“Rome was not built in a day,” -New head football coach Michael Yarbrough uses as his theme for this football season. Yarbrough came from Papio South to take the Lions' head coach role. His most repeated lesson to the boys is to look for the positives in the small wins.
“It’s not always about the scoreboard, it’s about the weekly goals,” said junior Aiden Batterman.
The team is adapting to new changes that can come with many trials and errors. It’s hard to stay optimistic when games are primarily focused on the final score, and people seem to overlook the good's that happen during the plays. Its important to stay hopeful and trust in our boys to bring glory in more ways than just the score.
Yarbrough has put a considerable amount of focus into improving the boys, both as players and as people.
“The most successful lesson is if you show good character and give 100% effort every day, in practice and in the classroom, you are going to get an opportunity to play on Friday nights,” said Yarbrough.
It’s critical to remember part of being a student athlete is being able to balance work and workouts. Yarbrough is a coach that knows and respects that, and cares to better the student rather than the stat.
Yarbough hopes to continue his coaching and let the pieces fall into place on their own. There may be a few learning years, but it will all be worth it in the end.
“Trust process, definitely, because when you're rebuilding a team, it's not gonna happen the first year. It's three or four years down the road when it does start turning around, everyone will look back at this year and remember we had to make the change first,” said senior Kaleb Maaske.
The boys are using this year as a year that paves the way for success in the future. No matter how the season ends, it has been such a successful year bringing everyone together and making memories that will last, and the person they have to thank for that is everyone included in the coaching staff, and most importantly the new head coach Michael Yarbrough.