Liam Szarka’s growing list of achievements has become the surprise of Air Force’s season.

His run of five consecutive 100-yard rushing games is a program record for a quarterback, topping Beau Morgan’s four. His is the longest active streak in college football.

Szarka’s three consecutive games with 200 passing yards/100 rushing yards trails only the four from Louisville’s Lamar Jackson as the longest in NCAA football since 1996.

The sophomore’s pace through seven games (despite coming off the bench and splitting time for the first three games) has him on track for 3,057 yards of total offense (1,814 passing, 1,242 rushing) and 29 touchdowns in 12 games. For a frame of reference, Army’s Bryson Daily finished sixth in Heisman Trophy voting last season after accumulating 2,666 yards (1,659 rushing, 1,007 passing) with 41 touchdowns over 13 games.

Still, this hasn’t been a revelation to everyone.

“We are absolutely, 100 percent not surprised at Grandview High School,” coach Tom Doherty said from his Aurora school about an hour north of the academy. “We’re like, ‘Yeah, what took them so long?’”

Doherty had already witnessed Szarka make a similarly stunning ascension as a sophomore in high school, where the blonde, curly haired kid “was everything you look for in a leader and a quarterback, and he just took the school by storm.”

But what’s more, Doherty knew the high-achieving family that produced three college athletes before Liam.

“They kind of exude winning,” Doherty said of the family of six, “and exude a sense of living life to its fullest.”

Support from ‘behind the scenes’

There was no “magic bullet” in the parenting strategies for Chris and Dr. Ken Szarka, but there was plenty of intentionality.

“We tried to create an environment where they could believe in themselves,” Chris said. “We emphasized their accountability and communication.

“And we’re super competitive.”

It’s become a joke in the family that when they play pickle ball the players on adjoining courts often quit playing and just watch them spar.

Ken works as a chiropractor in private practice and held a role with the Colorado Mammoth lacrosse team in Denver for roughly 10 years.

His professional bio notes his “passion for optimum healthcare and the body’s intelligence and natural ability to foster its own healing drives him to stay involved in current health issues.”

Ken played five years of college football as a slot receiver in his native Canada and logged a pair of training camps with the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League.

In addition to passing down his athletic ability, Ken imparted on his children strategies to handle their own physical recovery.

“They look after their bodies well,” Ken said. “They know when to ask to be treated and why.”

Chris, a behavioral therapist who earned a black belt in karate, was careful not to cross that line of counseling her family. However, her professional training and experience allowed her to frame issues in philosophical terms – What do you really want as opposed to what might look good on social media – to help Liam and his siblings identify and pursue their priorities.

Four children are the product of this Aurora household. David, who played rugby at Northern Colorado and now works for the Drug Enforcement Administration in New Mexico. Sydney was on the acrobatics & tumbling team at Oregon and is now an ultrasound technician in the Denver area. Morgan played soccer at Creighton and now does marketing for a law firm in the Denver area.

Liam is a business major at Air Force and is considering flying.

Ken and Chris have lived in the same area while raising their family, creating a stable village. That village is so large that about 30 friends came to Air Force’s most recent game against Wyoming.

“We feel a little bad sometimes because we’d like to break into some of the other (Air Force) parent groups,” said Chris of the good problem of being pulled in too many directions in a crowd of supporters.

Ken and Chris have owned several businesses inside and out of their career fields, allowing their children to witness the highs and lows that come with entrepreneurship. And when their children dealt with their own adversity, the parents insisted they handle it on their own.  

“We never went to the coaches on their behalf,” Chris said. “We always encouraged, but if (Liam) wanted to get somewhere, he was going to have to do it on his own. We were going to support him from behind the scenes, but certainly not up front.”

The support also comes from his siblings. Earlier this season Liam reached out to one of his sisters and asked that she take down a social media spat that stemmed from her defending him from negative comments.

The Szarkas will compete like crazy with each other, but woe to the outsider who takes a shot at one of their own.

The resulting confidence and steadiness from that can be seen on the field for Air Force.

“Just the poise,” coach Troy Calhoun said of Szarka. “How well he communicates. He just doesn’t get nervous. Everybody’s going to make mistakes, we all do, but the ability to go forward and move on from it, I love it. I want guys who are that way. It’s one of the lessons you want them to take forward into life, too.”

‘The most relaxed and chill’

Doherty has a few stories about Szarka he likes to tell.

There was the time Grandview trailed Regis Jesuit by 10 points with 10 minutes remaining in the playoffs during Szakra’s senior year.

“I remember walking down to the offensive huddle,” Doherty said. “Liam just said, ‘We got this coach.’ That’s kind of one of those fairytale stories, but those were the facts. It was the truth. And he willed us to a win. It was unbelievable.”

There was also a meeting in Doherty’s office prior to Szarka’s sophomore season. Doherty had been hired during the previous offseason and watched Szarka compete with a senior for the starting quarterback role. It became evident in the final scrimmage that Szarka had won the job, so Doherty called him in the following Monday.

