FOOTBALL SEASON BEGINS

CLIPPERS VS WILLIAMSBURG; PHOTO BY HAILEY FAULKON

As the football season starts settling in, so is the community surrounding it. During a conversation with the head coach of the team Lance Pedersen, he explained that he is very proud of how the first game went and how the players were playing with great effort out on the field. Although this is his 33rd year coaching high school football, he still strives for the victory.

Throughout the season so far our team is down by one by going 1-2 with the Marion Wolves, the Solon Spartans and Williamsburg Raiders. Even though they might have taken down the Wolves, they had to face a bigger challenge than that when it came to going head to head with the Spartans. In a discussion I had with Coach Pedersen he said, “Solon being the 2nd ranked team in the state of Iowa, we knew it would be a very tough contest” showing that even knowing that our team was going to have a rough time leaving that game in the lead, they still pushed towards putting up a good defense against them. 

Recently the Clippers have also gone up against the Raiders. In a game of 47-20 with the Raiders being the final victor, Coach Pedersen said, “After two straight losses to the #1 and #2 teams in the state, we continue to work on the fundamentals and our biggest challenge right now is being consistent”, showing that not only have they been struggling with the teams they've been going up against but also the consistency throughout the team. Working as a team is more powerful than most people might think even if they are able to do it by themselves, knowing that there is room for improvement and room to go farther. The opportunity to take it should be as easy as just putting the work in. In the game of football, working as a team is probably the easiest thing you could do, you just have to put the work in just as much as everyone else to work together efficiently. Another thing that Coach Pedersen said that caught my attention was, “However, we still made strides this week as a football team”. 

Even though there have been challenges in the dynamic of the team, that doesn’t mean that there hasn’t always been improvement, or as Coach Pedersen says, “Get better today”. Knowing that, there are going to be setbacks, and still making improvements.