The Whole Nine Yards: Hillcrest’s Football Playoff Goal

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Taylor Winbush, Guest Writer
November 2, 2016

For the past six years, the Varsity football team had been struggling with togetherness. It was a long road of hard work and dedication that got them to where they are now. Prior to this football season, they had only won four games for three consecutive years. After the season last year, they made it a priority to be the best team they could possibly be starting with the off-season.

Outside Linebacker Jaylen Jenkins believes that “the entire football team has grown primarily because of the fact that we all are held accountable for our actions.” Before Coach Cole showed up, not all players seemed to really care about football and just showed up to practice with the intentions to do whatever they wanted. But when Coach Cole showed up, he let it be known that he did not come to play. If one team member messes up, they all mess up.

Coach Cole along with other members of the coaching staff that attended Hillcrest and had successful football seasons teach the most valuable lesson of life: to never give up no matter the circumstance.

Seeing how the Varsity team over the past 3-4 years were okay with being 0-9 made the coaches and students want to work together and turn the program around. Freshman year they wear a team of people who didn’t know each other. When they came home with their first win, they knew they were meant to be a family and could do something miraculous in this program. Being told by their freshman coach that they could do big things in the Hillcrest Football program motivated them to work even harder to continue to be great and make history.

“Well, ever since freshman year, our coaches have told us that we will be the team (Class of 2017) to turn Hillcrest football around. After the season last year, we made it a priority to be the best team we could possibly be which started with the off-season dedicating ourselves to the weight room every day,” says Center and Nose Guard, Ezenna CMadu. “Once the season came around we trusted that our coaching staff was going to put us in the best position to win. It was up to us to execute.”

The seniors on this team have been in this position before. It is the responsibility of the seniors to train up the juniors to step up and take on the role of being leaders and keeping up the great work to succeed next season as well.