Robert Crompton/Cronkite News

Perry High School alum Brock Purdy was named Gatorade’s Football Player of the Year after his 2017 season.

“Mr. Irrelevant.” That’s the dubious nickname given to the last player selected each year in the NFL draft. The San Francisco 49ers selected Brock Purdy with the very last pick in 2022.

But against the odds, the Queen Creek native will be the first Arizona-born quarterback to start in the big game when the 49ers take on the Kansas City Chiefs at Super Bowl LVIII.

Purdy played football for Perry High School in Gilbert from 2015 to 2018. Jennifer Burks is the school’s athletic director.

“At Perry he was amazing on the field, but then also amazing in the classroom and amazing in the community,” she said. “And, everybody just loved him to death. When you see how kind he is and how he appears and all the great things that he has to say, that’s him, that’s genuine, and that’s the way he’s been since high school, and probably before high school.”

“Teachers are making T-shirts, we’re having kind of like a Brock Purdy week, that’s all we can talk about,” Burks added.

But not all Arizonans will be rooting for the home-grown star. After all, the 49ers are NFC West rivals with the Arizona Cardinals.

When personal-injury law firm Lerner and Rowe put up a billboard saying, “Let’s go, Brock Purdy,” critics responded on social media, with one calling it “blasphemy” and another asking, “What’s wrong with Arizona?”

The Super Bowl will be played in Las Vegas on Feb. 11.