The quarterback position is often regarded as the most important and most difficult position in all of sports.
On the field, quarterbacks touch the football every play, having to make decisions in split seconds and perform at their best physically and mentally under intense pressure. They’re also required to be leaders of their team both on and off the field.
In victory, quarterbacks receive plenty of glory. But in defeat, the blame is rarely dispersed.
This football season, both Rabun County-area schools will have two new signal callers filling those responsibilities for their teams.
The title of QB1 at Rabun County High School will belong to sophomore Cooper Kowalsky, while junior Grayson Clary will fill the same role for No. 115 nationally ranked Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School.
Despite a range of differences between the two schools, the two quarterbacks are in similar situations.
RCHS is a public school in Class AA of the Georgia High School Association (GHSA), while RGNS is a private boarding and day school which plays in The North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association (NCISAA).
Kowalsky and Clary will make their debuts as first-year starters this August when Rabun Gap opens on Aug. 21 versus Aces Elite STEAM Academy and Rabun County faces Metter on Aug. 28. Both enter the season with the pressure of championship expectations in mind for their team.
“I think what we really want is somebody that is willing to embrace those expectations,” Rabun County head football coach Rance Gillespie told The Clayton Tribune during spring practice. “And I think that that’s the kind of personality and toughness that Cooper possesses.”
Kowalsky, who threw just five passes in his freshman season, said he feels that pressure at times. But he believes that being able to play quarterback requires loving the ups and downs and pressure that comes with the position.
“Everybody talks about, ‘You’ve got a lot of pressure,’ but at the same time, you gotta love it,” Kowalsky said of what comes with being the starting quarterback at RCHS. “You gotta love the pressure, you gotta love the hate, but you gotta love when the good stuff happens. I feel like if you don’t love when bad things go wrong, and you don’t love stuff like that, then you can’t play this position.”
Perhaps the pressure is intensified when following in the footsteps of those that excelled in what Gillespie also described as a “marquee position” at RCHS. Not many high schools in the state of Georgia have the history at the quarterback position that Rabun County has.
Kowalsky, who grew up playing youth and middle school football in Rabun County, is well aware of the success of those in his position before him like Wes Holcombe, Bailey Fisher, of course, Gunner Stockton, and most recently, Ty Truelove.
Although people in the community talk about the pressure often, and while out in public ask Kowalsky how it feels to “be the guy behind Gunner,” he also noted that following in the footsteps of that list of names is a blessing, and everything kids in the area dream of.
“It’s everything you dreamed of coming up. Everybody wants to be the starting quarterback at Rabun County,” Kowalsky said of following the long list of successful QBs. “It doesn’t come easy, you have to work for it. That’s what me and Coach Holcombe talk about every day.
“He didn’t just walk up in here and get to throw passes to Charlie Woerner,” Kowalsky added. “He worked for that, and that’s something that Gunner worked for, Ty worked for. They worked for that label. You keep working, and your time comes.”
Although the history of the quarterback position at Rabun County will always remain, Kowalsky’s time to take the reins has arrived. Kowalsky, who has drawn praise from his head coach for his football IQ and mental ability, will begin writing his own chapter this season.
That chapter will be written in the way he plays with his own flair, but also with the success of his team.
“I think the way I play is just different. I couldn’t compare myself to anyone in the league and anyone who’s played here,” Kowalsky said. “That’s what me and Coach Holcombe were talking about the other day. He’s yelling at me for running with the ball down to my side, but it’s like, that’s just how I play. I try to make big plays, but also try to take the smart play at the same time. Just bringing these guys around me with me. And a great team makes a great legacy for the quarterback that’s there. It’s not just me.”
Similarly to Gillespie and Rabun County, Rabun Gap is wanting its QB1 to embrace pressure and expectations, but is not necessarily seeking ways to relieve those feelings.
“I don’t think you do relieve it. I think you apply pressure. You find out what you got,” Rabun Gap head football coach Derek White said of Clary. “I’m not comparing him to this guy, but Tom Brady wasn’t Tom Brady until Drew Bledsoe got hurt and he got thrown in the situation, right? I think we see what Grayson can handle and push him through that threshold, and he either gets better or adapts and figures it out.”
Similarly to Kowalsky, this season will be Clary’s first as a full-time starter for his current school. However, Clary’s previous two seasons of prep football have not been spent as a true backup quarterback.
Before transferring to RGNS, Clary was the starter as a sophomore at Daniel High School in Central, S.C., accounting for over 3,000 total yards and over 50 total touchdowns. He then transferred to Rabun Gap and reclassified to the class of 2028.
In his first year at Rabun Gap, Clary was not the starter, but he was not the backup either. He split playing time during the season with Gavin Owens, the school’s all-time leading passer with over 100 passing touchdowns, and the only QB to win a state title in the program’s 14-year existence.
The two RGNS quarterbacks have known each other since Clary was in sixth grade, he said, training with the same quarterback coach. Owens is now entering his freshman season at the University of Memphis.
Last season, both Clary and Owens played in all 12 games for the Eagles. That experience of sharing time was very different from playing at Daniel.
“Very different. But it was a great experience,” Clary said. “ I learned a lot really quickly about how college will work. If you don’t play well, you’re done, I learned that very quickly. … I learned very early on how to just be OK with the outcome.”
This season, the outcomes will be different. Clary, a three-star recruit with 20 Division I offers, will be the team’s starting quarterback without having to share time on the field with another signal caller.
The mentioned pressure of the quarterback making on-field decisions and leading a team, will fall solely on his shoulders.
“There’s always the pressure, but I feel like pressure is a privilege,” Clary said. “If I didn’t look at it like that, I would let it consume me. And I made a very big emphasis last year when I didn’t play as much to find myself outside of football and not just being Grayson the football player, but being Grayson, who plays football.”
Clary added that he “found his worth in other things,” most notably his faith and his relationship with Jesus Christ and while he wants to win football games, that does not define him. That mindset change, he said, changed his view on pressure.
The privilege of having that pressure also comes at a school like Rabun Gap, that is routinely nationally ranked and faces other national powerhouses. Further, the expectation every year is to compete for a state title.
Those expectations are no different this season, despite roster turnover that saw more than 30 seniors graduate in the last two seasons, many of whom played a key role in the program’s first state title in 2024. With a new quarterback at the helm and rejuvenation at other positions, the Eagles and Clary are chasing ring No. 2.
The requirement of winning that comes with the glory and scrutiny of the quarterback position is in play as well.
“A quarterback’s only as good as much as he wins,” Clary said. “You could go to the most talented people that’ve ever thrown a football, and they’re not the GOAT like Tom Brady, and that’s because he won.”
Although the pressure is there for both Kowalsky and Clary – and it might not be Brady-esque – both are looking to blaze their own paths as a new era of quarterback play in Rabun County begins.