football

In what may be the final practice of the Wakefield High School football team’s greatest season ever, head coach Wayne Hogwood runs a drill for end-of-game situations that culminates in a 30-yard field goal. His team, joking on the sideline in between drills for the previous hour and a half, storms the field as if they just clinched a championship.

Players hoot and holler — one even jumps on Hogwood’s back — before settling down to hear their energetic young coach discuss meeting times before tonight’s game. One would never suspect that, in 26 hours, the Warriors (8-3) would kick off the school’s first second round playoff game against an 11-0 team from Tuscarora High School that has laid waste to nearly every opponent it has played so far.

This is the new reality for Wakefield football. Last week, the Warriors played their first ever home playoff game against Potomac Falls High School and won, 25-18, the first playoff win in school history. Just two years ago, the Warriors had gone 0-10 and played before crowds of dozens.

Last Friday, hundreds of students, alumni and South Arlington residents packed the stands to witness history. Hogwood, who graduated from Wakefield in 2000 and whose mother still lives across the street from the school, knew what the game meant to the community.

“They filled the stands in like 28-30 degree weather, so we’re really appreciative of the community,” Hogwood said. “All of my friends, people I graduated with, everybody was out here, people were supporting the program. People have really started to pick up and get on the bandwagon for Wakefield football … It’s a great feeling to get the win, but we’re not settled on that. We have another game this week.”

It was the culmination of two years of work for Hogwood to turn around his alma mater’s football team. Last year, he was focused on teaching the fundamentals of football while the team finished 3-7, a three-win improvement from the previous year. It wasn’t good enough to satisfy Hogwood, who left an assistant coaching job at Yorktown to take the reins here.

Hogwood started to realize his message of discipline and togetherness had sunk in during the last game of the 2013 season, when the Warriors, who had been 2-7, rallied to come together and beat Mount Vernon. The teamwork carried over to this year.

“This year we finally jelled as a unit and had each other’s back,” he said. “We would go to war for each other. Once I realized we had that coming back and we were able to get a couple of players come out, that really helped.”

Junior running back Leon Young has rushed for more than 1,200 yards this year and scored 12 touchdowns. He said that while Hogwood has laid the groundwork for the team’s new mentality, the attitude shift had to come from the boys in pads lining up next to each other every day.

“It starts with the players themselves, and getting them to want to be here,” Young said. “It’s really about holding each other accountable for what you do. You’ve got to make sure you put forward the effort and believe in what you do.”

One of the first players to experience Hogwood’s new coaching style was junior lineman Anthony Tham. Last year, Tham had had behavioral problems at school and at home, and showed up for training camp two weeks late with no physical. Hogwood wouldn’t let him play.

Tham cried in his office, Hogwood said, and the new head coach leaned in and told him, “if you want to be on this football team, be the first one here next summer with your physical in hand.” This August, when Hogwood showed up on the first day of training camp, Tham was there, physical in hand. (more…)