Younger Surratt Starring Out Of Shadow
Sage Surratt, a junior athlete from East Lincoln High School in Denver (NC), has had an outstanding junior season on the gridiron, hardwood, and in the classroom.
He was an all-state wide receiver this past football season and will likely be an all-state selection in basketball.
Currently, Surratt leads the Mustangs, who are 28-0 to a state 2A championship matchup against Farmville Central on Saturday March 12th at 2:30 at the Dean E. Smith Center on the campus of the University of North Carolina. He is one of the state’s leading scorers with averaging over 31 points a game.
Right now, everything looks fine and dandy, but on a cold Friday night back in November, Sage’s world turned upside down.
His older brother Chazz, the one that Sage looked up to was injured on a freak play. Chazz suffered a dislocated elbow and knocked him out of playing any more football that season. At that time, East Lincoln was undefeated and headed for another possible state title run. Older brother Chazz, who played quarterback, is a who’s who in athletics in North Carolina.
A two-time NCPreps.com Player of the Year winner, Gatorade NC Player of the Year, AP NC Player of the Year, numorous all-state teams, Parade All-American, and Parade’s National Player of the Year. The eldest Surratt has signed to play college football at UNC.
The news of possibly never playing beside of his brother devastated Sage. The two boys have played and won so many games and championships together and their goal was to win a football and basketball state championship before Chazz left for college.
When asked about his brother and his injury, Sage said the following, “Growing up I kind of looked up to him, but it wouldn’t be the typical way of looking up to an older sibling since we were always on the same team playing together. I was devastated that night because I hated to see him go down especially in his senior season. It was really tough. I didn’t want that to be the last time we play together and end like that.”
The Surratt family thought that dream was over as Chazz started rehab on his elbow and Sage and the Mustangs lost in the 4th round of the football playoffs to Monroe. However; sometimes good things happen to good people. Chazz was recuperating at such a great pace there was hope he would join the basketball team around playoff time. Sage, in the absence of his older brother, took over the team and led them in almost every category and has become a state MVP candidate.
He became the school and county all-time leading scorer as a junior and now holds the school’s record of points in a single game with 50. Chazz has now join the team and the Mustangs have gotten even better with him back at point guard. Sage had to grow up fast and become the leader that his older brother was.
He has received several scholarship offers for football including UNC, Duke, ECU, Wake Forest, South Carolina, and Harvard. He also has picked up a basketball offer from Appalachian State. Sage has the same offer that Chazz has with UNC..a football scholarship with an opportunity to walk-on the basketball team.
“I’m very proud of him,” Chazz said. “He stepped up in a big time way this year. It’s something we all knew he could do and all his hard work in paying off.”
A lot of juniors have started making their decisions on where they want to go and have started committing to schools. Sage isn’t at that point yet and it’s going to be hard decision for the kid.
Will he go to UNC because of the very strong bond to his brother or does he make his own path to another school possibly Harvard, where he could get one of the best educations in the world. Sage has a GPA of 4.9 so he is definitely a strong candidate for that type of education with an athletic background as well.
“The Harvard offer was great,” Sage said. “It gives me the option of going to the best school for education in the country. I was really excited to get it.”
Sage is going to cherish this last week of practice at the gym at East Lincoln. On Saturday, March 12th at 2:30 in the Dean Smith Center, Sage and Chazz will have a day they will always remember. “I’m just ready to win one. We didn’t get it last year, so we want to get it even more this year and go out on top together,” stated Sage.