How pickleball helped NC State football recruit from Clayton choose Wolfpack

Quarterbacks are stubborn. Don’t ask them to switch positions — not if they’ve excelled playing the most intricate position in team sports.

Clayton High senior Aiden Smalls, a prolific dual-threat quarterback, sat on a sideline bench after Monday’s practice and discussed playing quarterback — one of his two football narratives in 2025.

The other is Clayton’s outlook this season. The Comets, who were 10-2 a year ago, remain ranked No. 6 in the 7A Division of the N.C. High School Athletic Association after rolling up 537 total yards in last week’s 52-12 win against Wilson Prep. Clayton plays another home date at 7:30 p.m. Friday against Southern Nash (1-0).

“We’re explosive offensively,” Smalls said. “We can do different things. We have the option, we have running backs, and we have speed with our receivers. It’s going to be hard to stop us. And we have a bunch of guys on defense.”

Smalls’ quarterback storyline, meanwhile, is more complicated. It involves college football recruiting — at multiple schools — and a potential position change, all coming on the heels of a high school transfer in the not-so-distant past.

QB or bust

Which brings us back to discussing quarterbacks who were steadfast about playing their position. Examples include three Heisman Trophy winners NFL scouts didn’t rate at the top of the draft.

Lamar Jackson, Louisville’s Heisman winner in 2016, was faced with NFL teams asking him to switch to wide receiver, but he was spared when the Baltimore Ravens took him with the last pick of the first round. The rest, of course, is history for the two-time NFL MVP.

Charlie Ward won the 1994 Heisman leading Florida State to the national title, but he also was an NBA prospect while playing basketball for the Seminoles. When Ward learned NFL scouts graded him no better than a third-round pick, he vowed to play in the NBA if he wasn’t a first-round choice. He played 12 NBA seasons and not a day in the NFL.

“I’ve heard Charlie Ward’s story,” Smalls said.

Gary Beban was the 1967 Heisman winner at UCLA. After throwing only one pass in two years as an NFL backup in Washington, the Denver Broncos picked him up on waivers. They asked him to switch to safety. Beban retired instead. Upon entering the business world, Beban explained, “If you want to be a lawyer and you don’t pass the bar exam, do you become a bailiff just to get in the courtroom?”

“Quarterbacks can be stubborn,” Smalls said, nodding his head. “I can relate to those guys, for sure.”

Stubborn meets practical — and pickleball

But Smalls, a 6-foot-1, 170-pounder, also has proven to be practical.

He originally committed on April 25 to Rice, an American Conference school in Houston known more for academics than football, as a quarterback.

“I liked everything about Rice and the chance to play quarterback,” Smalls said.

But on July 8, he flipped to N.C. State. Nothing unusual about that. High school recruits routinely flip schools these days.

This, though, was a “Simone Biles” double-flip. Smalls changed schools and positions. He’s now committed to N.C. State as a wide receiver.

“On my trip back from Rice, my flight was delayed,” Smalls said. “I started to think about my parents having to travel a lot to see me play.”

Smalls’ ability to weigh future potential and staying local for family reasons demonstrated maturity. . But in this rapidly changing world of college football, Smalls’ story also comes down to a time-honored dynamic — respect from a teammate.

Smalls explained he and Clayton defensive lineman Keshawn Stancil, a four-star prospect, played a casual pickleball match a couple days before Stancil’s mid-June official recruiting trip to N.C. State. The Wolfpack coaches invited Smalls to make a trip the same day, but he said Rice’s coaches asked him not to go.

“I didn’t want to cause any problems,” Smalls said.

That might have been the end of Smalls’ recruiting saga, but during the pickleball match, he casually mentioned to Stancil he was having second thoughts about Rice. Stancil, on his own, passed on word to N.C. State coach Dave Doeren during his trip. This time, Wolfpack assistant coach Joker Phillips convinced Smalls to meet with them.

