AKRON - Only Brandon Eaton knows if he is a fan of roller-coasters, but his football career at Tippecanoe Valley has been just that.

Eaton, a 6-foot-4, 165-pound senior who also plays basketball and golf, has seen the highs: he's been the starting signal caller for the Vikings for three years now. Just the same, he's seen the lows: he's been hurt or sick, causing him to miss games in each of those seasons.

As a sophomore it was a shoulder injury.

As a junior it was mono, a sickness that caused him to sit out the sectional game, a game the Vikings lost 13-12 to Northridge. It also slowed him at the beginning of the basketball season.

And now there's his senior year.

This year Eaton, who already has eight varsity letters, broke the thumb on his throwing hand during the Warsaw game, the second game of the season.

"It (the break) was small," said Eaton at practice Tuesday, blood running off his left thumb. "But being a quarterback, they took extra precaution and put a cast on it. I missed three weeks."

During those three weeks Valley managed to notch just one win, and Eaton was forced to walk the sideline in a green cast and street clothes. He could be nothing more than a cheerleader.

"It was pretty tough," he said, almost as if you could read in his eyes that he wanted to go back and rewrite the script to those games. "Especially the Manchester and Southwood games. It was tough because I thought I could've helped. It was pretty tough to watch them lose."

What's not so tough is looking into his eyes and finding a desire and will to win.

Valley has picked up five of its six wins this year with Eaton under center. Seemingly, as Eaton goes, so do the Vikings.

In the time he has seen on the field Eaton has completed 59 of 111 passes for 727 yards with eight touchdowns. To say that his season has consisted of six full games, Eaton would be averaging 121.2 passing yards per game.

In the first four games of the season Valley posted a dismal 1-3 record. Since then, with the return of Eaton and others, the Vikings are 5-1 and playing in the semifinal round of the sectional.

What was the turnaround, Eaton was asked.

"The team's attitude," he said. "We could've taken the attitude that our season was shot but everyone buckled down, and it's shown in the way we've played the last two weeks."

As quarterback, Eaton knows he is the center of attention. It comes with the job, just as it does for the point guard on the basketball court.

"First off I have to be a good leader," he replies when asked to describe his role on the team. "I have to make sure everything is going right. The big thing is to be a leader, and the rest will fall in- to place."

Eaton and his teammates will find out tonight if things have fallen into place when the 6-4 Vikings host fourth-ranked 9-1 Norwell in the semifinal round of sectional 20.

Will this be the last stop on the roller-coaster ride for Eaton? [[In-content Ad]]