Athlete Spotlight: Wharton's Jaylen Dinard

Being 5-foot-6 and 130 pounds is not conducive to stepping out on a football field. At that size, most coaches might try to steer you toward track or cross-country.

But Jaylen Dinard knew he always wanted to play football; he just didn't know if he could.

“I never really played youth football, I guess because of a lack of confidence and because I was so small,” said the Wharton High School wide receiver.

Dinard finally found an athletic outlet in youth soccer.

“It was a great experience for me, it was the first real sport I worked up the courage to play,” he said.

Dinard played for three years in a New Tampa-area recreational league, and his confidence began to build. The football bug bit him watching games on TV.

“My dad loved the (Kansas City) Chiefs, and that’s when I really started to like watching (former NFL running back) Priest Holmes,” Dinard said.

Dinard wanted to emulate Holmes, and it led him to his first year of New Tampa Wildcats football. Dinard wanted to be a running back, too, but “it never worked out," he said.

No doubt his diminutive frame may have scared coaches away from placing him in situations where he would often be taken to the ground. He finally found playing time at quarterback, and that carried over to his freshman year at Wharton.

Dinard stuck with the Wildcats, albeit on the junior varsity squad. His sophomore year was full of promise and he hoped to start ascending the depth ladder and possibly make varsity, but he suffered a broken collarbone and missed most of the year.

Things finally started going right for him during his junior year. During an early season practice, Dinard was playing with the scout team on offense against the starting defense and he was, as he said, “catching everything” and “doing everything right."

That’s when the coaches began to take notice. “They didn’t expect me to be that great at wide receiver,” Dinard said.

However, there was yet another obstacle: senior talent. Shaq Williams and Mitch Murray gobbled up most of the passes last year, and Dinard barely got on the field.

But during this past summer, Dinard and the Wildcats moved into prominence, lighting up 7 on 7 tournaments across the county. The Wildcats proved their mettle, taking into a tie-breaking, double-overtime final at the . Now Dinard finds himself as a legitimate receiving threat in the Wildcats offense, stocked with skill player talent.

“Coaches always said I need to play bigger than myself, and that’s just what I’ve been doing — playing bigger," he said.