When an athlete begins playing a high school sport as a freshman, all the focus is on senior year.

This year, many student athletes at other schools will continue to play football while our varsity team will sit on the sidelines. The last season of my high school football career will end four games short.

The faithful 11 players that have been at all the practices, spring, summer, and fall will not be able to play any more. Even though the 11 guys would not be able to come off the field for a single play during the 48 minute game, we were prepared. Suiting up an average of 16 players primed us to never come off the field.

Coach (Bonner) Cunnings claimed it was a work of God that we were able to play the whole game without stepping off the field. I believe and know that it was a miracle from God that we had the ability to do so.

With the addition of coach Cunnings this year, the spiritual level of the team went up tremendously. In all of my high school football career, this year I experienced the most spiritual growth and guidance from my coaches.

With a renewed passion for football that was instilled in me by the whole coaching staff, I had a renewed expectation for this year. The new offense that played to the teams’ strength, added to the players belief this was the year to turn the program around.

With only one win under our belts, this year was supposed to spark the much anticipated change in Fresno Christian athletics.

Learning that we were not going to be able play Fowler hurt, but it did not compare to the blow that the JV experienced with the injury of Brian Kinghorn (’12). The team just thought he got the wind got knocked out since nobody saw what happened.

When Brian was not back up after a couple of minutes, we began to wonder why. The coaches rushed to see what happened, and we knew it wasn’t good when they started to yell at him to breathe.

After we heard that, both teams got down on their knees and began to pray. We continued to pray until the ambulance came, and after they left we were dismissed from practice.

I believe it was a work of God that Brian “only” received a concussion and a really bad stinger when the paramedics thought he could become paralyzed for the rest of his life. Once the team learned the following day that Brain was doing fine, the focus changed to getting the JV team prepared for their game against Fowler.

Even though the varsity didn’t have a game that Friday we still had our usual Thursday night dinner. After our meal we had our normal time of worship which was different since coach brought a bag full of little-kid instruments for us to play.

Once we finished one of our best worship sessions, coach got “down to business? telling us we had to make sure that our (academically ineligible) buddies got their grades up. He also shared a story about a girl who came into his office crying saying she would join football so we could continue to play. When coach told us that, everyone got quiet, letting his words sink in.

That Friday, the varsity team was called into the coach’s office after school. The mood was light since we didn’t know what he was going to say. Once coach told us the season was over, the whole room was gravely still aside from some tears here and there.

After a few minutes coach broke the silence by saying the juniors would have the opportunity to play down on JV. While the seniors urged the juniors to go down and finish their season strong, Tyler Revis (’10) stated that we play as a team and die as a team. This made me cry, that someone who had an opportunity to go and play would stay committed to his team.

The whole experience of not being able to finish my senior year is tough, but I know that God has a plan for me that is bigger than football. After I called and gave my dad the news, he gave me some worthwhile advice. He told me that the friendships and memories I made this year will outweigh the negative aspect that has overcome the team.

His words rang true when the team got together at Riley Endicott’s (’10) house for one last meeting. After we finished talking about the future of the team Tyler and Landon (Martens ’10) were talking about the season and all the good memories we had, including my big hit on a Riverdale player.

Even though I wish we would at least be able to play our last home game, I am certain that some good will come out of these dark times.