Shamere Banks is Getting Better & Better for the Falcons

Photo by Shawn Turri

Buffalo sports fans are familiar with one quarterback who was a late bloomer in the Bills’ Josh Allen. There might be another one at Health Sciences in senior Shamere Banks.

Banks, a senior at the school, has blossomed into a top-tier signal-caller and captain for the team and coach Ty Parker has had a front row seat to watch it happen.

“Shamere’s a competitor, a great kid with great character and a very social person,” Parker said. “His teammates love him. Just a great person to have on our program and he’s become a perfect leader for us.

“He's always the first one in the weight room and the last to leave. He’s always making sure that he and his receivers are on the same page – he really does approach the game like he's a college-level quarterback.”

Banks, who transferred to the school from Hutch Tech, originally came to the Health Sciences program a year ago to compete with incumbent starter Montrice Webster for the starting job. While he didn’t become the team’s featured signal caller right away, Parker knew he could still help the team in numerous ways and had to take advantage of his athletic gifts.

“Last year Shamere was learning the terminology in our system and had to get comfortable with the coaches and his teammates while also competing for the quarterback job. That’s a lot to deal with,” Parker said. “Even though he wasn’t ready yet, we still needed to figure out a way to get both him and Webster on the field at the same time because he could do different things. So he lined up at wide receiver, defensive back and quarterback and played well.

“This year he's directing people, he's telling everybody what their role is and what their job is on the field. He has a great arm and a high IQ for the game, and the difference in his game compared to last year is like night and day.”

How did Banks get to this level? Like Allen, it just took some time to learn how to play the position properly and eventually his mind for the game caught up with his athletic talents to form a lethal combination.

“He's making all the right throws – last year he was looking downfield a lot and always trying to go for the home run. Now he knows how to find holes in zone coverages and he’s become a field general,” Parker said. “I think that's just the result of studying the playbook, learning coverages, putting in hard work in the weight room and working on his craft. It's all paying off.

“I’ve got to give him a lot of credit for that, he hasn’t even scratched the surface yet of what he could be. We haven’t really gotten the chance to get into our playbook to the point where we can really expose a lot of stuff that he can handle. But he's one of the best quarterbacks, if not the best quarterback in Western New York this year and that's saying a lot coming from where he was last year.”

Banks has had some college interest, namely from Buffalo State, Alfred State and Morrisville. Still, Parker believes that the better he gets, the more of a chance he’ll have to land a scholarship.

“Without a doubt,” Parker said. “I really do believe that. I’m enjoying watching him this year because he’s getting better every day. I'm just so happy that we have a quarterback who can handle the pressure as well as he's been handling it.”