Jalen Ollie Learned Leadership from His Dad

Kevin Ollie's son, Jalen, is a quarterback at Glastonbury High who's off to a nice start in his senior season. He's also a pretty good basketball player. Maybe not Division 1 material at this point, but pretty good, nonetheless.

I stopped by Jalen's game last weekend against Hall in West Hartford and watched him put forth a command performance. He ran, passed and willed his team to a come-from-behind, 35-28 victory. Most impressive were his leadership skills -- something that obviously runs in the family. (Kevin Ollie wasn't at the game. Seems he had a few key recruits on campus last weekend, but he did watch Jalen's game on video later. Mom, Stephanie, was at the game).

Here's a little feature on Jalen's transformation as a leader on the football field.

Kid's a spitting image of his dad, too, right down to the same smile, laugh and voice inflections. Doesn't sound like he'd ever go the Jeff Calhoun route, though, and play at UConn.

"The point of college is leaving your parents and stepping out," he said with a classic Ollie laugh.

Here's a video of Jalen connecting on a touchdown pass in the win over Hall: