- 2011 Highlights 1
Personal Statement
“Football is like life, it requires
perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for
authority.”(Vince Lombardi) Football
has provided me with an avenue of knowledge that no teacher could teach in a
class room. Along the road to two state championships I learned a wealth of
knowledge that has taught me how to fight for what I love and how hard work can
pay off. When I was a freshman moving into
Burlington High School I went from a big fish in a small pond to a small fish
in a giant pond. I’ll be the first to admit that my athletic ability did not
come close to competing with my peers. After a season of sitting the bench on the “C”
team squad I decided that I wanted to dedicated my body and time into becoming
the go to running back for the Burlington Cougars. So with the guidance of my father, I enrolled
in Football University hoping that these professionals could give me an edge
over my competition. September came
around and the smell of football was in the air again, I started competing head
on with the ace senior back to the point where he began to feel threatened by
me. After weeks of hard work I had
earned myself a position as a sub-back. Although we were defeated in the
semi-finals I believed that our chance to win a state championship was in the
next coming year. During the offseason I
knew I was still not at the level I needed to be at, so I continued to critique
every regimen of my position. With the 2010 season beginning it brought a lot
of hype about how stout the cougars looked this year, they were right! With a
single lose the whole season our team went on to win the 1A State Championship
against the undefeated Wray Eagles. Holding the gold ball over my head brought
me back to a time as a child dreaming that one day I would be a starting
running back for a State Championship team, my dream had come true. The coming year we had 16 returning seniors
and a State Championship under our belt, which meant the target, was on our
backs now we were no longer the underdogs, this meant I only had to take my
game to a whole other level. I immediately started training again and returning
to Football University during the summer. After three days of competing with
the best in Colorado, I received a phone call, on the other end of the line was
an FBU representative informing me that they would like for me to fly to
Virginia to compete in The U.S. Army Top Gun camp, I did not hesitate. The camp brought upon three days of 110 degree
weather, testing the will of any ball player. What I retained from the camp was
not the technical aspect of the camp but that I need to take this level of
competition back to my own team. So when the season came back around I pushed
my brothers to be the best that they could possibly be. Every day of the season
I would encourage my teammates to take twenty minutes after practice and work
on minor low points in their skills like I had been doing since I began playing
for the cougars. Although I was not voted a captain both my offensive
coordinator and my head coach had told me that the offense works because of me
and how I never give up. All season I was determined to be the difference maker
on the offensive and defensive side of the ball but also dependable to my
teammates when the ball was in my hands, I made all these goals a reality by
only having a single fumble all season, the leading rusher with 19 touchdowns
and voted the number one All-State Defensive Back. Our team lived every day of the season with
one motto in mind “Won’t Be Beat” and we did just that, we went on to have a
perfect season which hadn’t been done in more than ten years at Burlington High
School. In our coaches twenty-one years of coaching at Burlington we became his
number one defensive team allowing only 7.3 points per game and the number
three offensive team with over 400 yards per game. Football has altered my life
in such a way that I believe I am a better man because of the impact it has
made on my life.
