With an amused grin, Beau Brade signed the tickets, casts (yes, there were multiple) and phone cases thrust at him by a group of River Hill High School students, mostly junior varsity football players, yelling “Beau Brade! Beau Brade! Beau Brade!”

Brade’s best friend, Anthony Behrmann, observed the scene unfolding at halftime of a game against Reservoir with an amused look of his own. Leaning against the yellow barrier between the track and the field at the school in Clarksville, he shook his head. “You know, you can just call him Beau,” he said.

The students were not deterred. They posed for pictures and carried on with their dramatics, as 14- to 16-year-old boys do.

Only four years separated Behrmann and Brade from the oldest of the bunch, seven years from the freshmen. Yet it was easy for them to conjure up the days, not long ago, when they were the ones taking the field on a Friday night, shopping in the Columbia Mall (pre-chaperone requirement) and eating at the River Hill Grill.

“They’re hilarious,” Brade said. “It gives me a lot of flashbacks to when Anthony and I were playing.”

But a lot has happened in the four years since Brade and Behrmann graduated from River Hill. As captains of the football team, they were well known, but now they’re back with a lot more fame and authority than they had as high school stars.

Following four years of college football (Behrmann at Salisbury and Brade at Maryland), Behrmann transitioned into coaching and returned home to coach River Hill’s JV team. Meanwhile, Brade became a surprising addition to the Ravens’ 53-man roster after going undrafted. He returns to his old school as a role model and mentor, attending occasional workouts, practices and games at which he cheers on the students from the sidelines, answers their questions and supports Behrmann in his coaching.

“I can only imagine when I was in high school, my guys were in high school, someone in my position coming to the practices and the games, how I would have felt,” Brade said. “Especially just trying to learn more about the game and who they are as a person, it probably could have helped my game more, having someone older to show me the ropes.”

Forged on the field

For longtime watchers of the River Hill program, seeing Behrmann and Brade — shoulders parallel to the sidelines, heads tilted toward each other as they shared thoughts on the game — was a familiar sight.

But they weren’t always close. Thanks to the confounding snarl that is Howard County school districting, the two attended different middle schools. However, they knew each other through camps, basketball games and word of mouth — each one having been identified as the best player from his school to go to River Hill.

So the relationship began more as a rivalry than anything. “We were definitely not friends,” Behrmann said.

They were competing to be the rare freshman on coach Brian Van Deusen’s varsity team, and they came prepared to show each other up. Instead, they both made the cut and formed something more solid than friendship.

“I only have two biological sisters,” Brade said. “So Anthony is my brother.”

They soon found they also shared a desire to go beyond being star players; they wanted to lead. They spent the early years of high school talking about how they would do the job and shared the captaincy as seniors. They talked about football relentlessly, breaking down their own games, teammates, opponents.

The conversations didn’t stop once they were in college on opposite ends of the state.

“I watched every single play he ever made in college,” Behrmann said. “Even on the bus, if I’m on the bus ride home from my game, immediately I’m getting the hot spot and watching the game.”

Sometimes he was awed by the idea that he could ask Brade about Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud or Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy. But Brade was always just as interested to hear about Salisbury’s games, so Behrmann would talk about top players he faced, including Johns Hopkins’ Luke Schuermann (an All-American last year who is now playing for UCLA) and McDaniel’s Jevin Tranquillo.

Now Brade is back to discussing the high school football teams of Howard County with Behrmann as he prepares his team for games. And Behrmann’s asking how Brade’s teammates look — they just happen to be Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry.

Not exactly a football hotbed

As River Hill warmed up for its scrimmage, the players kept stealing glances at Tuscarora’s four-star receiver, Jordan Addison. Not that they were in awe, per se — they just couldn’t believe Addison, ranked No. 6 in the state as a senior, could possibly be that much better than Brade, who came in at No. 24 according to 247Sports.

Brade and the Hawks held their own and came away convinced Brade was the better player.

Less than five years later, the Minnesota Vikings picked Addison in the first round after a college career that included stops at Pitt and USC.

There are still ghosts of rivalries that pop up when they think of Addison or Damascus’ Bryan Bresee (a defensive tackle for the Saints) and Ryan Linthicum (a center at Clemson). But Brade and Behrmann have a unique way of thinking about playing against them: What they feel, most of all, is gratitude.

