football practice — when college scouts are on the prowl — after he slid into a cactus during a coaches-versus-players paintball game in the desert and needed stitches on his non-throwing hand.
Despite a banner senior season, those maladies, plus an impression that he was too short, too slow and his arm strength was too weak, left him with little college interest during the first round of recruiting his senior year.
“There’s somebody that is humble enough, that is hungry enough, to do whatever it takes to chase his dream,” said Cesmat, who pushed Purdy’s highlight reels on recruiters. Purdy ultimately received several offers before choosing Ames, Iowa.
“He just injected this energy and spark here with our team that was so contagious that everybody was able to kind of rally around him as a freshman,” said Taylor Mouser, who recruited him to the Iowa State Cyclones. “He knew exactly who he was. He wasn’t trying to be the cool guy. He wasn’t trying to be liked by anybody. He’s just always stayed so grounded to himself.”
During the NFL draft in 2022, in the expansive family room of the Purdy home on Misty Way, Brock’s name finally, lastly, popped up on the screen. His new team — the 49ers. His family and friends leaped to their feet, erupting in cheers. Purdy buried his head in his hands.
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy hugs his fiancee Jenna Brandt after winning the NFC Championship Game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024. The San Francisco 49ers defeated the Detroit Lions 34-31. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
During media interviews in Las Vegas this week, Purdy credited his deep Christian faith instilled by his parents for the strength and focus he gains from a daily habit of prayer.
“It’s not, ‘God, can we win here, can we do something great here?’ It’s more just to have that peace, that steadfastness in all the chaos,” Purdy told reporters. “That’s really what it is.”
And that sense of calm under pressure is what his friends back home have seen all his life and are confident he will take to Sunday’s game.
“He’s genuine. And that’s why everyone at Perry is so excited for him,” said economics teacher Tracey Gibson. “He’s certainly capable of great leadership. He just isn’t a showboat.”
Purdy still has some naysayers who quibble that he’s a game manager, not a game changer; and he wouldn’t be such a success without a powerful team behind him.
“He is clean-cut, God-fearing — why are we knocking this kid?” Patchett’s father, J.P., asked. “Is it not the kind of underdog story that everybody typically likes to get behind?”
Like Swift and Kelce, there’s a romance here, too. Next month, Purdy will marry his college sweetheart, Jenna Brandt, a former volleyball player.
“If you’re looking for an adorable love story,” Purdy’s high school English teacher Katie Cambra said. “They really do fit that mold.”
