The 2008 All-Area football team: front row, from left, Chucky Hunter, Free State; Camren Torneden, Free State; coach Bob Lisher, Free State; Sam Beecher, Baldwin; Shane Gimzo, Perry-Lecompton; Joel Gantz, Perry-Lecompton; and Clifton Sims, Lawrence High. Back row, from left, are Grahm Saunders, Free State; Ryan Fisher, Eudora; Mike Sprowl, De Soto; and Aaron Rea, Lawrence High. The players were photographed at Abe and Jake’s Landing.

Shane Gimzo is quiet and unassuming, the type of high school athlete with a refreshing ability to blend talent with hard work and humility.

Gimzo, Perry-Lecompton High’s multi-dimensional football star this past season, scored touchdowns at will as the team’s starting quarterback. Ask him about his individual success, however, and he credits his offensive line, receivers and running backs.

Query about his shouldering more responsibility than others on this year’s team, and he brushes that off as well.

“I just did what I could,” Gimzo said. “I didn’t try to do too much because everyone around me had just as vital a role on the team.”

Gimzo carried that attitude to the football field every week. He humbly led by example and let the statistics speak for themselves. And this season, they were quite deafening.

On the year, Gimzo accumulated an astounding, video-game-esque 4,570 all-purpose yards on kickoff returns, punt returns, rushes and passes. He threw for 2,119 yards and 17 touchdowns and rushed for another 1,862 yards and 33 touchdowns.

Defensively, his abilities were equally impressive. As a sophomore and junior, he played outside linebacker, only to be switched to both free safety and strong safety as a senior. No matter. He was third on the team in solo tackles with 62 this year. He also led the Kaws’ defensive unit with six interceptions.

In other words, he did a little bit of everything for the Kaws this year. Which is why Gimzo has earned the Journal-World’s all-area football player of the year award.

He did so as an exemplary model for teammates to follow. During the past two years, Gimzo never missed a single day of off-season summer conditioning, nor did he skip out on 7-on-7 drills.

“We always talk about those kind of guys that have great talent,” Perry-Lecompton football coach Mike Paramore said. “You take great work ethic with that, you’ve got something pretty special.”

Gimzo helped lead his team farther than any Kaws squad in school history this season, all the way to the Class 4A state championship game, where Perry fell, 42-21, to Topeka Hayden.

In that contest, Gimzo displayed his full repertoire of football skills, much the way he did all season. He not only passed for a touchdown in the game, he also rushed for one and ran another score back 83 yards on a kickoff return.

Paramore has been a head football coach for 18 seasons now, the last eight coming at Perry-Lecompton. No player in his memory stood out as more versatile on the football field than Gimzo.

“We could’ve stuck him about anywhere in our offense, and he would’ve excelled,” Paramore said.

As it played out, the Kaws stuck Gimzo at quarterback, tossing him into the fire during the team’s second game of Gimzo’s junior season when first-string QB Caleb Denton went down with an injury.

“It was kind of nerve-wracking, so we kind of kept the play calls simple,” said Gimzo, who played running back his entire life until last season. “As the games went on, I felt more comfortable.”

Comfortable enough to earn first-team All-Kaw Valley League honors for his quarterbacking skills by his senior season. He also earned honorable-mention status at quarterback on the Class 4A all-state team and first-team all-state as a strong safety.

Paramore said the recruiting letters were pouring in by the week. Gimzo has yet to decide on a school, but Paramore said that whoever gets Gimzo should feel quite blessed to have both a player and person of such high caliber.

“He’s a great kid and one for me that I would point to my own kids and just hope they turn out as good as him,” Paramore said.