When David Chase joined the Starpoint High School football team in 2024, he immediately had pressure on him.
It started before he took a snap on the varsity team, but that is what happens when your older brother is one of the best quarterbacks in program history, Aaron Chase.
As a senior at Starpoint in 2018, Aaron threw for a program-record 3,048 yards and 36 touchdowns. He started his college football career at the University at Buffalo before transferring to St. John Fisher, where he threw for 2,978 yards with 27 touchdowns and 19 interceptions in two seasons.
Now, Aaron is back at Starpoint as the team’s quarterbacks coach helping his younger brother try to follow in his footsteps.
Since then, David has thrown for 1,839 yards, 20 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. This season David has completed 60% of his passes for 805 yards, with nine touchdowns and six interceptions.
“There’s much to learn from them because they had such success at Starpoint,” David said. “It’s outside of football too. They teach me lessons that I really benefit from and they really help me learn from my mistakes and grow as a person on and off the field.”
The coaching part of the relationship started last year when Starpoint head coach Jay Baumann asked Aaron to come back and take in some games on the sidelines. Aaron missed the sport after a year away, and when the NBT Bank employee found out his brother was playing quarterback, it gave him an extra push to join the coaching staff as a quarterbacks coach.
The decision to join the staff was an easy one for Aaron, who was relishing the opportunity to make memories with his brother on the field and help his brother have success. The former quarterback makes an 80-minute drive from Rochester to Pendleton twice per week.
David has gotten a front-row seat to watch Aaron coach and see what he does well in the role. He has gotten to see a coaching style which Aaron describes as “chill.”
Aaron added that while he does have more of a laid-back style of coaching, he is not afraid to get after his brother when that is needed.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Aaron said about what it’s like coaching his brother. “We already have that camaraderie. We already have that chemistry together, just being brothers. He’s super easy to talk to. He’s easy to coach, you only have to tell him one thing, one time. … He listens, makes great eye contact with you when you’re trying to coach him up. He’s a hard worker. He wants to get better each and every practice, each and every week. So It’s definitely a lot of fun.”
David watched his brother star for Starpoint — where Aaron broke every school passing record, finishing with 2,251 career yards and 66 career touchdowns — and St. John Fisher and it has left a mark on him. When David thinks back on that time the first thing that comes to his mind is all of the success that Aaron had.
One of the fondest memories that Aaron has of his family coming to watch him at St. John Fisher is tossing a football around on the field with David after games until it was time to leave.
“The first thing I think of is just his success,” David said. “He did very well all three, four years he was on varsity (at Starpoint). Obviously he broke a lot of records at Starpoint and he’s a great football player, that’s why he went to college for it. He’s really great to learn from and kind of be my mentor in that aspect.”
When Aaron was rewriting the offensive record books at Starpoint, his offensive coordinator was Baumann, who left and came back and was named the new head coach in 2025. As a result, he is one person who has seen both brothers play and how they navigate being the leader of the program.
He has seen David lead the team to a 9-5 record and a Chuck Funke Bowl victory. Over the years as he has gone from offensive coordinator to head coach, Baumann’s playbook has become more advanced than it was when Aaron was playing but the coach says the foundation of it is the same.
“(Aaron) was more of a coach on the field and he understood everything was asked and he demanded things from teammates and the teammates responded,” Baumann said. “…. Dave has no problem taking a back seat if other guys get a shine and he has no problem handing the ball off 40 times a game as long as it ends up in a win. … Hopefully his legend can kind of grow like his brothers did with how he finishes this season.”
The coach-player dynamic takes on a different look with them. And now in the two years they have been together, the two have grown close despite an eight-year age gap.
“We really grew as brothers,” David said. “We brought each other closer and spent many days together. Since he lives an hour away, it’s been kind of difficult to see him but … I’ve definitely valued my time with him over the past couple of years that he’s been coaching.”