“Coach Joker gave me a plan as a receiver,” Smalls said. “I looked at the plan month by month and loved it.”

Stancill, meanwhile, committed to Clemson on June 28.

Smalls’ decision to reconsider his parents, Ahmad and Sheree, faced with traveling 1,063 miles to Houston, didn’t surprise Clayton coach Scott Chadwick.

“You’re talking very tightly knit family,” Chadwick said. “There is something to be said about a family having breakfast together at home and then driving to the game. There’s something to be said for Aiden to be in his room some night and decide he wants to go home and have dinner. You can’t put a price on that kind of stuff.”

Chadwick also made a point of not dismissing Smalls’ quarterback skills simply because the Power 4 schools viewed him as a receiver. Chadwick coached Drake Maye at Charlotte Myers Park before Maye went on to play at North Carolina and now with the New England Patriots.

“Rice and Liberty are good Football Bowl Subdivision schools that wanted him as a quarterback,” Chadwick said. “I think he gets undervalued for his ability to throw because he is such a good athlete and dual-threat guy.”

Smalls’ first flip

Smalls is in his second year as Clayton’s starter after his transfer from Cardinal Gibbons. Last season he completed 130 of 214 passes (.607) for 1,948 yards and 24 touchdowns with seven interceptions. He ran 150 times for 1,006 yards and 12 touchdowns with a long of 70.

In the 2025 season opener, he was 8-of-12 for 196 yards and four touchdowns without an interception and carried five times for 82 yards and a TD before Clayton’s backups finished the game.

With Smalls’ versatility, Chadwick says don’t be surprised if he draws upon similar plays that NC State alum Bill Cowher used as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ head coach for Swiss army knife Kordell “Slash” Stewart.

Smalls added of NC State’s coaches, “We’ve already talked about that.”

But there are more twists and turns to Smalls’ quarterback/wide receiver journey prior to his Clayton transfer. He began his high school career at Cardinal Gibbons while known as much as a basketball point guard as for football.

His freshman year of football in the 2022-23 school year, he was the JV quarterback and varsity backup to junior Whitt Newbauer, who is now a sophomore backup at Oklahoma after spending his freshman year at Mercer College. In basketball season, Smalls was the varsity point guard who led the team in scoring (15.6) and assists (4.6).

But in the winter of 2023, Smalls’ back injury prevented him from throwing the football with sufficient velocity during spring football.

As the fall of 2023 arrived, Newbauer was back for his senior season, so Smalls switched to sophomore wide receiver to get on the field. He led Gibbons with 76 catches for 941 yards and 12 touchdowns. In that same 2023 season, sophomore Gannon Jones took over the roles of JV quarterback and varsity backup.

“One reason I don’t mind switching to wide receiver at NC State is I liked playing receiver at Cardinal Gibbons,” Smalls said. “Coach Doeren had seen me play in high school a lot because his son (Connor, an offensive lineman at East Tennessee State) was on our team.”

But then came Gibbons’ fifth game of the 2023 season against Hillside. Smalls tweaked his back and came out of the contest. Next, Newbauer broke a bone in his hand and was sidelined for the next month.

With Smalls and Newbauer both on the bench, Jones finished the Crusaders’ 24-6 win and remained the starter. He’s now a third-year starter committed to Wake Forest.

The circumstances of that 2023 Hillside game add more intrigue to Smalls’ ultimate switch from quarterback.

When Newbauer was hurt, what if Smalls had been healthy and came on to finish the game and season as Gibbson’s starter? What if he had never enjoyed playing receiver his sophomore year?

“We’ll never know,” Smalls said with a laugh. “Gannon came in and did a great job.”

And here’s a “what if” for NC State fans: If Smalls develops into an impact player, they can thank Keshawn Stancil for a game of pickleball in the summer of 2025. That must be a first for college football recruiting tales.

This story was originally published August 28, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "How pickleball helped NC State football recruit from Clayton choose Wolfpack."