2021 Football Season

This year 16 students from Highmore and another 16 students from Miller tried out for the football team. This football season has been a crazy year with wins and losses, lots of injuries, but overall, the growth of the team.

I interviewed the head coach Quinton Cermak and one of the assistant coaches Josh Haaland. First, I interviewed assistant coach Josh Haaland. Haaland says this year has been tough and that there has been a lot of ups and downs. Even with all these ups and downs the team has improved throughout the season. At the end of the day what we are trying to do is to improve the player. Everyday after school the football team practices. What they work on during practice vary throughout the week. On Monday they usually watch film and do a walkthrough, Tuesday is offense, Wednesday is defense, and Thursday is game prep. The game Coach Haaland was looking forward to was the first game. Haaland used to coach the kids on the other team so that was a fun game for him. He is also looking forward to the last game in Winner because it is always fun playing under the lights. There have been many injuries throughout the season. The injuries range from concussions, knee, ankles and shoulders. Haaland said at practice the boys usually have a playlist to pump them up. And at games the boys also came up with their own chant which the coaches had nothing to do with like “Shake and Bake.” Overall Haaland’s favorite thing about this whole football season is being with the boys and seeing them improve, but mainly creating relationships and getting to know all of them as well.

I also interviewed Head coach, Quinton Cermak. He says he feels glad about this football season because the boys had some success and won some games, but he thinks they all could have done more. A couple of the games they lost could have ended differently. Cermak says they have practice after school, and what they do depends on the day. Cermak looks forward to all the games. He was, and still is, excited about how he knows these boys will play every game. Cermak says there were a few injuries. Some injuries have prevented players from returning right away, but they work through them. During practice Cermak says that a lot of the boys on the team like to listen to different music. Cermak’s overall favorite thing about football this year is that he just enjoys being able to be with the guys and coach them all year.

In the end there were many ups and downs this 2021 Football season. Overall, we won 2 games this year and lost the other 6. We won the game against Jim River at Homecoming. And we also beat Lead/Deadwood. Sadly, this year we did not make it to playoffs. But in the end, it was a great season, and we are proud of our team.