Matthew Hawkins diary

freshman offensive guard/linebacker

When we started back in August I thought it was going to be hard to play on this team. It really took more of being determined and a will to play.

August 29

All the upperclassmen are ready to play. Most of the younger guys don’t expect to play because Jasper is our big rival and it will be the last time the seniors get to play them.

The only time we get to play is when we are way up on someone or are playing a bad team.

Sept. 26

The entire team knows this is going to be a tough game at Tyner. We went to the game focused on what we needed to do and came out with a win late in the fourth quarter.

Oct. 3

It’s the week after Tyner, and we just played Whitwell. It wasn’t much of a game, but everyone on the team got to play.

The black shirts (younger players) don’t think we’ll get to play many more games, but we still have to go hard in practice to give the starters a look so they will get better.

Oct. 10

All week leading up to the Boyd-Buchanan game we practiced really hard. We knew it was going to be a tough challenge. We didn’t play as good as we could and that made it an even tougher game. We were lucky to score seven points in the first quarter, because we didn’t score the rest of the game and Boyd scored late but we still won.

Oct. 17

We worked mostly on inside drills this week and that made it probably the hardest week of practice we’ve had. We didn’t do much group work. The seniors were ready since it was our last regular-season home game.

We’ve got an off week coming up after this game, so practices won’t be as hard. It will be a recovery week for us because we have a couple of guys banged up.

Oct. 31

Going to the Grace game well rested. During the game, one of our best receivers (Torrey Chubb) broke his leg. We were playing for a region championship and even though we didn’t play as well as we should, we still won.

Being a black shirt is hard most of the time. You can practice as hard as you can but not get to play much because you might not be as experienced or as strong or physical as the older players. To be on our football team takes a lot of hard work, determination and love of the sport.

Coach Grider says that if we come prepared to play we will win. He also says the only people that can beat us is ourselves.

Nov. 14

We have played two rounds of the playoffs heading to Trousdale County for the third found. We have won all our games and hope to be back-to-back state champs. But for now, we have just one focus and that is Trousdale.