Beginning as a second-grader, Brady Brinkley knew he was witnessing something special.
Now a junior in his second season as North Allegheny’s starting quarterback, Brinkley said he’s fueled to this day by the fond memories of passing footballs from the Newman Stadium sideline to officials on Friday nights beginning when he was just 8 years old as a Tigers ball boy.
He said watching the career of Logan Kushner, the quarterback who led North Allegheny to consecutive WPIAL Class 6A championships in 2022 and ’23, up close was particularly impactful.
“I’m actually pretty close with him,” he said of Kushner. “He was a sophomore, and I was a ball boy here. I played quarterback, and we kind of had a fun little bond, a ball boy-player bond. I got to watch him all three years, and I learned a lot from him.
“He was one of the most unselfish players you’ll ever see,” he added of Kushner. “I try to idolize a lot of my game off of him because he was probably one of the best quarterbacks to ever come through here.”
It’s safe to say the former star-struck ball boy learned his lessons from Kushner well.
Brinkley completed 9 of 18 passes for 123 yards and a touchdown while also carrying the football eight times for 86 yards and two scores, to power North Allegheny to an impressive 56-13 victory Friday night over previously undefeated Hempfield at Newman Stadium.
“I’ve been here spending time on the sideline since when I was a little kid,” Brinkley said. “This is basically like a dream come true.”
The Tigers (4-0, 1-0) have started their season with four consecutive victories for the fourth straight year, while the Spartans (3-1, 1-0) dropped their first of the 2025 campaign after an impressive start to the season.
North Allegheny coach Art Walker said he was pleased to start play in the Class 6A Quad-County Conference with a victory.
“The first conference game, to get a win and get in that column, is really important early on,” Walker said. “That was our focus. We were all focused on Hempfield.”
After earning a tight 28-26 victory over traditional WPIAL Class 5A power Woodland Hills in their season opener, the Tigers have been dominant over the past three weeks, defeating Gateway, Penn Hills and Hempfield by a combined score of 132-13.
Walker said that success has started with Brinkley.
“He earned the job as a sophomore, and now he’s a junior and feeling a lot more comfortable every single week,” Walker said. “You start to let him know, ‘Hey, you’re the leader of that offense, and as you go we go.’ That’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid sometime, but he wants it.
“He’s been waiting since he was a young player, and now he’s here,” Walker added. “He’s making the most of it.”
Brinkley burst onto the WPIAL scene last fall, leading the Tigers to another showdown in the WPIAL championship game with rival Central Catholic. He passed for 1,210 yards and 10 touchdowns in his first season as a starter while adding 496 yards and seven scores on the ground.
With the title-game loss to the Vikings in the rearview mirror, Brinkley has transitioned his success to this season. The 6-foot-3, 185-pound quarterback has completed 59.7% of his passes for 576 yards, seven touchdowns and two interceptions while adding 161 yards and four scores on the ground for good measure.
“It’s just confidence,” Brinkley said. “I think last year I was really antsy at times in the pocket and just in my game in general. I think the game has gotten a lot slower and slow enough to the point where I’m really comfortable. I make reads slower. The whole game is slower. It’s a lot easier than it was last year, which is nice.”
And that certainly showed against Hempfield.
Brinkley broke open the scoring against the Spartans with a 19-yard touchdown pass to Bradyn McConneha with 53 seconds remaining in the first quarter.
When Hempfield quarterback Dominic Detruf responded with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Aidan Stinebiser to make the Tigers lead just 7-6 with 12 seconds left in the game’s opening quarter, Brinkley and North Allegheny took control of the contest.
The Tigers exploded for 42 unanswered points, which began with a 55-yard touchdown run and a 1-yard run to paydirt in the second quarter.
Running back Luke Rohan added a touchdown run of 3 yards just before halftime before opening the second half scoring with a 44-yard touchdown run.
North Allegheny safety Cameron Kushner chipped in an interception he returned 35 yards for a score before running back Anthony Sisinni added a 5-yard scamper to the end zone and Brandon Schantz scored on a run from 5 yards out to close out their team’s scoring.
Rohan finished with 79 yards on nine carries, while Korry Pitts hauled in three catches for a team-high 56 yards and Kushner added three catches for 37 yards of his own.
“I think our playbook is so deep, like way deeper than last year at this point,” said Kushner, a younger brother of Logan Kushner, who is now a quarterback at NCAA Division I FCS Duquesne. “We can go anywhere at any time with any weapon, and I think that’s a big asset for us.”
Despite being sacked six times, Detruf managed to complete 10 of 16 passes for 129 yards and a touchdown to pace the Spartans offense.
Hempfield senior running back John Michael Landa rushed for 57 yards and a 23-yard, fourth-quarter touchdown to complement Stinebiser’s 47 yards on the ground.
Wide receiver Jack Kopas caught four passes for a game-high 66 yards for the Spartans. His 55-yard catch in the first quarter was a critical early play for the Hempfield offense early in the contest.
“We knew coming in that we thought there were some things that we could be successful with,” Spartans coach Nick Keefer said. “We did hit some of those early. I think we left a couple plays out there, too. To win games in 6A, you have to win the battle up front. We lost that handily today, I thought. We’ve got to learn from the film.
“We are a good football team, and we do have athletes that can compete with kids at this level and teams of this stature.”
John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.