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Last season, as a co-captain on Avon Grove's first-ever varsity football team, Rule excelled at both linebacker and running back. He was voted by the coaches in the Southern Chester County League as a first team all-star selection at both positions.
Honors did not stop there. Rule was voted Team Most Valuable Player and Avon Grove High School's Fall Sports Outstanding Senior Athlete.
Rule scored the first touchdown in the history of Avon Grove High football last September against Caravel Academy of Delaware. In that game, a 49-12 Red Devils victory, Rule rushed for 196 yards on just nine carries and scored three touchdowns. For good measure he tacked on nine tackles.
Along with scoring the first varsity touchdown, as well as the first junior varsity touchdown, Rule will now go down in the history books as the first player from Avon Grove High to accept a scholarship in the sport of football.
"Steve has paved the way for our football program," said Avon Grove assistant coach Bill Stolle. "As a first-year team, I don't know how much [college scouts] looked at Avon Grove. They probably figured they weren't going to find much here.
"Well, Steve stood out and he caused other college scouts and programs to notice us. I think now they'll be back to look at Avon Grove. So, that is very good news for some of our other players."
Rule, an honor student, plans to study sports management at California University of Pennsylvania. He decided on the school over such choices as Kutztown, Millersville, East Stroudsburg and Connecticut. The coaching staff at Cal had a lot to do with his decision of picking Cal over the 14 schools in all that recruited him.
"I liked the coaches a lot," Rule said. "I liked the whole environment there, it wasn't too big and it wasn't too small. It was a run away choice to go to Cal.
"It doesn't really matter to me what position I play. I just want to get in the game and have fun. I'm happy that I have the chance to go on."
Ironically, Rule might not of had the chance to play football at college if he would've been born a year earlier. If that were the case, he never would have had the opportunity to play high school varsity football, at least not at Avon Grove.
"I'm glad that we finally got football started here," said Rule. "It means a lot [to be the first football player at Avon Grove to accept a scholarship]. Hopefully there's a lot more kids to follow and the school will start getting noticed more."
In many ways, Rule was the backbone of Avon Grove last season.
"Steve was a pleasure to coach. He brought a lot of leadership to the team," said Stolle. "It was good to have somebody in there that acted as an anchor for those younger guys.
"He was a hard hitter on defense, and a hard hitter on offense, too. When he was about to be tackled he punished that player. It was something that was really fun to watch."
