08/26/2026
Way to go, Lavin McDaniel! Athlete, scholar, and incredible Viking. Thank you, Get The Coast and Okaloosa Gas!
WE ARE VIKINGS. 💙🤘🏻❤️
ATHLETE OF THE WEEK: Lavin McDaniel used to walk over to his grandfather’s house every morning before school. Breakfast would be ready, his phone would quickly disappear, and the two of them would just sit and talk.
“He never missed a day,” McDaniel said. “Every single day I would walk over to his house and he would just be there.”
His grandfather has since passed away, but McDaniel hasn’t let the tradition go. Every Friday morning before school, he now eats breakfast with his grandmother.
“You don’t have them forever, and once they’re gone you’ll really miss them,” McDaniel said. “I’m just glad we were able to share those moments, and now I’m able to continue with my grandma.”
That sense of connection (and rooted tradition) runs through everything about McDaniel, a junior quarterback at Fort Walton Beach High School who quite literally grew up on campus and inside the program he now helps lead.
His mother, Holly McDaniel, is the school’s athletic director and became the first female high school athletic director in Okaloosa County history when she was named to the position in 2020. She was a star basketball player at Fort Walton Beach High before returning as a coach and building the Lady Vikings into one of the area’s most successful programs.
His father, Brian McDaniel, is a social studies teacher at the school and serves on both the football and baseball coaching staffs. Lavin has been around the school and its teams for as long as he can remember.
“I’ve always been around the high school, and I’ve always seen the tradition that is carried through good and bad times,” McDaniel said. “I’ve been wanting to be where I’m at right now since I was a little kid. I have wanted to be the quarterback and the shortstop for Fort Walton Beach High School since I was little.”
On Friday night, he got to start the season exactly as that.
He connected with receiver Cannon Wilbur for two touchdowns as the Vikings routed Pensacola 41-6 at Steve Riggs Stadium, triggering a running clock by the middle of the third quarter. The backfield rushed for over 200 yards, and the win marked Fort Walton Beach’s first season-opening victory since 2020.
Full story: https://getthecoast.com/athlete-of-the-week-fort-walton-beachs-lavin-mcdaniel/
