By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports

Everywhere Eli Dollar has gone in his football career, he’s seen a stop sign. He saw it at Cope Middle School. He’s seen it his entire time while playing at Airline.

But this stop sign is not red and eight-sided. Instead, it’s about 6-foot-1 and has blond hair.

It’s called Ben Taylor.

Part of the hierarchy of playing high school football is waiting your turn. The frustrating part is that sometimes your turn – especially at a Class 5A school — doesn’t come until the senior year.

But Dollar and Taylor have always played the same position and are the same age. In middle school, Dollar backed up Taylor at quarterback. Same thing at Airline.

There are almost 11,000 reasons why things have stayed that way.  Taylor has become one of the all-time passing yardage leaders in state history, so Dollar knew he needed to find a different way to get on the field.

“It was my dream to play quarterback,” Dollar says, “but I had to make a change.”

No, he did not consider taking our Taylor’s kneecaps or putting a bunch of banana peels in front of his locker.

“I was hoping for a chance, but at the end of the day I had been here three years and I wasn’t where I wanted to be,” he says. “I wanted to be on the field and I wanted to make a difference.”

And he’s done just that for the 8-0 Vikings this year, only as a defensive back. But even that switch had a stop sign attached to it. Dollar had a broken rib at the beginning of the season. In his first game back against Parkway, he made an immediate impact with an interception return for a touchdown.

“It’s definitely better than sitting there and watching,” Dollar says.

Dollar certainly isn’t the only one in waiting-their-turn club at Airline this year. Fellow seniors Micah Johnson and Ayden Baker have also found roadblocks in getting onto the field but have made the most of their opportunities this year.

“We always preach play wherever you can to help the team,” Airline coach Justin Scogin says. “That’s how it was when I played. I was never great at anything, but I just wanted to play and have fun. That’s the kind of attitude these guys have. All three of these guys have been fun to coach.”

Johnson, who had been on the baseball team and didn’t start playing football until his junior year, has caught 38 passes for 294 yards and a touchdown this season.

“For a while, it was frustrating,” he says. “I knew I wasn’t going to play my first year but I just kept working and working to get out there. I’ve put in a lot of work to get where I am now. It’s paid off.”

“We knew really quick that he was going to be pretty good,” Scogin says. “He’s been phenomenal.”

Baker, a tight end, did get some playing time a year ago — “we probably should have played him more last year,” Scogin says — as he played behind second team All-Stater Bob Patterson.

“There were a lot of things that Bob did that I still can’t do,” Baker says. “He used to teach me some techniques that he used and how to run routes. I really appreciated that.”

“He’s patiently waited his turn,” Scogin says. “He just dominated everything in JV (last year), so we knew he would be good.”

Baker has caught 28 passes for 353 yards and four scores.

“It was a little frustrating waiting to get my shot, especially seeing my friends out there playing,” Baker says. “I knew when I got my chance, I was going to take it.”

Dollar says he went to teammates for advice when trying to make the decision about making the switch. It’s a decision he has not regretted one bit.

“I’ve had a lot of help,” Dollar says. “The coaches have put me in position to make plays and I knew I had what it took. Seeing all the seniors leave last year and the impact they had on the program, I wanted to be one of those guys.”

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com