“I’m all ready for an emotional thing,” Doherty said. “I’m like, ‘Liam, I just want to let you know you earned the right to be the starting quarterback here at Grandview High School.’

“He sat across from me and said, ‘Cool. Can I have a pass to class so I’m not late?’

“It’s almost like he knew it was supposed to be that way and he’s all business and he had to go to class, so off he went.”

Under Calhoun’s media policies, that permit only juniors and seniors to speak with media, Szarka was not not available for this story.

His parents say Liam is a young man of few words, tracing that perhaps to the fact that it was hard to get a word in with talkative sisters.

“Liam’s probably the most chill of everybody,” Szarka’s mother said. “The rest of us are all probably A-type personalities. He’s probably the most relaxed and chill, but he’s probably the most competitive of all of us. For sure.”

The competitiveness can be seen when Szarka runs the ball. The past three games have seen him carry 25, 27 and 26 times – often at the heart of the defense – as Szarka has taken the lead in rushing in the Mountain West and ranks ninth nationally.

“He’s one of those quarterbacks that will just drop his shoulder to get those extra three yards, which is so inspiring for an offensive line,” Air Force left tackle Trevor Tate said. “It means a lot to us. It makes us want to work harder for him and do a better job.”

Szarka’s parents, with their focus on holistic health, would prefer to see his 5-foot-11, 190-pound frame take maybe half the number of hits.

“I do find it hard,” Ken said. “Even though I played the game and I remember all the hits and I loved to be physical while I was playing. Now it’s a little more difficult to watch your kids take that kind of punishment. … If you asked him, he wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. He’s 20 years old. I’m sure he’s feeling pretty bullet proof at the moment.”

‘We will throw the ball’

When Liam was leaving an official visit to Air Force, Calhoun left a final thought with the high school quarterback and his father.

Perhaps sensing the offensive style didn’t excite Liam, who had thrown for 6,685 yards and 60 touchdowns at Grandview, Calhoun told them, “Don’t worry about throwing the ball. If we get you, we will throw the ball.”

Sure enough, in Szarka’s first season at quarterack the program is on track to smash its previous team mark for passing since adopting an option-based offense in 1980.

It’s what Szarka’s high school coach envisioned all along.

“It completely flabbergasted us why he didn’t have more offers,” Doherty said. “He’s fast. He’s got school records in the weight room. He’s got school records on the football field. He was 4.0 (as a student). But I guess he wasn’t tall enough, or that’s what colleges said.

“He could throw the deep out on the other hash. He made all the throws.”

Szarka’s offers mostly came from FCS programs, including multiple Ivy League schools. His parents assumed Penn was the frontrunner, but during a recruiting visit to Harvard his mother shocked them by saying he was going to commit to Air Force.

That was the last time anyone was shocked.

Once Ken saw Liam direct the ball for a few series early this season he knew he was going to be able to thrive at the college level.

“Liam played like this in high school as well,” Chris said. “I think some people are surprised to see him playing like this, but he’s not playing any different than he did in high school or any other year.”

The military aspect is new to the family, which has no background in that area. Chris, surely like many service academy parents, has ongoing concern about Liam’s future and active-duty commitment.

“I support him in what he wants,” she said, “but it’s a different world.”

Because cadets can leave without penalty until the beginning of their junior year, Szarka will have to make a decision following this year. Beginning a junior year triggers a commitment to graduate and serve five years of active duty, though exceptions are available to athletes with viable opportunities in professional sports.

Szarka has presumably played well enough to have options should he opt to shop his services in the transfer portal.

The only area that has been lacking thus far in Szarka’s sophomore year has been the team success. The Falcons (2-5) suffered through a five-game losing streak – including three-point losses at UNLV and Navy – as they gave up an average of 45.4 points during that span.

Air Force hosts Army (3-4) at 10 a.m. Saturday on CBS.

The offense has certainly done its part behind the quarterback who also excelled in lacrosse in high school and was a state qualifier the one year he ran track.

Szarka has been exactly what his high school coach in suburban Denver always knew him to be.

“He kind of checked every box,” Doherty said. “All his teachers loved him. All his teammates loved him. All those teammates were kind of afraid of him, because if he got after them it was for a real reason.

“He’s just got winning DNA. Some people have it, some people don’t. Everything he did, he just held himself to a high standard and he lived up to that standard and brought people along with him. It was great when your unquestioned leader is your best athlete and your toughest kid all wrapped up into one.”

It all started from parents who poured their own expertise and experience into the family’s foundation.

“Be the player the coach can’t take off the field,” Ken Szarka would tell his athletic children, referring not only to physical abilities but also leadership qualities and all the other positive traits that can help a team.

So, when Air Force finally decided it couldn’t take Liam off the field everything took off from there, well…

“It didn’t really surprise us,” Ken said.