Las Vegas High quarterback O'Ryan Bradley drops back to pass Friday during practice for today's Class 4A state championship game against Galena at Sam Boyd Stadium. Photos by Jane Kalinowsky. Las Vegas High quarterback O'Ryan Bradley catches the ball Friday during the Wildcats' practice at Sam Boyd Stadium as the team prepares to play Galena today in the Class 4A state championship game.

Kids dream big. Some even grow up watching their local high school football team each Friday night, the school several family members attended, the team some at home played for and later cheered, the uniform a little boy wanted so badly to wear. Kids dream big.

Not this big: The Class 4A state championship game is today and Las Vegas High is again included, a fact becoming more commonplace than the Vick brothers defining their character through their own personal sign language.

The Wildcats make their fifth finals appearance in six years when meeting Galena at Sam Boyd Stadium and there's a fairly enormous chance O'Ryan Bradley will be in as much awe of the moment as a department store Santa staring at a line of two children.

The Las Vegas quarterback is about to start his third straight state final, about to once again lead the area's most dominant prep program in its pursuit of another notch on its belt of glory, about to do what he never thought possible all those Fridays as a youngster watching his favorite team.

"I never imagined being in this situation," Bradley said. "I just wanted to find some way to get on the field. I would have done anything just to play."

He's serious. Bradley speaks of Wildcats football as if his DNA strands are instead blades of grass from the school's home turf, a player whose pride in representing his team is as unique as it is immeasurable. Las Vegas is nothing if not a transient community -- "Everyone is always moving up to a bigger and better house, which means a different school," said Wildcats coach Chris Faircloth -- and rare is the local team with a player as passionate for tradition as Bradley.

He is a quarterback being pursued by Division I-A schools for two reasons:

1. One day as a freshman, he was tossing the ball around with friends. A few Las Vegas coaches happened to be watching and liked the fact his passes had more spiral than wobble to them.

2. When asked by those coaches if he would consider trying out for quarterback, Bradley didn't fall over laughing.

"We just really needed someone to play the position," Faircloth said. "We had other kids in the program who could throw the ball, but (Bradley) seemed like the most logical choice at the time. We just didn't know how things would work out."

Here's why: Bradley's older brother, Zack, also was a quarterback for the Wildcats. But his path was littered with off-field troubles and poor choices, which never allowed him to realize anywhere near the success of O'Ryan, which never allowed him to fully experience the team's state title in 2001. Faircloth admittedly thought younger brother would eventually follow an identically destructive path.

Man, was he surprised.

"You tend to lump kids and families together, for whatever reason," Faircloth said. "But it has been the exact opposite with O'Ryan.

"He is a phenomenal kid. Personable. Soft-spoken. Humble. Well-mannered. Just a great kid. And his success has been really good for his brother, who comes to all the games and is very supportive. A kid who was once so self-centered has actually changed a lot because of his younger brother."

It's pretty much a story about how a kid who always played defense while growing up needed all of the last three seasons to become this good a quarterback. As a sophomore, Bradley was essentially asked not to fumble snaps and to make proper handoffs for an offense that literally ran itself to a state runner-up finish. As a junior, he was asked to be a competent enough thrower that opponents had to at least show an interest in defending the pass, something he more than accomplished by winning a state championship.

This season, he has passed for more than 2,500 yards and 27 touchdowns, finally the chief statistical leader responsible for a team that has scored 35 or more points nine times and one that has averaged 46.3 in three playoff games.

"We're all out here nine months out of the year, working by ourselves as players or with coaches during the season," Bradley said. "Our coaching staff works so hard to put us in this position, to give us another chance at playing in a state championship. Hopefully, we can finish it off the right way again. I've had seven or eight family members go through this school, so this is really big for me. I want to win for my family at home but also for my Wildcat family. I'm just so glad I had the opportunity to play for this school."

Kids dream big.

Sometimes, they don't even realize how big.

Ed Graney's column is published Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.