Without the scrimmages against Damascus, Tuscarora and other schools, River Hill would not have seen much competition. Its regular-season slate consists of Howard County opponents.

A study by the Washington Post found that football is on the decline in wealthier, more liberal areas. Howard County qualifies as both.

Brade’s career has introduced him to players from all backgrounds, including from the urban and rural areas where football remains popular. He knows the challenges those players have faced and how different they are from players in Howard County. Kids where he grew up might have more privilege, but what they often lack is high-end competition.

There’s always a temptation for top players to seek it elsewhere. Van Deusen and Behrmann recalled the waiting game ahead of Brade’s freshman year when private schools were approaching him. Behrmann had already decided to stay with the Hawks, but would Brade opt for better competition? Ultimately, he chose to stay with his friends.

It also helped that Van Deusen has a track record of developing players, having mentored Michael Campanaro, a wide receiver who also went on to play for the Ravens, and Kevin Johnson, a cornerback selected by the Houston Texans in the first round of the 2015 draft.

“They [Campanero and Johnson] helped us to aspire to be NFL players,” Brade said. “If they never got to the NFL, then I probably would have thought I probably couldn’t get to the NFL. I might have went to one of the private schools. So I mean they helped build River Hill.”

Knowing how much Campanaro and Johnson’s careers inspired him — and knowing how much it would have meant to meet them — Brade was determined to make as much of an impact on his community as he could.

“I stayed home, and then I’m staying home again,” Brade said. “I feel like I’m just Maryland made, through and through.”

‘It was like a movie’

Brade felt disappointed when the Ravens, the team he grew up rooting for, didn’t select him in the draft, opting for a different Big Ten safety, Purdue’s Sanoussi Kane, in the seventh round.

But he felt grounded, surrounded by family and his best friend while watching that draft, and signed with Baltimore when an offer came.

Home suits him. Knowing the uncertainty that comes with being an undrafted free agent, Brade decided that, rather than locking himself into a rental agreement, he would live with his parents to save money.

So, as he began his postgrad career, he found himself in the same spot as many of his River Hill classmates: in his parents’ house preparing for life as a young professional.

As he prepped for rookie camp and then training camp, Brade returned to where it started: the River Hill fields. He made Behrmann dust off his cleats and run routes.

“I was just doing whatever routes he wanted me to do and trying to emulate what an NFL player would look like, even though that’s pretty tough,” Behrmann said. “I was like, ‘Obviously, you’re going to be guarding a lot faster guys, a lot better guys.’”

But whatever they did worked, as Brade racked up 18 tackles in three preseason games.

Behrmann and the River Hill coaching staff were invested, but so were the players, who had gotten to know Brade. As roster cuts got closer, they all checked in with Behrmann to see how things were looking.

Then Brade showed up at River Hill during a film session. Some of the coaches went to talk to him in the hall, and as Behrmann recalls, they suddenly paused and said, “Wait, did you make the team?” His “Yep” was greeted with excitement, and they paused the meeting to tell the varsity team and then later the junior varsity team. The players went wild. They were the second group of people, behind Brade’s parents, to find out.

“It was like a movie,” Behrmann said. “That just kind of shows the impact he’s had on the community and on the coaches’ lives, and now his impact on young high school students’ lives and young football players’ lives.”

But it’s not just Brade’s NFL status that helps. Van Deusen said, as a duo, Behrmann and Brade are having an impact because they give the players someone closer in age to learn from and relate to. In an area where many kids don’t play tackle football until high school, it makes a big difference to be able to point to two guys who built a future in the sport and tell kids to emulate them.

Brade took a big step by making the 53-man roster as an undrafted player, but he has much to prove. He’s been inactive for the first five games and could be cut if the Ravens require roster flexibility at any point. Even if he establishes himself in the NFL, the average pro career lasts only a few seasons.

His evenings standing next to Behrmann at River Hill have given him a goal for the future. He can even see himself following in Behrmann’s footsteps.

“I was like, shoot whenever, you know, I retire, whatever, I’m gonna come out here and help you out,” Brade said. “I can be your defensive coordinator, whatever you need.”