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NEW PORT RICHEY - Gulf freshman Alton Voss is the Buccaneers' quarterback of the future.
He's not the quarterback this spring, though.
Voss was diagnosed with a broken right hand, his passing hand, late last week, said coach Keith Newton. Voss must wear a cast for 21 days and will miss spring practice, which ends with the Green and White intrasquad scrimmage May 19.
That means the baseball team will be without its starting outfielder for this week's Class 4A, District 10 tournamentand the football team will not have next season's projected starter taking a snap this spring.
"This will be a slight setback not to be able to get him in action to see what he's going to be able to do with our offense," Newton said. "But he'll recover, and it won't be too bad of a setback."
Voss told the coach he injured his hand in the dugout about two weeks ago.
"He struck out, got mad, went in the dugout and took it out on a wall," Newton said. "His hand started hurting him for the next few days. I didn't know he had a hard time gripping the ball until the baseball coach told me."
Then Voss told Newton he had trouble gripping a football, too.
"I told him "You better get that checked buddy,"' Newton said. "Sure enough, it was broken."
Voss already has been to one quarterback camp and will heal in time for another this summer.
"He knows from the first (camp) what he needs to work on," Newton said.
This spring Gulf will give Voss' reps to two prospects: sophomore Erik Greenleaf, a wide receiver/defensive back on the varsity team who has played quarterback in PAL, and freshman Cody Clem, who played in a handful of games while backing up Voss on the junior varsity last season.
Voss will have to do as much as he can this spring without being able to pick up a ball.
"He can go through some drills, he can do some footwork, make some pitches in the option with his left hand," Newton said. "We're going to see what he can do with drill work. But as soon as baseball is over with, he'll be out every day, so we can make sure he's learning what we're putting in."