This year’s Bowling Green Junior High school’s 8th-grade football team made it to the 3rd-round state finals and the 7th grade made it to the 2nd round. 

“Honestly I feel like the only reason why we didn’t win our last game is that we didn’t have all of our starting team,” said Jabyron King, a fellow member of the 8th-grade football team. 

The loss wasn’t the coach’s fault at all because they gave everything the players needed to win the state, but it was up to the players to retain that information and use it to their advantage. For instance, while watching a film about the opponents, coach Hayes said that the opposite team likes to run the ball to the right side and guard that side heavily as well.

So to prevent the other team from running the ball and scoring coach took time out of his day to make a bunch of plays and formations. None of the players thought he knew what he was talking about, and they thought they knew better. One day in practice the coach told the 8th-grade team that if we continue to not listen we would not make it much farther, and he was right. When the Purples lost the game, the coach said that he was proud of the team and that they will always be the BGJHS Purples. Once the coach finished with his speech some of the players started crying and those were the players that have a genuine love for the sport and the interactions with the players in the sport.

The athletes were sad that the season had ended, but now they must move on. The players will stay friends because they have played together for the past three years. They have developed deep friendships with each other and the coaches. Now that the season is over some of the players will play other sports while others will just chill. The next step will be spring training to be a high school Purples football player.