Fourth down, 16 yards to go. Our linemen are set and ready, receivers ready to race down field. Quarterback, Jack Reuter, ‘23, obtains the snap and scans the field for receivers. With no receivers open, he runs for it, the linemen securing his route. From the 40 yard line to the 20 all the way to the end zone, it’s good for a WHHS touchdown.
From late night games to early morning workouts, the WHHS football team is the closest they have ever been. Their unwavering trust for each other is showing on and off the field. What is different from past years that is causing this change?
According to Mao Glynn, ‘21, “Leadership… it’s more of a leadership than a dictatorship kind of thing,” Glynn said, “I think it’s more like everyone does everything or everyone does the right thing because they want to see each other do better, we push each other to do better. And we want to be good.”
It is one thing to just run plays but it’s another thing to want to be there with people that have your back. A coach cannot teach how to form bonds or how to support one another; that comes when you respect your teammates.
Gerry Beuchamp, varsity head coach, has been at WHHS for three years now and has played a large part in this shift of attitude.
“Change can be really hard, so it is taking a lot of time to make those changes because bad habits are hard to break.” Beauchamp said. He has a phrase, “the gold standard,” which is the idea of a perfect WHHS student, which actual students came up with at Camp Higher Ground (a camp that players and coaches went to together). They have a poster up in the locker room as a reminder of the ten things that go with being a “gold standard” student: academic excellence, treating people with respect, putting the team above oneself, coachability, dependability, accountability, mentorship, loyalty, passion, and grit.
When asked about the gold standard Hank Perry, ‘21, said “we all keep each other to that standard and that’s been a big help. It made us closer to our coaches, we kind of realized that they just want what’s best for us and then that makes us work harder.”
The bond doesn’t just include leadership and pushing each other to do better. They have been building a bond that is unstoppable. The team is more than just teammates, they are a family from the off season to fourth down.
