At St. Michael Catholic (Alabama), students are not allowed to have their phones at school, which has its positives. Except when the goal is to find out if the high school's football coach is coming out of retirement at age 44 to join the Indianapolis Colts.
The policy led to a mad scramble to the in-school computers.
"We were checking updates all day in school, going on Google, just typing in his name about every 10 minutes," Tucker Tomlinson, a senior receiver for the St. Michael Catholic Cardinals, explained to NFL.com this past week. "That was the worst part. Having to refresh all the news pages to see what we can find."
What Tomlinson and his teammates learned in comically old-school fashion on Tuesday has become one of the coolest stories in the NFL: Philip Rivers is back in the league after a nearly five-season hiatus. Rivers will start on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks, sources say, delaying his Hall of Fame clock five years and giving Indy a possible answer at quarterback after Daniel Jones suffered a season-ending torn Achilles in a Week 14 loss to the Jaguars.
Earlier on Monday, news got around school that a return to the NFL was possible for the high school coach who led them to the state semifinals. Players joked about it.
When the real news came out on Monday night around 6 p.m. ET in Fairhope, Ala., that Rivers was actually in Indianapolis and set to work out, it set fire to the group chat of Tomlinson and his teammates.
"When we finally saw it, we're like, 'Oh my God, this is real,'" Tomlinson said by phone this week. "That's something I would never expect. … Reports like that come out all the time, you know, it's just crap. You see it, you're just like, that's funny. Let me joke with (his son) Gunner about it. This time seemed different, and it really came into fruition."
There have been other Rivers rumors over the years, including from the 49ers, who viewed Rivers as their backup plan when Jimmy Garoppolo broke his foot in 2022. It just never materialized.
Rivers' son Gunner, by the way, is the team's signal-caller and one of the top QB prospects in the country. He is also, it seems, a terrible liar regarding family secrets.
"He definitely tried to keep it pretty close to the chest," Tomlinson said. "But he's got a tell. His face gets all red and he didn't know how to handle it. It was pretty funny."
Tomlinson and his teammates will be having a watch party at a local Mexican restaurant that parents rented out on Sunday, cheering on their coach. At the school, only a couple of people knew this was all a possibility early on Monday, including the co-athletics director Simon Cortopassi (also the football team's defensive coordinator). Rivers actually texted him before he agreed to return to Indy, where he played in 2020.
"He just said, 'I'm going for it,'" Cortopassi said. "He was like, 'There's only one way to find out if you can do it, and that's to try it.'"
When Rivers learned he had to work out for Indy, he needed cleats. So he reached into his trophy case (literally) and grabbed his old Reeboks from more than 10 years ago. Former NFL quarterback Matt Hasselbeck had a deal with the shoe company when he played, Rivers liked them, and he had them send him 50 pairs. It's all he wears.
Upon his first retirement, Rivers took over as the football coach of St. Michael Catholic in 2021, a school that had opened a few years earlier in 2016 -- a team that had lost 18 region games. They won their first regional game his first year, went 12-2 last year and then 13-1 this past season.
As he explained this week, Rivers is also the team's play-caller, and he runs a familiar offense that he'll see on Sunday.
"We literally run the exact same scheme as the Colts," Tomlinson said. "We have these teach tapes -- how to run routes in specific ways -- and they're just from Colts games in previous years."
In fact, not only has Colts head coach Shane Steichen consulted on the high school's plays and reviewed film with his good friend Rivers, he also has visited Fairhope with then-starter Anthony Richardson as he was getting tutelage from Rivers.
On top of helping Richardson train, during the pre-draft process Rivers has worked with current NFL QBs Bo Nix, Drake Maye, Riley Leonard, Carter Bradley … and this week's opponent, Sam Darnold.
While the world is wondering what Rivers, a grandfather now, will look like at the age of 44, his players have seen it. He lifts with them, runs sprints with them and has always stayed in shape, despite questions about his weight this week.
He also has been throwing -- a lot -- during practices that mirror the Colts' sessions.
"We have individual drills to start practice and we really don't have many QBs on our roster except for Gunner," Tomlinson said. "So you'll see [Rivers and his son] over there and they're both doing footwork drills and throwing back and forth. He was getting after it for sure. Obviously, he's got a field in his house with facilities, too."
For Gunner and Rivers' extensive family, this should be a cool experience since they are all much older and football-aware. And for the community, they are soaking it up.
"Combining phone calls, texts, emails, we've probably gotten 200-300 messages from media," Cortopassi said. "It's been crazy. But for all of us, it's going to be awesome to watch."
