Music City Showcase puts football prospects in spotlight

As it turned out to be for the entire Stratford football program, 2015 proved to be a breakout year for Spartans quarterback Josh Trueheart.

Trueheart, an athletic 6-foot-4, 200-pounder, threw for 1,766 yards, ran for 216 more and accounted for 27 total touchdowns a season ago, leading Stratford to an 8-4 record and the school’s most successful postseason run in over a decade.

His success yielded him a pair of Football Championship Subdivision offers from Jackson State and Southeast Missouri State, but like most Midstate rising seniors with dreams of playing collegiate football, Trueheart is looking to gain as much exposure as possible this summer.

“I’m just trying to hopefully catch their attention,” said Trueheart, who attended the Music City Showcase at Franklin Road Academy on Sunday. It featured more than 400 participants.

“For me it’s to get some exposure, get better as a player and just develop overall,” Trueheart added. “I feel like there were a lot of people out here looking for talent.”

Unlike Tennessee’s satellite camp, which was held Sunday at Tennessee State University and included coaches from just Tennessee, TSU and MTSU, coaches from more than 15 colleges, which ranged from Division I to NAIA, attended the first annual Music City camp.

Hundreds of prospects at Vols satellite camp in Nashville

“Anytime you can get 17 schools in one spot, the advantage goes to the kids,” said Vanderbilt coach Derek Mason, who, along with several of his assistants, attended the roughly four-hour showcase. “You get a chance to see a young man take coaching, you get to see him show his skill set, and bigger than that, you get to see him compete.”

Assistant coaches from Alabama, Mississippi State and Texas A&M were also in attendance at FRA’s George A. Weicker Athletic Complex, while Memphis, Western Kentucky, Chattanooga, Austin Peay and Tennessee Tech were also represented.

“Some young man that probably couldn’t afford to go to 17 camps gets a chance to come out here and maybe be seen,” Mason added. “Maybe a guy who wasn’t on somebody’s radar, he has a chance to walk away from this thing with four, five, six schools saying ‘maybe he’s the guy for me.’

“With satellite camps, if they’re done properly, it’s about getting them exposure.”

Reach Michael Murphy at 615-259-8262 and on Twitter @Murph_TNsports.