Team of the Week

Did you know that Sedgwick did not even get in the Kansas Pregame magazine? Now that may have been the coaches choice or maybe the guys trying to catch Coach Jeff Werner for an interview did not try hard enough because they thought 'Where the heck is Sedgwick and they won't get out of district play anyway?'

The Sedgwick Cardinals must have felt like they were backed up against the wall in the corner and getting ready to face a tough test this year. So now we see they have come together as a team and came out of that corner of the room with a purpose. It has been a great run so far Cardinals don't stop now! Keep shocking the state and for that you have won the 'Kansas Team of the Week' award. Go Cards!

My first thought was are you sure about that 13 years thing? I was just dumbfounded. You know sometimes it is hard to believe what some schools go through when they get caught in that losing streak thing. Whether the actually streak is correct or not is not the point. The point is that some of the kids that go to Bluestem want to play football and continue to represent the Lions of Leon. Talk about some tough kids. Maybe the kids of Bluestem High are better prepared to meet life head on after high school than the teams that win all the time. The teams that win all the time may not know what to do when life knocks the wind right out of you. The teams like Leon know what to do, you get up and keep fighting hoping that something good will happen to you and your teammates.

Lions of Bluestem High School I don't know how you do it but my chest swells with pride and the tears run down my face as I think of you guys. Keep it up Lions because the state of Kansas is proud of you guys and for that you have won another honor tonight the 'Kansas Team of the Week' award!

My freshman year in high school I was in Scott City as a Beaver but I watched the newspaper stories as those Syracuse Bulldogs went undefeated. My Bulldog friends were playing great football and I wasn't there to help them or participate with them. Oh they did not need me they were great at football.

Every Friday night I look for the score of the Syracuse Bulldogs and more times than not the Bulldogs go down to defeat. Last Friday night though Syracuse defeated Satanta breaking a 13 game losing streak. There must have been some serious excitement in Syracuse during and after the game. Hopefully this will be the beginning of something for the Bulldogs. The schedule doesn't get any easier but it is good for every team to win a game.

My suggestion would be to bring every young kid in town to some practices and let them watch and during breaks let them intermingle with the team. It is a powerful motivator to grow up and want to play high school football. For breaking the 13 game losing streak this week the Syracuse Bulldogs are named as the 'Kansas Team of the Week'. Go Dogs!

How about when the Cats had 4 straight penalties and the offense was backed up against their own goal line? How many of you believed the Cats would win then? How about at the end of the game when Miami had first and goal from the 2 yard line? Did you still think the Cats would win or were you a doubting Thomas. There is a learning lesson here for all football players at all levels, the K-State Wildcats believed in themselves, their coaches and more importantly in each other and then they never gave up! They kept fighting hoping something good would happen.

Did you hear that those Plainville Cardinals defeated the Smith Center Redmen last Friday night? I believe it has been 17 years since Plainville has defeated the Redmen. During the first round of the playoffs in 2007 Smith Center defeated Plainville 83-0 but the Redmen scored 72 points in the first quarter of the game. Smith Center had defeated Plainville earlier in the season 72-0 also. In 2008 Smith Center won 63-6, in 2009 Smith Center won 59-0 and 54-0, in 2010 Smith Center won 40-6. Are you starting to get a feel for why the Cardinals are a real surprise this season.

Last week I read a story about the Plainville Cardinals that quoted Coach Simon who showed up for the 2009 season in Plainville. His quote was something like, "We weren't very strong in Plainville when I got here. We had one kid that could hang clean 185 pounds back then. Now we have 5 players that can hang clean more than 300 pounds. We have gone from boys playing football to men."

What have all of us learned about football this week? We have learned that to play the game of football it begins in the mind, you must buy in to what the coach is telling you. You must buy the Kool-aid the coach is selling. The Kool-aid is get in the weight room. That doesn't mean to just visit the weight room that means to really work hard once you get there.  We learned that from the Plainville Cardinals. The second thing we learned from the K-State Wildcats is to never give up, keeping fighting and hoping something good will happen. So for the lesson these two teams have taught us both teams are being named 'Kansas Team of the Week' Go Cards and Go Cats!

This coming Friday night Plainville must travel to the 'Pasture of Pain' in Smith Center. Remember the book 'Our Boys' written about Smith Center football? Plainville was the team Smith Center ran up the score 72-0 in the first quarter which caught the attention of the New York Times who sent a reporter to write a story about Smith Center football. Eventually the reporter did an entire book on the Redmen. Well I don't know how the Plainville Cardinals will do Friday night against SC but I tell you what, the Cardinals have already broke out of the box of defeat that they had been living in for the past umpteen years! For that we think they need a great big old pat on the back and congratulated with the 'Kansas Team of the Week' award.

Last year longtime football coach Bud Peterson, who has been coaching for 37 years, came out of retirement to lead the Herington Railers. This week Coach Peterson fell ill and was hospitalized and transferred to Wichita during the week. His team went to West Franklin without him. Herington was trailing at half-time 10-0 when the team received word that their coach had passed on to the other side. Well the Railers dedicated the rest of the game to their fallen coach and played inspired football in the second half and won the game 21-10. Coach Peterson got to watch the second half guys and you can bet he was proud of you and for that we are making the Railers the kansasprepfootball.com  'Kansas Team of the Week'.

Who should be the team of the week?

     Each week somewhere in the state of Kansas some team decides to break the mold from the past and forgetting the past they step out to make their own history. Most of the time this making of their own history begins well before the season begins. It starts in the mind of one or several individuals from the team. They decide they will work at this game of football in the off season and get better one day at a time. Their enthusiasm is contagious and begins to affect the team in a positive way.