Standing in line at a local supermarket late last fall, Chad Chalich and his mom, Connie, listened to the guys talking in line in front of them.

A little earlier that fall, Chalich had helped Coeur d'Alene High win its first state football title since 1985, and the Viking quarterback was also named the state 5A player of the year.

"This one guy goes, 'Coeur d'Alene High, oh my god, they won state and that Chad Chalich, oh my god, what an incredible quarterback," Connie recalled.

"And Chad smiles at them. He looks at me and smiles at the guy. He didn't say 'I'm Chad Chalich,' or anything ... Chad is so humble. He's almost too humble."

Perhaps because his actions on the football field do plenty of talking for him.

Since Chalich, a 6-foot-1, 185-pound senior, became starting quarterback at the beginning of his junior season, Coeur d'Alene is 16-1, with a state title last season, and a 5-0 start this season and ranked No. 1 in Idaho in 5A, looking for a repeat state title.

"To me, I just feel like he's always had a gift," said his father, Mark, who has been a teacher and coach for some 25 years. "He's had a passion for football. He's always been a winner all his life."

LAST YEAR, Chalich passed for 2,844 yards and 32 touchdowns with 10 interceptions, and rushed for 541 yards and six TDs. This year, despite sitting out the equivalent of at least one game due to blowouts, Chalich has passed for 1,444 yards and 17 touchdowns with one interception, and rushed for 258 yards and eight scores. He's completing 81.1 percent of his passes this season and, according to MaxPreps.com, has a quarterback rating of 153.

"I've been watching him since fifth grade, and I've known he's been a good quarterback since that time," Coeur d'Alene High football coach Shawn Amos said. "The game is real important to him. He has the talent level, but he also has the work ethic, is why he's having the success he's had."

Chalich has been a quarterback since flag football in the third grade, when coaches moved him there from receiver. In junior tackle, he quarterbacked the Redskins to three championships in four seasons. He played on an undefeated Viking freshman team and, quarterbacking the Coeur d'Alene junior varsity as a sophomore, lost only once. On the varsity, Chalich and the Vikings are on a 14-game winning streak heading into Friday's game vs. Moscow.

"He's been on track for this for a long time," said Amos, in his 15th season as Vikings coach. "He's done all the steps the right way. He's a good student, he's a good kid. It's been important to him for a long time. And he's reaping the benefits because he's done things the right way."

Chalich has been being groomed to play quarterback at Coeur d'Alene High since he started playing junior tackle in the fifth grade. Amos has known of him for years, as they live only a few houses from each other.

"We always practiced on this field after the varsity, so I always used to watch all the quarterbacks, like J.J. Turbin, run the offense," Chalich said of his junior tackle days. "I always dreamed of being a quarterback - like when I was younger, going out and seeing all the (Viking) games under the lights and imagining myself being in that position, and now I'm finally here ... "

CHALICH BROKE seven school records last year, and this year has set four school career records - total offense (5,087 yards), passing attempts (469), passing touchdowns (49) and passing yards (4,288). He has 312 career completions, needing two more for that career mark.

"He and my son Gunnar (a sophomore who is slated to be the varsity quarterback next season) grew up in the same neighborhood," Amos said. "It was pretty obvious he was the best guy (in his class) from the onset. ... It's kind of the ideal situation, you hope, as a coach. ... It just worked out like we saw it coming."

Amos put in the spread offense last year, partly because of Chalich's throwing and running ability, partly because this group of Vikings includes several speedy, receiver types.

"He has bad moments, but he has not strung together many bad plays in a row," Amos said. "He has great numbers, but he's not perfect. He'll make his mistakes. It helps that he has so many good guys around him."

During basketball season, Chalich is an undersized post, because he loves the physical play - something you might not expect from someone who plays quarterback in the fall. That explains why he doesn't mind running with the football if that option is available.

"The most impressive thing is, he's a worker," Amos said. "He shows up every day, no matter how many stories are written about him, and how many accolades he gets, he wants to keep getting better."

IN LATE May and in June, Chalich threw passes pretty much all over the Northwest. He threw at a camp at Oregon State. He threw at former Washington State quarterback (and current University of Idaho assistant) Jason Gesser's camp at Skyline High in Sammamish, Wash. He threw at a Nike camp in Eugene. He threw for coaches at Nevada and at Boise State, winning a quarterback challenge at BSU put on by a Bronco assistant coach.

He visited with coaches from Idaho State and Utah State, then threw at a camp at the University of Utah.

After he got back home, he threw for a half day at Idaho and a half day at WSU.

All of them, as well as Montana and Eastern Washington, have shown interest. None have offered a scholarship yet, though Boise State has invited him to walk on.

The "knock," apparently, is that colleges ideally are looking for QBs who are taller than Chalich's 6-1 - the better to throw over defensive linemen.

Amos shakes his head at the height thing, saying colleges have to have some criteria like that to narrow down recruits. What does he say to schools to sell them on his QB?

"I say watch the film ... he sells himself," Amos said. "If you watch him play, he sells himself."

Mark Chalich, who played at Central Valley High in Spokane, then played football and basketball at Montana Western in Dillon, is 6-foot-6.

"We sat down with Kellen Moore (the record-setting Boise State quarterback, who is listed at 6-foot), and he looks Chad right in the eyeballs," Mark said. "I think Chad's going to grow some more. When I was in college I grew another inch, so I don't think he's done growing."

Chad, a 3.5 student who is considering being either a physical therapist or an engineer when his football days are over, and mentions Tim Tebow as a role model because of his work ethic, said he takes all the recruiting talk in stride. He said if he could choose where he'd like to play, he'd pick either Nevada (he liked the Reno campus) or Utah (for the chance to play in the Pac-12 - plus, his girlfriend moved back to Salt Lake City following high school, and plans to attend the U).

"I'm not really worried about it," Chalich said of the recruiting process. "You only experience your senior year, playing high school football under the lights once, so I'm just going to enjoy that, because I don't want to let these guys down, because I've been playing with them for a long time."