Daily Journal Football Player of the Year: SHP’s R.J. Stephens

Since then, Stephens has navigated one of the unlikeliest paths to earning Daily Journal Football Player of the Year honors. A self-proclaimed theater geek, and a one-sport athlete in boys’ basketball when he arrived at SHP, he didn’t start playing organized football until his junior year. That didn’t stop him from being named a Week 1 varsity starter as a two-way lineman based on his raw talent and sheer athleticism.

“He’s the best guy we got,” SHP head coach Mark Grieb said. “That’s the thing about him, he comes out and even without really knowing what he was doing, he was still better than most of the guys we had.”

After two seasons of junior-varsity basketball, it was clear Stephens knew how to hit. Setting screens on the court had become counterproductive, as he’d often pick up fouls for bruising the opposition. Mercifully, for those opposing players he’d frequently body check onto the floor, his COVID-shortened 2020-21 junior-varsity hoops season would be his last as a one-sport athlete.

“Over COVID, I grew about three inches and gained about 50 pounds,” Stephens said. “And when I went back to basketball, I was hurting too many kids.”

Stephens is now 6-3, 250 pounds, and has quickly made a name for himself playing the interior line on offense and defense. He led the Gators to a nine-game winning streak this season — the best streak since Grieb took over the program in 2017 — en route to a Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division championship, and a berth in the Central Coast Section Division I playoffs.

SHP racked up a slew of All-PAL honors this season. Senior receiver Carter Shaw was named Offensive Player of the Year and Wide Receiver of the Year; senior linebacker Shay O’Kelly was Defensive Player of the Year and Linebacker of the Year; and senior Andrew Latu was Running Back of the Year.

Stephens — who earned All-PAL first-team honors as a defensive tackle — had a hand in all these awards. And despite his recognition on defense, he played more reps as an offensive tackle, where he was more impactful, according to Grieb.

“One of the foundational plays in our offense is the fly sweep, and I think one of the biggest reasons why that was so successful in our offense this year is because R.J. won most of the blocks,” Grieb said.

The Gators totaled 3,316 yards of offense this season, with 2,265 of those coming via the ground game. Latu, despite the accolades, was hardly a one-man show. The senior running back totaled 752 rushing yards, but was part of a three-back rotation, including junior Anthony Noto (597 yards) and senior Luke Maxwell (367 yards). Seniors Brandon Hsing, Mitchell Taylor and Conrad Wilbur each totaled over 100 yards rushing on the year as well.

On defense, Stephens recorded some noteworthy pressure numbers, including sharing the team lead with seven sacks along with senior defensive end Eliseo Buffington. He was the leading tackler on the defensive line, averaging 3.8 per game. But it was O’Kelly at middle linebacker who led the team, ranking seventh in the CCS with 135 tackles.

There again, Stephens was the secret to SHP’s success.

“In our defense, the lineman’s job is to control their gap and to defeat the blocker,” Grieb said. “But No. 1 is to control the gap. So, it’s not designed for the linemen to make plays. … You (O’Kelly) can’t have that kind of success unless you have guys in front of you controlling the line of scrimmage, and R.J. was just dominant in controlling the line of scrimmage.”

This dominance was born from a fictional spelling bee champion named William Morris Barfée, the lead character in a production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” who Stephens portrayed as a freshman. It was his first foray into life at SHP and helped him acclimate to life as the new kid in town.

Football, at that time, was the furthest thing from Stephens’ mind. Two years later, when he went out for the varsity squad as a junior, he had a lot of catching up to do.

“I was just kind of learning, and I made a lot of mistakes,” Stephens said. “But I knew I was bigger, so I knew I would have some advantages over guys … even though I wasn’t hitting the right guy at times.”

Stephens, however, missed half the 2021 season due to an ankle injury.

“Even though he’s a really fast learner, he just didn’t have a lot of opportunities,” Grieb said. “Then the injury kept setting him back more, but then he kept getting better and better … once he got back.”

By the outset of his senior season, Stephens was one of six players named team captains for the Gators. It was an honor he and his fellow captains would put to good use.

SHP endured just one regular-season loss, falling 13-12 to Sacred Heart Cathedral in the season opener, getting beaten by a trick play that saw the Fightin’ Irish execute a double pass to take the lead in the fourth quarter.

The stunning defeat had a big impact on the Gators’ approach. The next day at practice, with a Saturday morning start time, SHP’s captains implemented a new schedule. Instead of reporting for practice at the normal start time, the team would report 20 minutes earlier every day for stretching and team bonding as a unit.

“We’d be there before the coaches sometimes,” Stephens said. “So, I feel like that put the whole team in that mentality … because we had the chance to make history this year. And we did make history.”

The Gators won their next nine games, navigating a non-league schedule with wins over Homestead, Mountain View, Riordan and Los Gatos. Still, the biggest date on SHP’s regular-season schedule was Week 9 against reigning four-time PAL Bay Division champion Menlo-Atherton.

It turned out to be a landslide 35-14 victory for the Gators.

“But we’ve really struggled with them up front (in the past) … and this was the first year where they established themselves as the dominant team up front in that game,” Grieb said.

Stephens is now looking to play football at the next level, committed as a preferred walk-on at Cal. Staying close to home was a factor in that decision, he said. In the meantime, he will continue to work with his father, also his personal trainer, at Rycklon Sr.’s Redwood City training facility Bryckfitness.

“I think he showed this year he is capable of hanging with just about anybody,” Grieb said. “And I think once he gets to college … he’ll continue to blossom and continue to grow and get better as a player.”