The football team will compete against Dallas Jesuit in the newly named “Brian Brazil Stadium” on Aug. 25 at 7:30 p.m.
“I expect this season to go a whole lot better than it did last year because we’ve had an offseason to plan [and] we have some kids who are going in the [right] direction,” head coach John Towels said. “We expect to see a better product on the field. We hope that turns into more wins.”
This game is memorializing two former members of the football team. Former head coach Brian Brazil, the football team’s head coach from 1999 – 2022, who passed away from cancer in July and will have the stadium officially dedicated in his name at the Homecoming game on Sept. 29. The game is also dedicated to JJ Hatcher, a sophomore on last year’s football team, who passed away in December 2023.
“To me, [commemorating JJ] is a really big thing,” co-captain and wide receiver Hudson Brock. “We’re going to go out and play the game dedicated to him.”
At the start of last season, the team played Dallas Jesuit and lost 38-7. With that being Towels’ first game as the head coach, he said he has been leading the team to fix the mistakes that were made at that game.
“I don’t think it was the plays that got us beat last year, it was preparation,” Towels said. “I told the kids last year they weren’t prepared for how I prepare, so I over-prepared them [which made them] tired for that game. [That’s why] we made too many mistakes. This year’s team is prepared; they’ve been grinding, working hard through the off-season and through summer, so that there won’t be an issue on Friday.”
After finishing last season with a 5-5 record, co-captain and tight end Jesse McElroy said he wants to show everyone what the team is made of and what they can do.
“[Seeing people not believe in the team] makes me a little disappointed because it is our school,” McElroy said. “It’s like we’re letting the school down, but we all work hard. We’ve been going through some struggles this past couple of years with one of our players passing away and coaching changes, but I feel like this year we have a way better mindset. I feel like we could prove everybody wrong.”
At the end of last season, the team did not make it to the playoffs. This year, Towels said he is preparing by perfecting plays and building off the losses from last year.
“[The team] is going to have to dig deep inside of themselves to come together, fight together and work hard through each game because every game is different,” Towels said. “[They’re] going to go through some type of conflict [or] obstacle that they have to overcome together. It’s never an easy thing; they just have to be prepared for everything and go back to [their] training and do what [they have] been coached to do.”
